Kathleen and I are both fans of this complicated and multi-faceted man; however that’s not the point of this blog.  One of his quotes, written in bronze on an interior wall, really hit home about something I’ve been marinating on for a while – change.

The quote reads, in part: “As [man] becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, [man] must advance also to keep pace with the times.”  I feel like this captures the journey I’ve been on for the past couple of years.  As I’ve become more enlightened and my circumstances have changed, I have advanced and evolved as well.  Or at least I’ve really tried to advance and evolve.

I’m starting to feel more comfortable in my new mental awareness.  I know that when I get frustrated I will say things that push people’s buttons.  This has been happening with my new boss.  I perceive some of her weaknesses, which I think happen to be areas of strength for me, so I offer up some advice or a way of doing something in an attempt to be helpful.

However, this can be perceived as trying to “one-up” her or make her look incompetent.  This is where I often get blindsided with a kick in the ass, so I have to constantly check my frustration and bite my tongue.  Call it job security.  Luckily our deputy director is very approachable and has been a good sounding board for me.

As I’ve changed and started to refine or divest myself of my old faults, I’ve become acutely aware of similar faults in other people.  One colleague is forever blaming things on other people and trying to get her way.  She had the balls to tell her accountant to call the IRS and try to get a rule changed in her favor. Yes, she was trying to get IRS tax code over-ruled – that’s the kind of entitlement she had (At age 45! Although I have a feeling she was raise this way and has been thus all her life).

Now, I’ve never tried to get laws altered in my favor, but I did have a hard time accepting responsibility for my faults and knowing when it was time to move on.  I just want to grab her, shake her, slap her, and say, “Get over yourself!”

Another colleague is a bit of a “negative Nellie” – he’s always casting doubt on suggestions and tattling to his boss when he perceives that someone has stepped out of line.  Again, I want to say, “Get over yourself.”  Focus on your own work and how you can support your colleagues.

I used to be very selfish with work ideas and get personally offended if someone didn’t want to do things my way.  I would undercut colleagues’ ideas and tattle about the most absurd things (telling on a co-worker who was texting in a board meeting was my all-time favorite ‘tattle’).  Doing these types of things only creates animosity in the work environment and are remembered by your boss when the annual review comes around.

I’m also trying to apply Mr. Jefferson’s logic of change to my love life.  I’m trying to be more open and receptive in my relationship with Frank, but so many unanswered questions float around in my head.  If he “lied by omission” to me about being married before, what else has he lied about? Not having leave during his year-long deployment, how much he claims to be in love with me yet has only phoned me once during his year away, how honorable really are his intentions because after knowing me for over a year he ‘Facebook friends’ a bottle-blond/fake-boobed flight attendant instead of ‘friending’ me?

Okay, so, the old bitter me returns every once and a while. In this case it was my friend the ‘green monster’ – no not the one in Fenway Park, I’m referring to ‘jealousy.’  My past relationships have been f*cked-up with so many trust issues that it’s going to be hard for me to change that one.

So I guess we all have our Achilles’ heels.

Frank returns home this week and will move in with me.  In all honesty, I’m scared shitless.  I have no idea what’s going to happen.  I don’t want to be played for the fool, yet how do I go about trusting him when there are so many unanswered questions? How many questions can I pepper him with in the first 24 hours of his return?  Oh, and I suppose if I’m on this truth and honesty kick, at some point I’m going to have to tell him about this blog that I’ve been writing for nearly three years, of which he’s taken up a good deal of real estate in for the past fourteen months.

My head his spinning … this change thing is hard … I think I need to make an appointment with my therapist PDQ!

Change photo available from Shutterstock.

Frank is returning from Afghanistan in about four weeks.  The past 11 months flew by really fast, but now the last month is going to drag with anticipation.  He’s hit the part in his tour where they are transitioning their duties to the replacement unit, so he is feeling very superfluous.  This is the worst thing for a soldier in theatre.  He now has time to contemplate his situation and think deeply about where they are in their life and where they are going.

In his latest email, Frank wrote, “Being a lame duck now, I have to develop an enthusiasm for the next act in my life.  This one is over, and I have to accept it.”  This hit me hard!

