my eyes are on the prize

The theme for the past week or so is keeping my eyes on the prize. It’s popped up in dialogue with friends, in horoscopes, on the radio…

So what is the prize?

Well…it’s not any of the men I’ve written about here, regardless of how much I’m intrigued by or adore them. It’s not my current day job.

The prize is enjoying life now.

The prize is spending quality time with my children.

The prize is good health.

The prize is a healthy, loving relationship.

The prize is fulfilling work that shares something positive with the world.

…and I thought this was going to be funny!

So…when I began writing about all this divorce and dating garbage a few months ago, I somehow imagined that I would be having all kinds of interesting relationship experiences that I could write about, and that I would encounter lots of different men and have countless hilarious tales to tell about these meetings…

And that has not happened.

Why?

Well, it’s dawning on me, as it may have also on you, that working full-time and parenting the other full-time consumes a hella chunk o’ time. And there’s not much left for dating or meeting people or romantic or ridiculous encounters of any time. And, frankly, the filtering part of online dating eats up so much time that I’d just as soon spend some QT with my gals.

So, aside from the whole Chi-guy situation, which is funny on general principle alone, and the humor in which has very little to do with the way I tell the story, I have to face facts: I am just not that funny! Not that funny anymore, at any rate. Sure, the bright side is that I’m blessed with a full range of emotions and that, overall, writing about all this stuff has been rather cathartic.

Yet all this makes me think back to more frivolous times, when I was light-hearted and delightful and embodied all manner of other characterizations inclusive of lightness, frivolity, fun and laughter…and I wonder, am I not there? What has happened to the witty, vivacious me?

I realize that, at home each night with grammar school-aged children, it’s easy to be silly. Silly is one thing; funny is quite another. And I used to be funny!

Of course, I am thinking about all this because I’ve discovered The Blogess who, as you might have already guessed, is Funny with a capital f! She does, naturally, have a relationship to write about…so no end to the potential for humorous fodder.

Oh, I know that I’m in there (here) all right. The irreverent, playful ol’ gal comes out to play at least every other weekend and sometimes more often. In recalling her (me), I am reminded of how much fun it was to come home to another playful adult during the times things were grand and we were, indeed, mirthful together.

Funny comes much more naturally when it has someone to bounce off of.

(And, yes, I’m fully aware that I should not be ending my sentences with a preposition, Bitch!)

are my feelings finally growing up?

There are things I don’t reveal here …and maybe shouldn’t ever reveal. Not every entry lends itself to complete and full-on truth. It’s not a journal I’m writing here; it’s a blog. And I want to shape each entry, to create form, something like a chapter. So I give about 95% and keep just a little sliver to myself, to enjoy, to revel in knowing a secret — my own secrets.

But here’s something I want to be straight about that I wasn’t really before. I was really attached to the idea of Chi-guy for a long time. And then I met more-like-it. In one 75-minute meeting, all of that attachment to a man in Chicago was snapped completely.

Don’t get me wrong, the love is still there. It’s a deep, true, generous and heartfelt concern for a truly wonderful human. But I’m detached about it now. I’m in a more mature place with it; I have a more objective perspective. Sometimes when Chi-guy and I talk now, we joke about the naughty things we’re going to do to one another when we see each other… but we make no plans to see each other. And if we did see each other, I’m fairly confident that we’re both going to live in the moment and do whatever feels right with acceptance, compassion, presence and love, whether that’s talking or touching or crying or laughing or gettin’ jiggy.

So the thought has crossed my mind more than once that more-like-it is someone who came into my life solely for the purposes of breaking the Chi-guy spell, proving there are more options, reminding me that really awesome guys live in this city and — this is my girlfriends’ summation — reminding me what type of man is “in my league.” Maybe that’s it, yet…

All this talk about more-like-it could easily lead one to believe that I’m hung up on him. But it’s not really like that. What I’ve felt all along is more like intrigue, a general interest in spending more time (which I’ve enjoyed) to see if I like him. I mean, I like him…yet I don’t know whether I like him. I’m not sure yet…I’m simply drawn in, curious. There’s been no instant infatuation, just an undercurrent of desire to see what might be around the next corner.

