what goes unsaid

As I’ve mentioned, my ex boyfriend and I have been a bit chatty lately, occasionally meeting for coffee and such. It’s certainly pleasant to reconnect, but there’s more: hearing his voice, spending time with him — it does send my imagination to spinning.

Probably he senses this: after all, he’s a smart man. And so he goes on, telling me of his happy new relationship — the milestones, the shared experiences, how crazy she is for him…

The one thing he’s failed to express is how crazy he is for her.

Do you reckon that’s to spare my feelings? Or for some other reason…?

ruling him out

Despite my post a week ago, I want to assure you that I am not, in fact heart-broken — it simply made a better headline than the reality of the situation. In fact, let me clarify some things:

This man by whom I felt so wounded was not my boyfriend. We were not, in fact, dating. We merely had an “arrangement.” Within the confines of such an arrangement, there was closeness, secrets shared, vulnerabilities, trust… And the basis for all of these things was friendship. I did not assume what we shared to be more than it was, nor did I have expectations that it would develop into something more. Certainly a part of me had some hope, as I experienced some very high highs while in his presence. But I wasn’t sensing or assuming that he was feeling that way.

Further, let me expand on a single word I’ve chosen in the previous paragraph: expectations. I had none about what would happen any given time we met or talked, or for the future. I didn’t read meaning into the time we spent together, words said or unsaid.

Thus, it wasn’t even really a breakup. It was simply a shitty-feeling situation…from which I am genuinely grieving.

In the end, as I look back on the whole unnatural beginning of it all, I forced the issue. The truth is, I felt such a strong connection and attraction to this man — yet I simultaneously had misgivings — that I had to know. It would have been difficult for me to move forward and commit myself fully to another man without knowing for sure that more-like-it simply was not and would never be “the one” — he just seemed too close to my ideal to let it go. Now I know. With certainty. What looks, feels and sounds good doesn’t always act it.

And, in the end, I discovered something I never imagined I’d say: he reminds me a lot of my wasband.

the horrors of love

Did you read the recent news about the man who shot and then dismembered his wife after she told him she was going to leave him? As the gruesome details of the story continue to emerge, the thing that strikes me above all is this:

This woman had her master’s degree in psychology. Her husband was a felon, convicted of a violent rape. What on Earth possessed this woman to fall for this man?

I’ve both seen and experienced that love is blind, but Wow! I can’t imagine how she ended up with him. I can see forgiving some past flaws or youthful indiscretions, but a violent rape? Difficult for a woman to overlook…

In any case, it’s a tragedy for all who knew and loved her, all who supported the couple and especially the couple’s child.

And the horror of this sort of love makes the relative awfulness of being single seem somehow tolerable, preferable even.

more on that life changing book

I’ve read several books on relationships in the past couple of years. While many have purported to give relationship advice, most have not been “how to” manuals. Many have mentioned masculine and feminine energy, but few have truly explained what that means.

So when a girlfriend lent me a “life changing” book on relationships, I didn’t really know what to expect. In fact, I don’t think I even looked at the cover or title; I just started reading. And, while clearly old school in a lot of ways, Dr. Patrician Allen’s and Sandra Harmon’s “Getting to ‘I Do:’ The Secret to Doing Relationships Right!” has some really solid advice (even if the title makes me cringe…a lot).

See…the thing is…I’ve never had any genuinely healthy models. By the time I was interested in relationships with boys, my mother had moved out. I had no positive relationship models at home and, as a tomboy, I wasn’t modeling my behavior after the girly girls. As an intelligent, early 90s feminist co-ed, I couldn’t abide the thought of “submitting” to a man.

As I’ve grown older, my perspective on what or how I may or may not be willing to compromise to enjoy the rewards of a healthy relationship has softened. I know with confidence that I prefer to be the feminine energy in a relationship. The problem? I didn’t know how, exactly, to do that, and I found few men who were capable of matching my intellect and strength, and who could confidently take on the role of masculine leadership. Those who were interested were always older and, often, married.