While I will never be able to sympathize with his particular situation, I have had some serious life-changes (including being fired from a job) which forced me to reevaluate my life.  So he’s transitioning, and this requires those of us in his life to be delicate and supportive.  However, because I assume that I’m going to be part of the next act in his life – I would hope he would have some enthusiasm for it … i.e. ME!

He talks about coming home to me – snuggling with me – doing the day to day things of life.  He closed down his business before he left, so he’s rudderless when it comes to work.  I can imagine it’s emasculating to be without one’s work, which has been his life’s focus when he’s not on deployment.  He’s made it clear that he wants me to be part of his life when he returns.  But I can tell he’s going to be in weird place for a while, and that’s scary for both of us.

Military reunions are filled with all sorts of weirdness.  The spouse (or girlfriend) left behind has taken to living a “singleton’s” life – making decisions and doing things without consulting a partner.  There’s the concern of, “Will he/she have changed?”  “Will he/she still love me?” Even if the soldier returns without a physical injury, there’s the pallor of PTSD that hangs over the head of every veteran.  This leaves the significant other and family members wondering when and if the ‘other shoe will drop.’

Many of the tips for reuniting with returning service members deal specifically with a family unit.  Nowhere have I found tips for girlfriends coping with the return of their boyfriends whom they only knew for two months before said soldier went to war for a year.  I’m soliciting advice — let me know if you have any ides.

To add a layer of complication, Frank is planning to live with me when he returns.  It’ll be nice to have him around and will force us into really getting to know each other – to communicate effectively.

He’s decided to go to graduate school when he gets back, so he’s prepping to take the GREs and trying figure out which state university to attend (he gets free tuition as a member of the National Guard).  He’s going to be casting about for direction, so hopefully I can be a pillar of stability for him.  I’m excited and scared.  I’m looking forward to opening up my life to him and becoming part of his life.

Yellow ribbon photo available from Shutterstock

It began in early December when I started a new job and my boss gave me a New Yorker article about a surgeon who was skeptical about the idea of having a mentor (he thought he was at the top of his game) until he tried it, and then realized it helped him become a better surgeon.  He likened it to coaching.

For nearly 20 years of my life I’ve coached figure skaters, and 12 of those years were spent with one particular student.  I first met Heather when she was 9 years old – a tall, emotionally fragile girl from a divorced family.  Heather would cry every time she couldn’t land a jump.  I thought, like most skaters, she was frustrated with herself and mad that she couldn’t do it “right.”  Years later she revealed to me that she cried because she was worried that she was disappointing me because she wasn’t able to land her jumps correctly.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I was, and still am, proud of her.  (Now 21, she skates professionally with a big touring company.) 

I realized from day one of coaching Heather that our relationship was about more than skating.  We shared an emotional bond.  To me this is where a relationship transcends from “coaching” to “mentoring” – an emotional investment on part of both the mentor and the mentee.  I was not only Heather’s ‘skating coach’ (which she still introduces me as all these years later), but her older sister, role model, and sounding board.  My connection with Heather is so strong that when I interact with her on an adult-to-adult level, I can see how she absorbed so many of the things that I said and did during our formative years together.  It’s kind of freaky to see so much of myself reflected in her.  Heather’s mother often acknowledges and praises my role in helping to “raise” her.

I consider myself so fortunate to have played such a role in another person’s life.  However, I’m sad that I never had that sort of intense mentor relationship in my life.  Sure I had my share of skating coaches, but none that made an emotional investment in my life.

As a young professional I now realize that I was in desperate need of a mentor, and probably could have attached myself to any one of many opportunities.  Unfortunately at that time of my life I was so emotionally wounded that I never could have opened up to ask for help.  It took being fired from a job (mainly because of a bad attitude) to throw myself at a mentor who was a professional job coach.  This got me through the initial post-firing shock and on the right path. Unfortunately a longer lasting relationship with this job coach would have cost me a lot of money.

Of course I’ve had “emotional mentors” – therapists – who have guided me through rough spots to help me get my life on track, but it’s the professional mentor relationship that’s missing.  At this point of my life I’m nearly “mid-career” and finally (I’d like to think) hitting my “stride” — however — the New Yorker mentoring article really made me think about where I am professionally.

