Some of my Problems with Women -- another ad hoc essay

I was hours late to work because sometimes I log in from home and find myself caught up in things and just work from there. Once I got to work, so late that some people were leaving for an early lunch, I just sat in my car awhile, not wanting to go in. There was some good music on and I wanted to decompress and sit in the sun. I listened and played a dumb little game on my phone. I felt like confessing to the world that I sometimes park and sit in my car playing a dumb little game on my phone, rather than go right away into the office. I looked for that anonymous secret website. Post Secret, it's called, full of confessions both trivial and heartbreaking. But it wasn't a place to post anything. People make works of art out of their confessions and mail them in. I read a few. And I read,

"The other day I realized that I have raped myself over 22 times by saying 'yes' when I really meant 'no'. This is my apology to myself."

This. I turned off the radio. This is why. I got out of the car and walked to the building. This is why I can't have sex with a woman I don't know. That I don't know well. That I'm not emotionally close to.

I remember as a young man making myself ignore the signals and advances because I didn't trust them. I didn't trust they weren't trying to get something from me that I didn't want to lose (self-determination? blood? my soul?). I also didn't trust that they knew what they were doing. Me? Why would they want me? They must mean someone else. And then in later years, when I was aware not just of date rape but of women falling into sex as part of their arc of self-destruction, drinking a bunch and wanting to have "fun", not being willing to listen to their inner voice and say no, wanting me to fill in some little gap that no one can really fill ... All this over-thinking, even just a little of it, was more than enough to render me unable. But these thoughts came not from reading articles and secret confessions on the wide-open internet. They came from conversations with real women, girlfriends before marriage, my wife, other women who had things to say about their pasts and how they regretted the things they used to do, how they thought they wanted something but later on realized they really didn't.

I do not have this problem when I encounter a woman who by dint of her confidence and intelligence does not trigger this sort of distrust. But that happens pretty rarely. Otherwise, I need time, days, weeks, before I can enter any real intimacy. And unlike most men I hear about (hence any insecurity you may detect in these words), my body listens closely to my heart and responds accordingly. Because until I really know, when she says 'yes' she really means 'no'.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. It would probably be a better world if more men were like this. Rape would be nearly impossible. But the world isn't like that and I probably wouldn't be either if not for the sequence of influences that are specific to my history. I'm not this way by accident, but it's not by genetics either.

Obviously connected to this is the fact I'm drawn to women who in some way need comfort or safety. I believe there are some pretty solid reasons why this is so, and I've seen it play out time and again. Just yesterday I was in an IM conversation (sort of like texting within the corporate firewall) with a young lady at work who is going through some tough personal times, and afterwards I realized that her challenges were a major reason for my interest. I admit I wouldn't show nearly as much initiative if she weren't spectacularly and unconventionally beautiful. But if she was happy and beautiful I'd be much less interested.

(Parenthetic side note, I'm still all male and am enthralled with her body as the ultimate objectifiable wonderland. There's an element of fantasy in not just letting that go. I should, because she's clearly off my menu, apparently being interested in nothing other than long-term monogamy with someone of appropriate age, and I am none of that. Still, I like the conversation -- very smart she is, and likable -- and will take any motivation that keeps me from going entirely hermit as a good thing. Besides -- all together now -- "you never know.")

She also validated the issue I have. She's trying to relearn being single, but says she won't go out at this time because she'll probably seek escape in a bottle and get wild and do things she'll regret. Of course, this is what people do when in their teens and twenties. It's part of learning life. I'm glad she's working to stop that cycle and I told her so, and she said she really appreciated it. All good. I'm a friendly kind of guy. And for that, with whatever women I meet, I should probably just stay in the friend zone. It's frustrating, because I have issues with "failing" where so many other men, even my age, "succeed." But I can never let myself be part of something a woman will later regret. I am who I am. It hasn't exactly worked out poorly for me anyway. Very well, to be honest. My picture's incomplete, is all.

And by incomplete I really mean incomplete. We are all combinations of the divine masculine and feminine. I don't mean to go all woo-woo with words like "divine" but what I mean is we are both of our parents, we are human and we combine both natures, and in me it is apparent the feminine has always eclipsed the masculine, and this leaves me out of balance. It's been a good thing many times, as people have come to trust me (in spite of my self-distrust) and to appreciate the sort of environment I create (feminine) rather than just take the lead (masculine) but so long as any such part of me is by old habit repressed I will feel out of balance and discontented.

My intent wasn't to drift into solution space here, but the obvious next step is to experiment with more traditionally masculine behaviors and seek by experience to gain a sense of balance. A few years ago, a good female friend advised me that the trick to letting all that go was simply to fuck now, think later. Let the woman who's saying yes have her yes respected and turn off your fucking brain and go for it (these are not her exact words). Now, I'm not here to say I haven't done this. But the conditions have had to be pretty close to perfect, and very few have made it through this narrow passage. More often, I've tried to do that and found myself in what was pretty clearly the wrong space for me.

I've nearly come around in a circle. I am aiming myself in different directions here. This illustrates the conflict. I could theoretically accept my friend zone persona and be happily content with my loving and open-minded woman, even by mutual consent become fully monogamous with her. But that would be to turn my back on a clearly identified need for development. The right track, then, is to open myself up to connection (not often a natural thing for me), and open myself fully by learning to trust. For that is the problematic issue: I don't trust that it will be okay, that trusting in this one won't break trust with that one, that I can give myself permission, that the somewhat rapacious male energy I have kept in a bottle all my life can be let out, that I won't somehow hurt anyone. That's a lot of trusting, but most men either manage it or have never cared about it, the bastids -- but that's about my problems with men. 'Nother subject.