When I finally found a man I thought could love and cherish me, he lost his job (and his masculinity) and ended up staying home with our children. The role reversal wasn’t natural for us and, when we went to counseling, I was told bits of advice like, “Don’t put him in a corner” and “Don’t emasculate him.” Obviously, I would never try to do either of those things, but I didn’t even understand what these well-meaning therapists meant, much less what I might be doing to contribute to our problems.

This book has, in many ways, enlightened me.

While “getting to ‘I do'” is not a near-term objective, I’ve learned a lot about compromise — the way a woman may have to compromise to be with a strong man in a successful relationship — and about communicating in a successful relationship. Something about the way this particular book is written has helped me grasp these concepts in a more concrete way than many other articles or books on relationship advice I’ve read.

In sum, Getting offered useful tools and scripts for some potentially challenging relationship moments. I can see it being a manual of sorts for a young woman who is single, navigating a young relationship or in an early marriage. Even though the information seems a little less relevant to folks in my own situation — approaching middle age, not planning on “starting” a family, probably more desirous of sex than men my own age — I may buy a copy to keep on my own bedside table. At the very least, I’ll have some good advice to one day share with my daughter.

masculine feminine narcissist

A girlfriend just lent me one of those dating / relationship books she called “life changing.” I’d tell you the title and author if I weren’t too lazy to get up from my sofa, where I’m snuggled cozily under a soft blanket. So far, here’s the gist:

A relationship needs masculine and feminine energy. Men typically provide the masculine; women typically provide the feminine. Roles can certainly be reversed, as we’ve all seen, but it rarely works for a couple to switch back and forth between roles. Even those of us with a healthy balance of masculine and feminine energy tend to have one that feels more natural more of the time. (And, by the way, all of us are masculine all the time in our professional roles…well, I mean, those of us with office jobs.)

The feminine role is to respect and admire the masculine; the masculine role is to cherish the feminine.

In case you were wondering, there’s even a 15-question quiz you can do to determine whether you prefer to provide the masculine or feminine energy. I took it. When I looked at the answer key, I had to laugh. Most answers were categorized as masculine, feminine or narcissist. True confession: of my answers, 11 were feminine, two were masculine and two were narcissist.

What I ultimately realized from this is YES! I prefer to be the girl in any relationship, which explains why my healthiest long-term relationships have been with very masculine men. And also that my ex (husband) wanted to be both respected and cherished, which would put him in the narcissist category.

I contend that I have a balance of masculine and feminine energy and that I am most drawn to men who also have some balance. I also prefer to be in a relationship with a man who expresses his masculinity by taking charge (as my more recent lover does in the bedroom).

Still, this book is super old school, and I can’t help but think that we’ve evolved in the two or three decades since this book was written. Certainly texting and social media have at least changed the ways in which we communicate…haven’t they?

What do you think?

wanting

In my last relationship, my boyfriend would look deep into my eyes, tell me that he loved me and that he wanted me. Sometimes he would repeat that last part, or ask me if I understood. Sure I know what it means to be wanted and it didn’t hold any particular importance to me, so I kind of shrugged it off.

I mean, I wanted to be loved and I felt loved. Further, we had a fulfilling and passionate sex life. But handsome though he was, I didn’t lust for him.

And now I get it. I suppose I should have known by how often my ex repeated and stressed that phrase that he longed for me to say it back to him. I get it because now, as I explore a relatively new dalliance, I get a jittery feeling of anticipation in my abdomen before I see this new lover. But there’s more: a raw, primal desire to touch his skin, to kiss his lips, to peel off each other’s clothes and feel as much closeness as humanly possible. In other words, I want him.

So does this newish fella feel about me? Does he have this same desire? I certainly hope to find out!

proceed with caution

I mentioned in my last post that I’d finally grown tired of waiting for a certain guy to ask me out and, thus, propositioned him. I had several valid reasons for believing this approach would work to our mutual benefit and enjoyment:

