I still don't know how this works, this single thing. When someone starts dating you, is it a natural expectation of theirs that you are completely and thoroughly available? What does available mean anyway? I am available, but I carry this fear that I am not available enough to the average, typical, standard, normal, common, and most populous more-or-less-fifty year old female.
The last woman I dated, whom I am seeing again tonight, knows and has asked nothing about my broader life. I am wary therefore of assumptions. We like each other, though, so far as we know each other. I guess we're just figuring that part out. Never mind other friends that may or may not be relevant. I'm not concerned about hers, except that I hope she has some.
The one before that -- not counting our gekko, who so far as my social slash intimate life is concerned inhabits a class entirely her own -- was a surprisingly good fit in terms of personality and interest, and she started something important in my life. But she also saw at Burning Man that my life was too complicated for her, and decided she doesn't want to go out with me any more. I don't really understand that. It's as if to say I can't go out with anyone unless I'm not going out with anyone else. But I'm not going to open a debate. She had her say, and we'll stay friends -- friends that never ever call or talk or meet for coffee but might run into each other by chance at certain events. There would be hugs in that case, and life continues to change anyway, who knows, so I'll take it.
The one before that -- we're friends, good friends. The one before that -- ex wife who calls for moral support and is deeply disturbed if I cannot in that unexpected instant give it to her. I usually do, though, and out of respect for the twenty seven years we were partners, I will continue to try and be there for her every time.
Anyway, "started something important." This past year was about getting to know gekko and getting to know my local lady friend, and of course getting to know myself. Both were already familiar hence comfortable, and blessings as well as necessities in this stage of my life. But we all knew it was not a static situation, and "comfortable" is definitely a two-sided butter knife. My sudden opportunistic and short-term-successful pursuit of someone else wrought a change in my relationship to the ecosystem such that not only was comfortable no longer enough, but I recognized my growing desire and need for more -- more experience, more knowledge, more et cetera. She made that small but significant difference and it made me sad that she decided we wouldn't fit. Still, the door was kicked open, and so onward I go.
Onward into the unknown, with by the way a loving and enthusiastic cheerleader who owns, communicates, and takes personal responsibility for her own feelings in the matter. Even if tonight's doesn't work out, or the next, or the one after that, I'm a happy lucky human bean.
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16 comments:
And a totally wonderful, amazing, hot h-bean you are, at that. Seize your world!
I can understand, if someone has relatively recently extracted herself from an emotionally painful, complicated situation (or more than one), she might want to keep things on the simple side, such as by dating a completely available man. I think we all know what this means. I fully relate to this actually. Sometimes we end up in a tangled PITA thing without meaning to (ohai!) and then cuz we are so madly in lurve we tolerate it on and on (and on and on), but who would choose that deliberately the next time? Not me.
Hope you had a beanly bunch o fun!
I found, when I was doing the internet dating thing many years ago, that I discovered friends. So...friends or lovers or both?
Well, IMO, sex is over-rated and absurdly brief. And not worth worrying about. But then I'm an old guy whose loins are mostly out to lunch.
Snow in the beard and ice in the erstwhile furnace. ;)
No one understands how to do single after you've been long married with children. You make it up as you go along.
When I was becoming single I read a zillion books about it. The advice, most excellent I think, that no one follows is not to enter another relationship for 2 years. That's how long it takes most people to reconstruct themselves.
But we fear being alone and we long for others, for reasons good and not so good.
A relationship with someone who is still in love with or tangled up with a previous partner is more like an affair than anything else. So as long as you are enmeshed with her, that's what having a relationship with you will be like for most women.
You will have to decide if that works for you and if you think it's fair to her. My guess, you won't think it's fair to her and that will cause you anguish.
And then you'll change something, whatever it takes, until it finally feels right.
And by fair to her, I mean the new her, not the old her. Should never post in the middle of a night of disturbed sleep!
That's the trick of it, yes? Deciding what is fair to the hers and hims in your life as well as what is fair to one's self.
