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Monday, December 29, 2014

Men Acting as Women III

Just because a man has interest and attention galore for you does not mean that you have to accept it. You can appreciate the experience and move on to a healthy and balanced relationship. Just because their insecurities rage at every perceived and real rejection, it is necessary for them to go through this, as it also is not your responsibility to nurse them through. 

This may sound harsh but I'm finding that there is nothing more important than having HEALTHY, make that H.E.A.L.T.H.Y. relationships. I've spent a lifetime getting to this realization, all from unhealthy family, friend, and lover relatiosnhips, to learning boundaries, to exercising my right to be exclusive about those that I spend time with.

I remember seeing girls that would get these guys panting after them and think, these bitches get all the men. But it's not that simple. I mean these may be good men in one sense but they're really insecure and shooting themselves in the foot. Ergo, they're good men in an unhealthy state of mind. These women weren't really bitches either. They were great women who were looking for men in healthy states of mind. 

Have you ever met a guy you really liked and you just tried too hard? You're sure that you just needed to convince him of your fabulosity and he would readily swoon. Has that ever worked? Of course not! He saw you as insecure and in an unhealthy state. Looking back, I see I did this and I always thought, "His loss." No, he didn't lose out on anything except my insecurity. I may be fabulous, we all are, but when those guys that were in a good place rejected me it made me fight through my insecurities. Those were great life lessons. Had they indulged me I think it would have led to dependency on them in the relationship. 

This awareness led to this slew of men my friends and I are attracting- they're fabulous men in unhealthy states. They need to work through their issues in order to really bring something great to a relationship. 

My Jordanian, AnnMarie's Robbie- these are great men with passion, drive, and love to give. But it's not healthy. And this is so important to remember when this happens to you and you start to second-guess your choices. For example, after "Jordie's" meltdown we talked this over. He's not in a great place in his life and it seems that he was putting too much stock on his happiness with me equaling happiness in life. I can't make him happy in himself; no one can do that but him. However, that doesn't stop me from second-guessing myself thinking that I am putting up walls, looking for flaws, and turning away from ultimate happiness. Or worse, thinking that I'm sabotaging a great relationship. 

And then I snap out of it. 

There's this Buddhist saying that goes 'Help those in need and not the needy.' I struggled with that for a long time trying to distinguish the two. When a person is in need it's a temporary and momentary blip. A person in need is that someone in front of you in the checkout line who forgot their wallet so you get their $35 groceries for them, they fell in the street so you help them up and carry their bags, they lost a loved one so you comfort and support them. A NEEDY person is someone that takes a need and makes it a permanent state of mind. S/he always has something going wrong and leans on anyone who will listen. They're the one who never has money yet they do nothing about their financial situation and wait for others to pick up their tab, they're the ones who have health issues but eat at Taco Bell every day, they're the ones who attract drama in their life and, frankly, they love the drama. 

I'm okay to hang out with Jordie. I'm okay to help Jordie with his resume. I'm okay to develop a great friendship with Jordie and who knows? It could develop into something. Someday. But dating him as he is right now? I think that would throw too much dependency- dependency on things going well and going fast, dependency on being the one close person to him here, etc. Right now he's more needy than in need. And dependency just becomes resentment once he gets his life in a healthy state of mind. After all, he's fabulous but just in an unhealthy state.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Men Acting as Women II

I love this time of year and all the cheesy Hallmark movies. I joke with my neighbor that I'm awaiting my own Hallmark movie moment. After all, you only have to be slightly above-average looking, only one of you has to have the come-to-Jesus moment, your whole life is figured out within an hour, and you can do a shitty job acting through your life and it's no big deal. 

However, after my last experience I have been watching these movies (remember my bad taste in tv??) with a new eye. I watched one and the heroine gets her dream residency while she is twittering away as a doctor in a remote Alaskan town. Don't ask me how she got there, I have no idea. But she had a great date with a guy and then coffee where she finds out she gets the residency and needs to leave immediately. 

He instantly reacts and gets very testy that she would choose her life's goal and dream when they had such a fun date. Really?? Get duckin' serious, Dude. This turned me off, maybe because it resonates with the last batch of men I've gone out with that develop deeper-than-natural feelings from the get-go. 

It's not just me, I'm seeing a lot of this going around. Three of my friends are, or recently dated men like this too. Successful, age-appropriate, should-know-better men that for some reason announce their intentions to pursue you like a demon within the first week. Eek! 