After breaking up with my last boyfriend, we’d had another go-round or two (that is, slept together) and I had the liberating experience of, “Wow! This is tremendously fun and intimate and tender and safe…and, still, I have no intention of getting back into a relationship with you.” So I thought I could do it with someone else, as well.
Based on some rather strong statements my lover had made long before we were lovers and my rather colorful past, I suspected the skeletons in my closet precluded us from ever having a relationship. Flat out, I thought he would immediately rule me out, no chance for redemption; I never thought I stood at chance in sharing something more than the physical with him.
Astrologically speaking, and based on the very few details of his chart that I know, there is no good reason to believe that we’re a natural match for one another…so why not enjoy what few moments of fun we have?
Of everyone I’d met online or otherwise in the past couple of years, he’s the one who kept on entering my mind from time to time, the single one in whom I still had genuine interest. And I knew that, if I didn’t say something and another woman came along and captivated him, I would forever regret not having taken the chance.
A song called, “I Am Not Waiting Anymore” by Field Report was getting a lot of play on a local radio station, and it became something of a mantra for me coming, as it did, just as all these thoughts were synthesizing into an idea in my mind.

As I’ve acknowledged, this space between sex and relationship is sometimes a challenge. The more I get to know this new lover, the more my preconceptions and beliefs require adjusting. And, as I’ve said, I’m finding a lot to like. These seismic shifts along the fault lines of my heart and mind, as unsettling as they sometimes are, give way to feelings of wanting to be vulnerable, to be ready, in case our feelings for one another grow.

So, what to do now that so much, yet so little, has changed? I have to be honest, don’t I, that my beliefs, thoughts and feelings are shifting? Or is that just the most natural and obvious assumption anyone in any type of relationship (regardless how casual) has already made?

As if I could look ahead and see the future, here is what will happen:

We will find our bedroom shenanigans satisfying, or one or the other of us will not. We will grow in our feelings for one another or we will not. We will proceed with caution, care and concern for one another or we will not. He will fall in love with me, or he will not. I will fall in love with him or I will not. We will fall in love with each other or we will not. You see, there is no telling what might come of it all and thinking of all the potentialities as rays of light branching out into millions of possibilities can be dazzling, mind-boggling.

Back down here on Earth we have full lives, we have children, we have careers. So I intend to savor every moment, grateful for whatever it is in its perfect manifestation, without looking ahead…because, how often and for how long, really, can we enjoy something truly shining and new?

vanity

I’m not even sure how to approach this topic, so I’m just going to come right out and say it: Truth is, I’m kind of vain. I try not to be and, as a matter of fact, I’m a pretty low maintenance kind of girl. But I think my looks might be somewhere slightly above average, and I like to look nice…and I like it when people notice that I look nice, and it makes me feel good when they say so.

All that said, this recent lover of mine is perhaps less vocal than I’m accustomed to as it relates to the usual, “you’re so hot” and “you’re beautiful” and the like that men (who want to get a woman into bed) are often inclined to say. Of course, I propositioned him, in this case (as I was simply unwilling to wait any longer for him to ask me out). So…he doesn’t exactly lay it on, and he’s not overly attentive when we’re not together.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon and, while I’m trying to decide whether it matters to me, I’ve considered several lenses through which to observe:

It could be assumed that I’m accustomed to being picked up by and getting into relationships with shallow asses, who see how easily their hollow words work in their favor.
Is this aloofness (for lack of a more apt descriptor) just who he is? Or is he just not that into me?
Does the fact that I find him fantastically gorgeous (oh, those eyes! those perfectly colored eyes and skin and hair! his nose and the line of his jaw and all the proportions are exquisite!) turn him off? Does he find it off-putting that I’m so phenomenally attracted to his physicality? (Of course, all this is true because his pheromones are calling my name and his mind is brilliant…still, I can hardly help but gush!) Is he simply more evolved than all this objectification?

I suppose I’d be a fool to let it go unsaid that the (comparatively few) complimentary things he has verbalized are probably deeper and more meaningful than the usual drivel…take, “I know I’m going to love holding you all night,” for example — and he said it with my name. Kind of hard to beat that, actually.

Among the life lessons I’ve been working on lately are letting go of expectations, living in the moment and enjoying the present. I think I’ve done pretty well at that (relatively, at least). I’m interested in getting to know this fellow for who he is — and I’ve found a lot to like so far…he is different from other guys; he’s exceedingly respectful. Time has a way of providing answers to our questions, but I’m enjoying the now — and I’m not attached to any particular outcome.