Speaking only for myself, I think I am lucky/blessed/something in that I have had the opportunity to work a lot of that out for myself by now. I spent years prior to being separated and divorced being separated emotionally, ready to unlatch the release catches and move on with my life, and setting up what I wanted to be post-marriage. It has not been without drama and trauma, no sir, but it's progressed along a path I have found deeply satisfying.
I give D kudos, applaud him for recognizing the need to do this and to work it out for himself so proactively. No telling where his path will ultimately lead him, but he has all my support as he figures out what is right for him.
You guys (D, G, C & B) appear to have it all together even while still getting it together (D) or looking around (C). I'm such a mess, lurching from day to day not really knowing what the hell to do. I feel like I'm 50 years old going, OK, my real life can start anytime now. This just means, I think, that I'm letting myself drift as always, letting things happen to me, instead of figuring anything out. Idk.
Oh dear lady. I have NOTHING together. G and I are much farther out in the process of moving beyond the relationships we were in--YEARS farther out.
But I have two things. One is a life that's in so many ways isolated from "normal" patterns of connected relationships that I have been forced to make holy the moments I have, whatever they are, and the short relationships with consequential strangers that come my way.
The other is menopause and perspective to shake my head and wonder WTF I was doing during all those years of reproductive insanity when I kept myself planted in ground that did not feed me. But that's hindsight. I couldn't have that understanding then.
Aren't we all doing the best we can with what we are in at the moment? Be tender with yourself.I think we're supposed to be fucked up. It's how we learn.
You're feeding yourself with the writing, and that's totally awesome. I couldn't have done that while dealing with the dad thing. Or anything else, come to that.
What C said, P. Print it and highlight it all in the brightest purple you can find, then hang it on your fridge.
Especially the "we're supposed to be fucked up. It's how we learn" stuff. I think seeming to have it together is mostly just a con job to keep yourself sane. That, and living each moment as its own moment, without dwelling on past regrets (except as things from which to learn) and without fretting over futures that may or may not come to be (except anticipating good, and planning for the near future so you're prepared).
The one thing I have done for myself to move away from being a basket full of nuts is to simply be what I am, embrace it, and tell the world to fuck off if they don't like it. Know that there will be hurts, and just be ready to face them and ride through them until getting to the other side of them. Take what the people in my life offer me without expectation of more. If it's not enough, and I can't find it within myself, then there are other people out there I can add to my life who may be willing to offer me those things that are missing. <-- this serves as a daily reminder for myself. I'm not that cool; I still need to remind myself of this all the time.
gekko: "I spent years prior to being separated and divorced being separated emotionally..."
Isn't that kind of the norm?
Geez, I would not want to be responsible for deciding what's fair to anyone else. Much easier to be an open book, thereby making sure they have the information necessary to decide for themselves.
I salute you guys. You all seem so self-aware.
The open book idea is great. I guess what I meant by being fair to someone else is being aware of how available we REALLY are or aren't to others so we don't unintentionally mislead them with what we wish were true.
Ooooh. Projecting much? I am. . .
That was my comment. Sheesh. Look before you send, Chris.tine.
You won't find it poly. YOU won't.
I don't understand that comment.
Maybe: "You won't find it in poly. YOU won't."
Specifically me. What, and why not?
I have recently become single after two long marriages to two great men. It's been quite the experience, singledom. Not knowing much, I assumed men were commitment averse (such as they always tell you) and have been disturbingly surprised to find that they are in fact not, and that they pursue ardently, and pursue and pursue, they would put all their chips right in if I gave them the slightest green light.
It's a preposterous notion to me. I cannot possibly know whether I want to be with someone after a matter of one or two meetings. What fresh hell? Perhaps it's because we are older, we've been with partners and maybe we know that we prefer it. So if something looks half good, hey, jump. Is this what's going on?
It frightens and repels me. I suppose I am as emotionally unavailable as they all say that I am. I give no one chances, save for one, and that one blows the chance every single time.
Life is funny that way. It helps a writer write, I'll give life that.
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