Let's take one of my friends. I realized after watching more and more of these Hallmark Christmas movies that we DO have the Hallmark movie moment. This is my storyline for her (this is based on her most recent relationship):  

A Very Robbie Christmas 

 AnnMarie is unhappy at her job. She finds a dream job in California where she's always wanted to live and has worked her whole life for this opportunity and she applies for the job. Cut to cold day at bus stop where the bus broke down in a land called Bumpkinville. A cute guy appears and compliments her on her glasses. They bump into each other again (must be fate!!) and he asks her out. His name is Robbie. They have a lovely time and she starts to think it might be fun to have a partner in crim—life and her career isn’t her only goal. The next day she gets a call saying that the Cali job is hers- guaranteed to promote her after one year. It's a dream job in the place she desires to live above all others!! It’s a bullet offer but AnnMarie, naturally, accepts. 

The next day she tells Robbie, somewhat regretful but also hoping for a little human support, that she landed her dream job. He barks at her that he should have known better and how stupid he was to fall for a girl that could never appreciate Bumpkinville anyway. And just when he was having REAL FEELINGS for her (after just one date, who knew?). For some reason there is background music that seems to fully support him and simultaneously damns her in the process.  

The next day AnnMarie leaves for the airport and, alas! A tree is felled on the only road going out of town (who wouldn’t love this crap ass town?!). Instead of calling to say she’ll be reporting a day or two late for the new wonder job in Cali she sees the whole thing as fate that she must remain there forever in this now “charming” crap ass town. She and Robbie embrace as he is deliriously happy that he got his way. Wow, AnnMarie, what a great gesture! She marries him only to find that wow- he actually isn’t very supportive of her goals but she's wed and bred so that must mean Happily Ever After, right? 

A great bit of this story is true, except she didn't choose the guy after two dates. Because that isn't normal, that's Hollywood. But she did have some guy profess his "deep" feelings for her after one date and press her to feel the same, press her to make sacrifices, play mind games when he didn't get his way. At the end she's still questioning herself, wondering if she was too hard on him. 

Okay, this is already a ridiculously long post but the point is that authentic feelings don't just happen overnight. Even if you feel that s/he is "the one" wouldn't you want to nurture that realtionship until you both feel the same? It seems that there is no shortage of men these days that think they can pour these sentiments and we'll just lap them up. I'm sorry but if after date one you feel we are going to be together forever, maybe just keep that to yourself. Try something milder like, "Hey, I had a really great time. I'd like to see you again." Food for thought.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Men Acting as Women

I have been on a major hiatus from blogging. Part of it is getting into the swing of things here, part of it is dating, part of it is making new friends. 

For a while I was attracting these younger men in their mid-20's. Okay they're cute but they're just starting out their adventures. I've had mine and I felt like I was more the mentor role than the companion role. I realize that I was still putting energy out there about my initial insecurity of being grey and still wanting to appear youthful. So what did the Universe give me? Youth! 

Awareness tweaked that right in the bud and I put out energy of a person more my age, having lived his own adventures. I attracted just that: adorable, worldly, intelligent, sweet, and attentive. Too attentive. Mad texting me about how much he likes me and how he misses talking to me and how since I didn't immediately respond, I must hate texting altogether. Sigh. 

What is going on in the world today? Have men completely reversed and are no longer masculine? The above-mentioned subject is from a country where men are very strongly men and yet if I fail to respond to a text within 15-20 minutes, he falls into an insecure tailspin. 

You may remember my post on another eager beaver from last Summer who could not stop himself from texting me ALL THE TIME. I didn't handle that too well. In fact, I handled it the way many an American guy would- I was distant and cold, kind of a jerk therefore forcing the other to dump me. It's not a good way to handle things as it's passive-aggressive and doesn't help anyone except the escapee.

I decided to handle this guy differently and we had a come-to-Jesus moment. His defense was that English was not his first language so I must be misinterpreting his words. Um, no... as I'm not misinterpreting the bithchiness when I don't text right back (because I was in church and turned my phone off). But it did give me a chance to set some boundaries, such as the ones below:

I do not check my phone every 3 minutes to see if I have a text or call from you. I will get back to you within appropriate day and early evening hours and will respond. It may not be within the minute. Please do not internalize this and get snippy with me. 

When I say I'm busy this weekend, that means I can't get together this weekend. Please do not pout that I am not going to kill myself to spend an hour driving to some remote spot in DC and parking (40 minutes allotted to finding a parking spot via stalking people to their cars) just to have a beer with you for half an hour.

I have a life and I expect you have one too. I have friends, groups, dates with other men and I will not drop my life for anyone. I expect that you have these things too-- no, no! You don't have to tell me, it's not my business, especially in these early stages. If I want to get together and you're busy, I respect that. I don't need an explanation. 

I am so glad that you think I'm the best thing since sliced bread (I think you're pretty fabulous too!). However, you do not need to tell me after knowing each other for 3 days how much you miss my presence. We do not have to get together every day, or every other day, or every other other day. Slow down, I'm feeling smothered. 

I think we get the picture. I'm going to do several blog posts on this because I feel there is a whole lot of subject material here. It's very interesting and not at all what I expected when dating again.