So, does it matter? Am I okay with not constantly having my ego stroked in a superficial manner? Put another way: If he doesn’t find me preternaturally beautiful, am I okay with that?

Finally, I have reached a point in my life at which I can say honestly, truly, I would rather a man find me beautiful inside than merely having a physically beautiful outer shell. I guess I’m learning to let go of ego a bit more, and that a little wisdom is catching up with my age. And that, my friends, is a happy realization.

wherever I am

After I’d first had that famous conversation with my (at the time) prospective lover, I had two interesting follow-up conversations:

One was with my therapist, with whom I thought I should probably check in. After all, it’s been many moons. Her observation: “If this is really all about sex for you, why does it already sound so much like a relationship?” Her advice: “Get clear about what you want and then be clear about what you want. If you want to get the next ’50 Shades of Gray’ out of this, tell him that.”

The second was with my ex-boyfriend who, apparently having read my blog and feeling protective, called to say: “I know you pretty well. And if you think you can do this without getting emotionally involved, you’re fooling yourself and you’re likely to get your heart hurt. I know it’s none of my business, but take care. You will get what you want; you just need to figure out what it is first.”

Now, having read these two snippets, imagine there’s a continuum between just sex and a relationship. I understand both of these; I’m not sure I understand what’s in between. In other words, I don’t know where on this continuum I am, or even if I’m on it. Or whether he is.

At one end is sex. You’ll recall this has been a bit of a driving motivation for the past few ~~months~~ years. Why? Because my forty-something body is at its prime, roughly the hormonal equivalent of a 19-year-old male, always eager. Yet, had I found just a sport f**k, I would have quickly become unsatisfied with the just of it.

At the other end of the continuum is a relationship. And, as much as I’d like a life-affirming one of these sometime down the road, I don’t feel at all ready for one at present.

Thus my conundrum: Find a guy who’s a mere stud and bore of the lack of mental stimulation. Or find someone interesting and deal with the inevitable likelihood of developing feelings. I chose interesting. In other words, what I want is something in between sex and relationship…and, though I would tell you that dealing with ambiguity is a strength, it’s been more challenging for me to negotiate than I imagined it might be.

Labeling things, making judgements and categorizing are natural tricks our brains like to perform in order to move us through life efficiently. When we don’t have that sort of clarity, our brains like to fill in the gaps and will go through any amount of mental gymnastics to do so. It’s been fascinating and enlightening to observe my inner dialogue these days, the thoughts that drive my feelings. It would even be fair to say there have been some roller-coaster like emotions — enough to show me that I still have some healing to do. (That’s my stuff; I own it, and I’ve got to deal with it. That’s why I’m not ready or willing to inflict myself of another person in a relationship yet.)

And I’ve also witnessed enough of my own steadiness and resilience to see that many of my lessons — both personal and universal — have sunk in. I’m feeling pretty strong and solid (and also vulnerable) right where I’m at… Wherever that is.

close to the vest

Apparently I’m a difficult read. This according to a woman who knows me well; perhaps wishes to know me better, if you catch my meaning.

I think what she actually said was that I hold my cards close to my vest. And, therefore, she thinks the man I’m digging probably doesn’t really know I feel.

Which maybe is fair. But, again, this was meant to be a hook-up thing…you know, friends with benefits. So…it’s not really about that, right?

Still, shouldn’t it be obvious?

Exhibit A: The last time we were together, I was so nervous that I told a bunch of dumb, pointless stories — that usually featured mention of other men — all in the way of letting him know how attractive I found him, or that I’d had a crush on him for a while. Nothing says “I like you” like making a complete ass of one’s self. Right? (At least if you’re in high school.)
Exhibit B: I couldn’t stop touching him…lingering near him in the kitchen, touching his back; sitting across the table from him, touching his feet with mine; kissing and caressing his lips, jaw, chest with pure, raw desire.
Exhibit C: It was I who asked him to get naked and rub up against each other.

So clearly, if nothing else, I’ve demonstrated that I’m all too willing to make an ass of myself when I’m excited about the prospect of getting to know someone I like a bit better.

My girlfriend also said I’m intimidating. So what do I do about that?