And, maybe because it doesn’t feel urgent or intense, my own feelings seem more mature. It’s not the kind of thing that Elizabeth Gilbert so eloquently wrote in Committed, “puts me through the wood chipper.” Maybe that’s why I want to feel more of it, and why I’m open to noticing and experiencing that feeling, from whatever direction it may come.

someone thinks I’m in a pretty good place

Two weeks ago…

The other night, I went out for a cocktail with…drumroll, please…more-like-it, a man who genuinely interests me: I mean he interests me as a human, he interests me as a potential date, I am intrigued by the thought of spending time with him, getting to know him a little better and determining whether we share relationship potential …and I am interested in wild, randy, raunchy, dirty bedroom sorts of things with him. Wildly interested.

We started at a networking event, running in to people he knew before we’d even reached the bar. They looked me up and down while asking him about his divorce. And then we found my people, who gave him pretty much the equivalent treatment. And when the requisite connections were made, we found our way to another bar, sitting side by side, laughing and flirting. We shared stories and he touched my knee. We talked, confessed and went off on tangents. Every cell in my body felt awake, present and ready for whatever might happen. There was no intense or burning passion, no urgency, what I felt when with him was more like a rhythm bass, a low thrumming, or the deep, throaty idle of a powerful engine. Finally, we walked back to my car and he kissed me goodnight.

He seems not ready, in my estimation, for the things that I might be interested in doing with him. Or, if he is, he doesn’t appear to be interested in me, particularly. We came about this cocktail in a sort of very roundabout way, and he has not directly asked me out. Nor has he ever paid me any compliments about my appearance. He initiates communication with me sometimes, which suggests some level of desire to stay connected, but… Oh well, I’m not going to analyze. My ways of understanding a man’s interest are 1) that he finds a way to let me know that he finds me attractive and 2) he asks me out. So, unless or until these items are met, I have little to work with.

So there’s me, probably in the friend zone again, because I am understanding and accepting of others and I genuinely believe it’s okay to be where you are. And if not ready is where he is…well, then, there’s not a lot I can do about that. No matter how freakin’ fabulous I am — and regardless of how fun that naughtiness I have in mind is gonna be!

I think the “current state” thing about me that excites me most is a little incident that occurred at a party last weekend. I was out with friends I rarely see, all of whom went to college together. (We do not share this alma mater.) I sat next to the usual guy, whose wife was otherwise engaged, and we caught up while chatting with another couple. After it had been established that we were not “together” (no funny business here, folks), we chatted about the last year of my life — divorce, turning forty, quitting my job.

After a while, the wife (of the other couple) observed, “You seem like you’re in a very good place. You’re not completely healed, there’s still a little bit of something there…but you’re doing well.”

Why a complete stranger would say something like this to me, and why it would mean something, is a mystery. Yet it was a gift. I needed to hear that, yeah, I’m still a bit of a freak show (or hot mess, however you prefer to put it), but healing is a journey and it’s nice to hear that, at least by appearance, I’m nearly there.

And I guess maybe that it’s because I’m not fully, completely ready to meet someone special that I can be okay with an intriguing guy being unready and just leave things alone. As much as I’d like to go out and play, I don’t want to mess things up. And if he gets ready and still has no interest in me…well, I’ll have to get okay with that, too. But I’m strong enough to manage. After all, I’m nearly healed.

am I being judgmental?

Two things, really:

One. It was recently suggested to me that I was being judgmental. Okay, so if I’m completely honest, it’s not the very first time the word has been used to describe me. Yet I’ve never identified with the description. Certainly I’m opinionated (and vocal). Certainly I’m pretty convinced about what’s right for me (which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the moment or situation). Certainly I know what I like. But I would never describe myself as judgmental. (In fact, my Myers-Briggs type includes P for perceiving, not J for judging.) Also, I think most who know me would agree that I befriend all kinds of people. Rather than hanging in cliques, I’ve most often been a part of groups of misfits, a motley bunch of mates of all sizes, shapes, colors and personalities. While there’s a very distinct physical and psychographic “type” of guy to whom I’m attracted, I have literally dated every imaginable sort of fellow: tall, short, thin, obese, bald, hairy, intellectual, dull, artsy, rich, poor, fulfilled, empty, solid, neurotic…and I’ve been drawn to each one by some unique quality. So I don’t think the description of me as judgmental can stick, even if it appears to fit for a moment or more. Ultimately, it’s not a description that sees the full picture. But I suppose it might describe a momentary mood or short-lived behavior.