I have a great network of colleagues across the country whom I can reach out to with quick inquires or for small pieces of advice on an as-needed basis.  But still there’s not that on-going counseling relationship.  Someone to observe my interactions with students, someone to consult with about lesson plans.  I’m not even sure how it would work, but I’m committed to figuring it out.  I’m going to reach out to my peer network and see what they think.

Students in library photo available from Shutterstock.

I laughed out loud.  I couldn’t picture my Frank, manly and buff plumber/Army Major, reading a “smutty” woman’s magazine.  When I told Kathleen, she laughed too and then said that he must be highly evolved in order to feel comfortable reading it.  Hmmm… highly evolved?  I needed to think about that one.

“Highly evolved” has many meanings.  Often times it refers to the achievement of enlightenment and spirituality.  It also literally refers to the physiological evolution of “man.”  Nowadays it is often applied to men who have become more in-touch with their feelings, have begun to express their emotions in constructive outward ways, and engage in healthy communication with their partners.  Sometimes it’s used in conjunction with the term “metrosexual” – although that’s something Frank could never be accused of being.

Recently, I was touched by Frank’s disclosure of his mature handling of a highly emotional situation.  His cousin passed away suddenly.  He was devastated by the news (the first of his generation to pass), and he was coping with this all alone, without family, in a far-away place.  Instead of turning to his unit’s chaplain – he admitted that’s not his style – he immediately shared his sad news with his closest colleagues so that they could help him grieve through this difficult time.  He said, “I have sought comfort from my co-workers by telling them right away, not bottling it up.”  I find that very reassuring – knowing that he’s willing and able to share his emotions with others to get through difficult times.  That bodes well for our relationship.

While doing some research for this blog I found an article that referred to the same “highly evolved” phenomenon as the “post-modern male.”  Another website elaborated, “Highly evolved people are naturally and wholly “attractive,” as they give off no signs or energies that limit themselves or anyone or anything around them – they are not governed by personal likes or dislikes, absolute right or wrong, fears or phobias, theologies, philosophies or ideologies, etc.”

I can see this … highly evolved people are magnetic, physical appearance aside, because of the way they view the world – it’s contagious.  An issue of Wired magazine included a guide for the modern man – “How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans.”  The guide was an attempt to show men ways in which they can cope and take advantage of technological advances.  While I don’t necessarily think that being highly evolved is all about spirituality, it’s certainly more about that than about how to download porn onto your iPhone (something Frank readily admitted to).

Full disclosure: I too used to read Cosmo, but after a couple of years, all the issues started to blend together.  It seemed as if the editors recycled the insides and just put on different covers.  Articles with titles like “Steamy ways for him to turn you on;” “Blow his mind every single time;” and “Naughty Sex Tips” regurgitate the same information with different titles.  Seriously, how many ways are there to give a blow job?

In high school and college we used to joke that having your boyfriend read Cosmo was the easy way out of telling a man what you really wanted in bed.  Cosmo is pretty much an instructional manual for guys on how to get a girl “off.”  It’s also known as masturbation material for teenage boys – or really horny, lonely soldiers.

It’s hard to judge someone’s degree of evolution from thousands of miles away.  Frank is due home on Valentine’s Day, so I’ll reserve final judgment until I have a chance to interact with him in person.

Confident man photo available at Shutterstock

My boyfriend Frank has been over in Afghanistan since February, which means that the only sex I’ve been having is with myself.  Enjoyable, but not as good as a ménage a deux.  All of this in mind, you can imagine how I felt when I had a dream last week that I was pregnant with Frank’s baby.  It was one of those visceral dreams – so real that I could “feel” my belly growing.  I was freaked out.  I can’t remember how in the dream that I told Frank I was pregnant, but I do remember the person I was most afraid of telling was my friend Kathleen.  I was worried that the baby was going to change my life and ruin all my fun.

I decided to email Frank about my dream.  Obviously this wasn’t just me sharing my dream with him.   My subconscious motivation was to gauge his reaction.  How would he react to me telling him that I dreamed about having his baby?  So I forged ahead and wrote the email.  To my surprise this is what came back,

“I would love to have a baby with you. Although, I assume that isn’t possible with our age group. Besides, you are so active, I wouldn’t want to adversely affect your life.”

