Truth to Ourselves

I heard from an ex-boyfriend tonight in an instant message, and many ready-for-resolution feelings are swirling inside of me as a result. I am angry at him -- people like him don't deserve everything they want over good people like me. I am sad -- I wanted things to be different for us, though I always knew they wouldn't be. And I'm frustrated -- he's WRONG about everything! Everything! How dare he be out there in the world pretending he's happy and well adjusted when I know better, when I know he'll make other women who want what's NORMAL and HEALTHY fall for him and let them believe that he *might* find them worthy of having it with him?

Oh, but I can't blame him. Not really. He's manipulative, he's warped, and he's devastatingly handsome. I always knew that. And I committed the same mistake with him that I did with my ex-husband. I thought that both men would see my sincerity, see my worthiness, and rise above their male fallibility and be the men I wanted, needed, and pretty much expected them to be. The men I believed they could be.

The first lesson in Relationships 101: People are who they are, and they do not change. Well, more pointedly, they can change in very rare, very special circumstances and only when it comes from their own initiative, their own inner motivation. Not unless. And nobody can graft her initiative onto them, however much "he'd be perfect, only if...." If he's perfect, there is no "only if."

The first lesson from the happy hour following the first lesson of Relationships 101: Any and all significant others, once they become "ex," need to suffer unstinting pain and anguish from bad bad things happening to them to learn the error of their ways, never daring to be happy in the weeks, months, or years to follow the end of the relationship. YOU are the only one who deserves good things and happiness, he (or she) does not... and he (or she) must regret eternally his (or her) stupidity in letting you get away.

Yes.

Absolutely!

That's my perspective!

And that's why that dork shouldn't ever talk to me ever again.

Reflections

So I signed up for eHarmony with lofty expectations that this computer program would serve me up a perfect man. How else am I supposed to find him? I work with women and children; what single men do float through the solar system of work burn with the brightness and tenacity of a 76-year comet, and my interest in them burns as brightly and wanes as quickly.

So I place myself among the glittering stars of the eHarmony constellation, and what do I see? Problem after potential problem. Men with jobs or even careers... that's good, yes?... and men with first families and obvious hangups and a fair helping of unreasonable expectations of a woman in their lives. All that glitters is not gold.

So little of what people say they ARE like really is what they are like. I can tell it. "What are you passionate about?" is the first question. I know that the bullshit they're writing isn't true, cannot be true. I see such philosophical fluff coming out of my ex-husband's mouth or even some of his successors' mouths, the mouths of men who speak what they believe is true or even wish were true, but which isn't true, which never has been. I DON'T see it coming out of the mouths of any of the "real" people who are part of my three dimensional life in the real world. Nobody cares so much about learning, growing, or evolving. I really don't believe that they do! Most people care about getting through the day, meeting their own needs (only after which do they care much about anybody else's), and being able to live in peace. That's their passion. Beyond that, caring about "leaving the world a better place" or "expanding my knowledge" or "helping others to live better lives" is wishful thinking at best and an outright misrepresentation at worst.

What did I write about? Quite simply, investments... finding, making, an sustaining them. That is true. All kinds of investments... not just financial, but spirituatual and emotional as well. And for me, that IS true. My sense of safety and security is contingent on the investments and dividends I draw from my resources of material goods, family, friends, and learning, and they are the primary thing of importance in my life. Throwing out my passionate need for security and faith to risk with someone whom I don't believe, some half-baked pseudointellectual who's not even in the same stratosphere with reality and who doesn't recognize the difference between how he sees himself and the objective conclusions drawn by this faction of a cynical outside world is, to put it mildly, not highly motivating.

How much of what I see in myself isn't true?

How much of it all really isn't the men? How much of it is the twin suns of insecurity and frailty shining on me, my own weakness merely reflected back in the faces of these men from the internet? In their alleged faults and flaws, I see my own, magnified. I see the detriment of my investment by compounding weakness upon weakness, and in my own weakness, I reject theirs.

I wish, in some alternative universe more perfect than this one, to find a man through my passion... while reading in a bookstore or library... while lifting weights at the gym... while swigging margaritas at happy hour with my friends... while living my life so I can see him living his, to see him living his and if we could mesh together. To build over time, without contrivance. The anti-eHarmony. The unmatter matter of relationships.

Fresh Page

When I was little, I imagined life-altering events in the story of a person's life were like turning pages in a book. As life went on, paragraph melded into paragraph, until an event was cataclysmic enough, like someone died or got married, and an entire section arched. Then, at the close of that section, a page turned, and a fresh blank one awaited the next part. Life went on. A whole new episode to write from which to draw endless possibilities. Beginning anew.

I'm not little anymore. We live, things happen. We try to write the story our own way, but effects linger. Sometimes, we achieve a well anticipated and planned milestone and are happy to incorporate the related perks into our lives; other times, less desireable events happen with an apparent randomness that can leave us breathless. Either way, there's no "starting over," wholly. The new pages incorporate with the old, life as eternal revision. Either we absorb changes or over time, happy and pleased, or we can be downright reluctant as they seep into our cells and become part of us, no matter how we feel about it.

When I was divorced, I hoped it would be a simple matter of ending that episode of my life and beginning fresh on a new page. Turning that page took over three years, over seventy previous blog entries, the endless patience of my friends, two attempts at relationships, and a whole lot of fear. Now that it's turned (not that I can't swear I won't go back and reread portions of what came before), I find that I don't know what to write.

I'm 35 years old, single, and living with my cats in the suburbs. To admit that I'm an English teacher is almost too much of a cliche. To admit that I like my life as it is is tatamount to blasphemy between my American-of-Italian-descent family who believe in cleaving and even the most liberated of my friends who maintain that "everybody wants to share her life with somebody." Yeah, I can't say that I wouldn't enjoy a date. Having a nice man pay attention to me for a sustained amount of time and appreciating the effort I make to be a pleasant companion sounds nice. Fun.

But my attempts to write a love story on the blank pages before me are cursory. I guess I want to date again. I feel like I do... I long for romance, I long for someone to touch me; nobody touches me anymore. But my attempts to find someone are mired in the previous pages that I can't stop from running through my mind. I don't really want someone, not really. "People are where they want to be," someone wise once said. I want to be alone. I WANT to want someone, but right now, I want to be alone.

It's a contradiction that I do want a relationship that fulfills me, but I don't want to deal with a relationship. I want someone who cares for me, but not to have to care for someone. I want romance, not routine or regularity. I've worked hard to build this life for myself, as I told my aunt. It's a life I built in the wake of my divorce, when it was important to get to know myself single and what I would be like alone. I've done a damned good job! I've turned my singleness into something that makes me proud. I have friends. I have a social life. I have a job I like. I have a calm, comfortable home. Before I let someone into it, I want to enjoy it! If I find someone, I very well could be attached to him for the rest of my life. This is a chance to have peace. Stability. To relax from the tension from divorce and graduate school and ill-fated attempts at relationships. Time simply to enjoy what I've created, until readiness if not outright boredom drives me into someone's arms.

The temporary price for this peace is a man who might be good for me. But he won't be good until I'm ready for him to do some good, and until then, there is indeed some touching to do. Namely, embracing! I need to embrace someone important, myself, a while longer. The love story in the coming pages will have to wait until I write sufficient exposition.

Surviving Single in the Suburbs

Welcome!

This is my inaugural post.

I am single. I am surviving. I live in the suburbs.