Two. I reactivated my online dating profile for a moment to take a peek at what new men might have come aboard. My intent was to pop in and then right back out if I didn’t see anything too compelling. After all, I need to focus on my new job and my children just now. But the site won’t allow me to deactivate my profile again for a week. Yikes! …so, I’ve gotten a couple of messages, including one from a fellow who might appear to be a compelling match. And he’s articulate, which has been a rather larger hurdle than you might think. (Again, one needs to be able to keep a conversation going…) And I’d normally consider meeting this fellow in person. But then I looked and saw that his annual income is half (actually less than) mine.

Again, in the past, I would not have thought twice about going out with him. What harm could it do? But now, having lived through a situation in which I supported a man (and might have been reasonably happy in said situation had certain other conditions been met), I just don’t think it’s possible. Here’s my truth now: I live in a city, a metropolitan area. Given a mortgage and a car payment and two children, there’s a certain level of income required to live even moderately well (which is to say, to not want to tear out one’s hair at the stress of wondering how to stay afloat). And this gentleman, no matter how kind and loving and supportive he might be, is just not at a level of income that could support a family…not that I’m suggesting any man should support me and my children. I’m forty. I’m independent. And it’s no longer a matter of potential, as it was in our twenties. I’m simply no longer willing to put myself into a situation wherein I’m carrying most of the financial weight for a man. Even if he’s the greatest guy on the planet or the best possible match for me. Even if he’s the most supportive and loving human alive. Even if he’s well-balanced and does something like saving animals or teaching children with special needs. I’m simply being practical. I want a mate whose pay is something a tad closer to parity. So I’m thinking that I will likely decline his invitation to meet solely because of his income…

Is that so wrong? Or am I being judgmental?

what I want right now

I want to meet someone fun, who I look forward to seeing on a weekend.

I want to dress up and go out and be told I’m pretty.

I want to meet someone adventurous, who likes to be active, to cook, to eat, to talk, to enjoy life.

I want to share all the passion and intensity and laziness and closeness I can muster.

I want to discover amazing new sensations all over and inside my brain and heart and body.

coming home to an empty house

Last night…

I had a great night out — fun times and great conversations with truly amazing friends. I love nights like this!

And, at the end of the night, I came home to a child-free home…a home that seems too silent, too empty. A part of me knows I should relish this. I should take some sort of pride and joy in coming home to a place that I own (I mean, well, there is that bit with the bank…) and being able to do what I choose with my time. And I do relish a break from parenting…

Yet I can’t help but wish that I was coming home with someone or to someone special. For me, there is no great joy for me specific to being a single woman. Don’t get me wrong: I am more than fine. I am proud of my own accomplishments. I am happy with recent choices and, by and large, with my life. I am strong and my life is full. And yet there’s a sense of longing on nights like this…I still believe it could be so much better with someone to share it all.

This is not a new feeling for me. I recall a time in my early twenties when an older work colleague told me about his younger sister, a thirty-year-old lawyer and single woman, who had just bought her first home and burst into tears as he helped her move. She was filled with melancholy by this milestone. At the time, we were both flabbergasted that a successful and strong woman should feel anything but pride at her accomplishments.

And, yet, only a few years later, I met the same milestones with feelings of pride and accomplishment at my successes, countered by my own feelings of ambivalence and yearning. When one does something fantastic, one wants someone special with whom to share the experience.

Of course, as I know from experience, it could also be so much worse…I could be coming home with someone with whom I’ve just fought (as I did several times) or coming home to a stressful environment (which was especially true when we ceased fighting and, indeed, talking). Certainly neither of these situations brought much comfort, either.