Wow – I was flattered and insulted at the same time.  He “would love” to have a baby with me (flattering) and in the same breath he calls me old (insulted).  In all honesty, when I read the first sentence a pulse of energy rushed through my body.  Then I panicked.  What do I do now?  I politely reminded him that I wasn’t that old yet and that one can always adopt.  The part that did worry me was giving up my current lifestyle.

When I told him that I was worried about losing my freedom to a child he responded,

“The right man will be happy to watch the child while you go on drunken, debaucherous adventures. I’m sure all he’ll want is to have his brains screwed out by said drunken wench upon her return.”

Again, flattered and insulted at the same time.  I presume that he considers himself to be the “right man” for the job.

So now that I’m armed with all of this information.  What do I do?  I’m torn now.  Do I really want to have a child?  Upon sharing it with Kathleen, first she said, “Make sure he puts a ring on it.”  And then she said “I’ll forgive you.”  As long as Frank is willing to be a stay-at-home dad for the times when I want to jet off for a holiday with my friends, I might start to sway.

However, Frank and I have a long row to hoe before we get to the ‘baby talk.’  He’s been away for a year and we were only together two months before he left.  We have a lot to learn about each other and there is the possibility of having to deal with any emotional issues he brings back from Afghanistan.  Basically we will be starting over at the first date when he returns.  A year is a long time and people change.  I’m not questioning our love for each other, but will we be the same people that we fell in love with?  I’ve been in this position before, loving someone who went off to war and then came back a different person, and our relationship fell apart.

Only time will tell.  Three months until his return!

Baby’s room photo available from Shutterstock.

About a month ago Angie emailed to see if I was interested in going to see Sting in concert.  (“Hell ya” was my answer, but that’s not the point of the story.)  She was just three months out from having baby number three and wanted to have some fun before going back to work.  So off we went to the concert.  On the way home we were continuing our “catch-up” on each others lives.  Angie was talking about the birth of her latest and final child, when she said to me, “My family is complete now.  I feel like I have nothing to look forward to.”

I felt so sad for her.  Not being a mother I can’t empathize about the desire to have more children and complete one’s family, but seriously, to say she has “nothing to look forward to”?  I responded with, “What about all the milestones that the girls will pass – first days of school, soccer games, first dates, graduation, college? Those are well worth looking forward to.”  She half-heartedly agreed with me.

As I mulled over the conversation in subsequent days, I thought that maybe Angie realized her child-birthing “youth” was over and now she was “old” and raising kids.  Angie is a mature woman who loves her children very much and has a career that she also enjoys.  So maybe she was finally confronting her age and place in the world?  I’m still confused.  I didn’t, and haven’t wanted, to press her about it because she has often times reminded me that I’m not a mother and I don’t have children so I don’t know anything about raising them or what it’s like to be a mother.  [Frankly, that’s bullshit but again not going to go there with her.]

Maybe she thought that a grand purpose in her life was to have a family and now that she completed the birthing part of the task she has exhausted part of her “worth.”  Or possibly she is facing the fact that this is the track her life is on for now and forever – she’ll be married to the same guy with these kids for the rest of her life.  She’s not the type of woman who will get divorced, so she could have realized that now she’s had all the children she wanted, this is it – this is what her life has turned out to be.

When I look at my life, I don’t have children and have come to terms with the fact that children may not be in my cards.  I’m okay with that.  I love my life.  I can jet off for a girls weekend in Florida (where I’m writing this blog entry from!) or take on extra work teaching a dance class because I enjoy it and don’t have to be home to put anyone to bed.

I have lots to look forward to in my life.  Every moment in my life is worth looking forward to.  I try to get all the enjoyment I can out of every day, no matter how mundane it may be. I can’t wait to see my niece hit those life “milestones” that I mentioned above.  I’m looking forward to seeing my parents be happy and settled in their new home.  I can’t wait to see what my career has in store for me.  The next trip to Europe … need I go on?

Okay, so maybe in further reflection, Angie may have a touch of postpartum depression.  She’s in touch with her emotional health (I believe she’s been on meds in the past), so I’m not too worried about her.  Our conversation was one of those “Leave it to Beaver”- real 1950’s housewife moments – it all looks put-together on the outside (happy family) but inside the life is a holy terror.

I wish Angie all the luck in finding the moments in her life to look forward to.  I count myself fortunate for all my blessings – past, present, and future – every day!

Mother and child image available from Shutterstock.

For years my mother has threatened me with the following words, “You need to go through all those boxes of papers and either bring it to your place or I’ll throw it away.”  The boxes are mostly papers and photographs from my high school days.  I’m not even sure why I’ve kept them for 20 years; it’s not like those four years were the happiest of my life, so why would I want to save those memories?

Plus there’s no place to put all those boxes in my 600 sqft condo.

Also in their basement are the souvenirs of my childhood – Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies, Fisher Price houses, dress-up clothes.  All of these things were lovingly packed away decades ago in anticipation of my own children.  As I approach the age of 37, I’ve come to grips with the fact that those children probably won’t be coming along.  So what to do with all those toys?  My niece would enjoy some of them – she loves playing with the Fisher Price houses when she’s at Grammy’s house – but my brother and his wife only have so much room in their house.

I suppose it’s a right-of-passage when your parents leave your childhood home, but I’m not sure how I’m going to handle the last night I’ll spend there. Between now and the time my parents have to be out, I’m going home for two more long weekends to help them pack.  On the scheduled day of their move-out I’ll be flying off for a long beach-weekend (to celebrate birthday number 37) with my friend Kathleen.  I’ll be spared the sight of the empty house – which would make me really sad.  My last memory of the house will be of it with furniture and packing boxes.  I’m tearing up thinking of it now.  But we have to move on in life.

For years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the house.  It was the place where my parents fought constantly, where my father retreated to his “den” and my mother to the master bedroom to stew in their ambivalence about the other.  But it was also the place where we spent Christmas with all of the grandparents and great-grandparents in the tiny living room with the beautiful tree my mother so lovingly decorated, the place where graduation photos were taken by the trees, and the bedroom where I sought refuge in games of make-believe.  Even though my white canopy bed is long gone and the walls repainted, the feeling of comfort I get in that room remains.

In some ways I feel lucky that the whole moving idea came up after the major holidays of 2010, so that we didn’t have to go through last year’s Thanksgiving and Christmas saying, “It’s our last holiday in the house.”  Too sad and stressful – instead they passed in blissful ignorance.  Somewhat like my childhood in that house.

Over Labor Day weekend I filled two large garbage bags with stuff – things from high school and college that I won’t need or use any more.  In anticipation of having to bring stuff from my parent’s house to my condo, I decided to do some cleaning here.  Out came the plastic bins from under the bed – archaeological strata of the last 15 years of my life.  Grad school, six years in the west and 7 years of eastern city-life.  Most of the papers were things that I had saved from past jobs – stuff that I use in my professional portfolio when I interview for new jobs.  Then there was 15 years of birthday cards, Valentines cards, thank you notes, letters from friends who lived in other states, cards from boyfriends, and photographs… lots of photographs.

The most interesting and hard to part with were the love letters from past relationships.  I used to live in the melancholy of past relationships, pouring over the letters trying to figure out what went wrong.  The most interesting was a letter from an ex’s mother – I had written to her when he cheated on me (okay, so I “tattled” on him – but she had a right to know that her 40 year old son was a jerk).  Something inside of me wanted to save all the letters.  I dreamed of one day publishing a book of love letters from past boyfriends, showing the progression of  one woman’s relationships from love-sick teen to know it all 20-something to “f*ck you” 30-something.  As tempting as that was, but knowing that a book like that would never have a chance, I tossed the bag into the dumpster.

Since I’ve done so much work in the past four years to shed all my emotional and mental baggage, it stands to reason that shedding the detritus of past failed relationships and an unhappy childhood seems fitting.  Keep the good memories, let the rest of the stuff go.

Photo by Bormang2, available under a Creative Commons attribution license.

“[The] desire for purity compels one to project what is impure in the self onto others…. the narcissist must hate the body of the other because it cannot be the same the same body as the ego’s.  The projection involved is essentially one that returns, but in the form of a threat.”[1]

Three sentences that encapsulate my journey of self-destruction.  I wanted so much to be “good” that what I hated most about myself I projected onto others.  My ego was making me “hate” other people and treat them inappropriately because I was projecting my bad qualities onto them.  What I hated most about myself was making me hate others even though they had done nothing to me.