And so I fill my own heart, go about living a rich and wonderful life, and leave space for the possibility that someone who has also filled his own heart, who is also living his own wonderful life, and I will one day find each other and decide to come home to each another.

there were things I hated, too

I wrote awhile back about how much I loved simply co-habiting and sharing the daily stuff of life with a partner…

Well, as it turns out, I was having coffee with another divorced, single mother in a similar field…and we got to chatting about our personal status. She shared how much she liked having her home, routines, closets, television remote and bed to herself, and said that she not only did not miss her ex-husband, but also had no real desire to let anyone else in to her life in the same way. And then I confessed how much I loved living with someone, and we continued this conversation about benefits and shortcomings of space sharing…until suddenly the stuff I hated about living with my ex bubbled through the surface and out into the open.

For example: his retreating immediately to the living room after dinner, lying across the entire sofa with a transistor radio and headphones in his ears, listening to god-knows-what programs about UFOs and conspiracy theories and the like…

The woman across the table from me cracked a smile, which became a cackle and then a guffaw as we both began to laugh aloud, our bodies shaking, and I saw in stark relief, for the first time, how freakin’ bizarre this scene was! And I realized that, in fact, I did not love everything about living with another person, at least not when he was so emotionally checked out and disinterested in relating.

So let me revise my initial treatise to confess that I loved living with my partner…when he was a partner. Time’s passage must have colored all my memories rosy, because I seemed to have forgotten how hard it was, at times, to accept and forgive when he’d shrunk a favorite sweater in the wash or broken my grandfather’s China while doing the dishes. And it especially sucked to watch his escape into the crackle and faraway voices of a transistor radio, a stupid little hand-crankable, battery-powered device, as its allure replaced any desire for my company, closeness, unity or intimacy.

I am describing what I believe is some sort of undiagnosed, untreated mental illness…nothing extraordinary, possibly just your run-of-the-mill depression. To see it and face it is difficult enough; to suggest or cajole that a loved one seek help is even more potent; to watch as it slowly erodes any hope for a positive future is devastating. And I’m sure it’s no different from anyone else’s experience of realizing that their relationship is doomed, that the end is near and that they are utterly powerless to do anything to save it. But living with that sucked!

I am not alone…real dating horror stories

I cannot report that I’ve been super enthused about my post-divorce dating experience. I’ve experienced flaky men, very little chemistry, awkward conversations and have met online one man who sparked my interest enough for me to genuinely look forward to seeing him again. As it happens, I’m not the only one going through an unsatisfying streak…

I recently enjoyed a morning with a younger, single (never married) girlfriend who is beautiful, fit, charming, delightful, intelligent and far beyond kind. She is the kind of girl a man would be proud to bring home to meet his family and, if he wasn’t a complete idiot, might recognize that he should throw himself at her feet and beg her to spend the rest of her life with him. And soon, before some smarter man figures it out. She is that amazing!

And she is having as shockingly bad experiences (or bad luck?) as I’ve been having on the dating scene…actually, worse!

I “get” my problems dating. I still feel like a fuck-up some of the time. More-like-it suggested I’m judging harshly — and I know I’m finding excuses to not get out and meet men. I’ve got baggage and am still working to become the kind of woman who draws spectacular, loving men to me effortlessly. And, frankly, my time is precious and so are my girlfriends. I’m more inclined spend time with them than take a chance on meeting some other guy from an online dating site.

But my girlfriend? Well, her time is precious, too, and she’s got an active social life with lots of great gals. She is the girl who taught me to meet men with a camera: go up to a group of guys, and ask one of them to take a photo of you with your girlfriends — it’s an easy ice breaker and great way to start a conversation.

Here are some of the dating stories she told me during our time together:

She met a really awesome guy out one evening. They hit it off immediately and began talking, texting and spending time together. Suddenly, he didn’t call for a week. And then, when he did, he told her that his ex-wife (from whom he’s been divorced for eight months) wanted to get back together. Though she treated him horribly and initiated the divorce, he was compelled to give it another try because “it’s the right thing to do.”