But what I projected was mirrored right back to me as a threat to my own ego, therefore making relationships difficult.  When I say relationships, I’m referring to all of the people in my life: men, family, friends, colleagues and strangers.

My insecurities were getting the best of me, and creating a self-destructive cycle.  Very few people could see through my passive/aggressive behavior to see the vulnerable woman inside.  By projecting negatives on to others, I ended up alienating a lot of people.

I spent a good part of my young adulthood looking for a man who would validate me like my father never did.  I would project my inadequacies on them after a while – therefore driving them away.  While cleaning out a box of old cards recently, I found an Easter card from my ex, Russell.  He wrote inside, “I love you… right or wrong.”  Right or wrong?  What the hell did that mean?  He gave me this card about a year into our relationship – after we had broken up because he had cheated on me and then I had taken him back.

I wanted him to “fix” me but what I got back was not very helpful.  I thought that he would be able to solve all my problems.  What I really needed to do was focus on myself, but I was blinded by what I thought was his love for me.  Right or wrong?  Obviously he was having issues too.

On a different tack – this sentence also explains so much about why people all over the world act like assh*les towards one another.  It explains why physical differences amongst human beings have been the route of separation throughout time immemorial. “Race” is a construct created by human beings to explain the differences between people with difference skin, hair, eyes, etc.  Because we don’t understand why we are the way we are (whatever that may be), our ego projects disparity on to someone who looks differently – therefore creating immediate skepticism.  What makes people unique and interesting scares the ego – and we know what humans hate to admit they’re scared – so a rationale (“race”) was constructed to explain why the other person makes us uncomfortable.

As I understand myself more and more, I understand why I perceive other people the way that I do.  When I start projecting negative perceptions on others for no reason, I ask myself, “Why am I doing it?”  It enables me to step back and assess the situation before pissing people off or getting into relationships with me that aren’t good for me.

[1] Britzman, Deborah P.   Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.  Page 99.

Photo by Shannon Kringen, availalble under a Creative Commons attribution license.

]]> http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/10/the-ego-did-it/feed/ 0 http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/10/fewer-fish-in-the-sea/ http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/10/fewer-fish-in-the-sea/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:18:23 +0000 Kate Nickerson http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/?p=324 You often hear these complaints from women over a ‘certain age.’  “Where are all the good men?”  “Why can’t I find a good man?”  “I’m a good catch. Why am I alone?”  Well I think I’ve finally divined an answer.

My friend Kathleen and I were marinating on our dating histories and I mentioned that I dated more living in a small western city before moving to my current home in a big east-coast city, where per-capita there are more men.  So wouldn’t it stand to reason that I would have a bigger pond to play in and more fish to catch?  Kathleen had a different perspective.  Reflecting on my journey into better emotional and mental health over the last four years she said, “The healthier you get, the smaller the pool of men.”

Ding, ding!  Ah-ha.  So true.

As we get healthier, we shed the negative parts of our conscience that needed outside stimulus.  For many women like me, these outside stimuli come from the desire to have a man in one’s life fulfilling an unanswered desire for attention, love, closeness, companionship, self-worth… [insert your need here].

For me it was daddy issues – wanting to find someone who would love me and demonstrate that love.  Someone who would tell me how to be a better person, i.e. fill the nurturing void and work some magic that would end up making my father love me more.  Well, there were plenty of men out there who can identify a wounded woman (whether or not they consciously saw the vulnerability in the woman) and are attracted to her.  Some men are attracted because of chivalrous intentions (“I can fix her”).  Others seek vulnerable women because they know they are easy marks for sex (“She will have sex with me because she wants to be ‘wanted’”).

So when I was a mental-mess I had lots of dating prospects.  Of course none of the relationships ever worked because I wasn’t emotionally healthy enough to realize that they wouldn’t provide me with what I really needed.  After four years of therapy, I’ve sorted through my sub-conscious and conscious actions, and now have an emotional maturity to seek out what I really want.

Now that I’m healthy I’m not settling for just any guy, as I now understand why I was looking for men to fill an emptiness in me.  I’m able to sooth myself.  This causes problems when it comes to dating, because now I’m more discriminating.  Any old man just won’t do.

One common critique of American women, especially women of a certain age, is that they are too picky about men.  Let me answer those comments: once a woman reaches a certain age she has reached a level of good mental health and knows what she wants in a man and out of relationship.  She deserves to be picky.  Men are often ridiculed for being driven to choose partners only based on sexual desire, but the healthier I get the more I see men who are careful about who they date.  Men can be as discriminating as I am about looking for a healthy partner.  A man who is seeking someone who is also emotionally healthy doesn’t often get recognized for doing so.

My mother once said to my friend Kathleen, “I wish Kate were married.”  Kathleen responded, “Yes she could be, but she wouldn’t be happy.  She hasn’t found the right man yet.”   It’s so true.  I could have pursued more committed relationships with several men that may have ended up in marriage.  However if I had married years ago, I’m pretty sure that I never would have gotten the mental/emotional therapy that have helped me to a place of good psychological health.

Being emotionally and mentally healthy might make for a smaller pool however, I’m okay with that.  It’s possible that I have found someone who is healthy and ready for a relationship.  Although only time will tell.

 

Photo by Protographer23, available under a Creative Commons attribution license.

]]> http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/10/fewer-fish-in-the-sea/feed/ 1 http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/09/you-know-youre-old-when/ http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/2011/09/you-know-youre-old-when/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:20:25 +0000 Kate Nickerson http://blogs.psychcentral.com/yfactor/?p=300 I’m not a fan of the “you know you’re old when …” jokes.  Nor am I a fan of pointing out people’s ages – especially as one progresses on the continuum.  However, a recent event reminded me of just how “old” I am in the eyes of younger women.

I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m happy to own my age – 36.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to recall when asked it – I usually have to do some quick mental math.  I’ve always looked young but acted more mature for my age.  Both of those things really throw people off.

I was getting my eyebrows waxed by Amy, a 24 year old woman.  I’ve been going to see Amy for nearly a year now, and as is wont to happen between an aesthetician and her client, we chat about our personal lives during my appointments.  Sometimes it’s hard to see oneself through another person’s eyes, yet during this visit it became very apparent to me that Amy perceives me as being “older” than her.

Amy was chatting away about this guy she’s friends with – he doesn’t want a relationship but she does.  They are friends with benefits and she dotes on him, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of his needs.  But then he goes off and sees other women while she pines for him.  She stopped her narrative about this guy and says to me, “What do you think?  I don’t get to get advice from someone (she hesitated almost as if she was going to say “your age”) like you.  You know so much about relationships.”

Now maybe she was just implying that she thought I had been around the block a few times – which is not true, although I have been in my fair share of relationships.  Also, all the women who work in the salon are my age but married with kids.  The way I received the statement was that I was older than her and had more experience.

Having been in a similar predicament in the past, doing the ‘friends with benefits’ thing but knowing it was never going to materialize into a relationship, I thought it would be best to impart to her my hard-earned wisdom.  I told her to forget about him.  If he is telling you that he doesn’t want a relationship, he means it.  She’s giving him the milk for free … sex, cooking, cleaning, etc … and he’s using her.  He knows that she will give him those things for free and he doesn’t need to reciprocate with anything because his intentions have been made clear.

Younger women, my former 20-something self included, are so eager to be loved, cared for, engaged in a relationship that they will cling on to whatever shreds of interest that a man shows for them.  I did that once too – asking my hot, young chiropractor to come to the theatre with me.  My excuse was that he was new in town and might want to get out and meet people.  I was obviously confusing pleasant patient care and rapport with what I thought was a genuine interest in me.  Oy!

The naiveté of youth makes us want to believe that the object of Amy’s affection will come around to fall madly for her, but experience tells us he won’t.  An older and wiser friend whom I go to for advice told me, “It’s the reality that comes with maturity.”  This is my new favorite mantra.  Maturity, usually gained through experience (i.e. time), really does inform the choices you make and unveils the reality of your existence.

As hard as it was for Amy to hear that he was never going to appreciate her the way she’s supposed to be appreciated by a man, it had to be said.  I just saw her again last week and she enthusiastically said to me, “He came and picked me up at the airport on Tuesday night.  Isn’t that nice of him?”  Well sure, maybe he is capable of contributing to a friendship in some small ways, but if he tells you he doesn’t want a relationship … he doesn’t.

Photo by Emma T. photography, available under a Creative Commons attribution license.

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