With another man, she had amazing intellectual and philosophical conversations (not to mention some amazing make-out sessions)…until that night he told her he could really imagine spending his life with her, thus felt the need to lay his cards on the table. Dude is creeped out by buttons and fascinated by skeletal parts of small animals. Rarely wears suits (in fact, chose a career to accommodate) and collects the remains of small furry animals. No shit. Needless to say, her attraction evaporated pretty much on the spot. No more for me, thanks; I’ve lost my appetite.

And then there was the long-distance man she so enjoyed over the phone and via email…when they managed to be in the same city, he took her out for a lovely dinner and then suggested a walk. But before they went walking, he had to stop at his car so he could strap on his hand gun. What?! Ok, he was in the military and from a more dangerous part of town…maybe forgivable…until he began telling her this story: from his apartment window, he heard a scream and looked out to see a man dragging a woman across the parking lot forcefully by her hair. He yelled at this man to leave the woman alone. The man told him to mind his own business. So he began assembling his semi-automatic assault rifle right there in the window, aimed the laser at the abuser’s head and cocked it… Wow! Gotta love a defender of women, but you could dial 911… or you could whip out your semi-automatic assault rifle, right?

And there’s more!

She went out for lunch along the river with a man she’d met. At the restaurant, she ran into the proprietor (who she knows). Her date immediately said, “Great, I hope now we’ll get a decent table and not have to wait so long!” He also connected with her on LinkedIn and, within minutes, proceeded to make sales calls to her place of business. Ewww. She later learned this fellow is a notorious jerk with whom several unfortunate, but fabulous, women have had run ins.

I can’t claim to have had such fantastically bad luck as my girlfriend…yet, apparently these are not unusual stories among singles these days. Another girlfriend has shown up to dates who looked nothing like their profile photos — I mean they were outright using someone else’s pictures. One guy was of an entirely different race than his online photo! Just goes to show you, there are a lot of nut jobs out there…

What are your dating horror stories? I’m dying to know. Honestly, in the same way that watching The Real Housewives makes me feel grounded and serene, it makes me feel just a little less alone in this crazy dating world to know others are experiencing a little madness, too!

deconstructing attraction

Most of us are pretty good at noticing when we’re attracted to someone. And often, we don’t take the time to analyze why or what it all means. So let’s take a moment to break this down:

There’s the obvious physical attraction, which may have to do with appearance, style, smile, eyes, pheromones or any number of other external characteristics.
There’s intellectual attraction, which I’ll define as getting turned on by the way someone thinks or expresses himself, and is often experienced when you get the feeling you could talk to the guy forever and never get bored. Of course, this needn’t require the object of affection to be a genius. Sometimes simply being able to hold a conversation and have presence and attention is enough. And we’ll lump those things into this category.
And there’s emotional attraction. It’s a bit slippery to try to define this one, because for women it often gets muddled right into the other two without a lot of thought. We often mistake an intellectual connection for an emotional bond. In fact, many of us (both men and women) use the words “think” and “feel” interchangeably at times.

Yet I’ve been learning that there’s a distinct difference for men. Men can be attracted physically and intellectually to a wonderful woman, and still not feel an emotional connection to her. They may want enjoy conversation with her, totally want to bone her and still not be drawn to her. (All this is the summary version of what I’ve learned on relationship expert Chris Carter’s site.)

As both an intelligent and highly physical women, this is a difficult concept for me to get my arms around. I never thought too much about it, because chemistry seemed to come so easily and naturally for me — and it was usually mutual. But I am beginning to understand my part in emotionally attracting men, which is to use those “I feel” statements relationship expert Rori Raye talks about. Learning to do so is forcing me to be more authentic and in the moment in all of my daily interactions, whether with men or women, in person or over the phone.

While this way of communicating is not entirely intuitive to me and I sometimes have to think about it, I like the response I’m getting. I can feel myself drawing others in. And maybe somewhere along the way I’ll draw in some special guy with some super ninja emotional magnetism!