I’ve met the perfect man. He’s married, but you can’t have everything.
**
But before I follow up on that teaser of an opener, let me backtrack to the Occupation. As everyone knows by now, the “Occupy” protests have been happening in many major cities around the world, including my own, since late September. I’ve made a commitment to attend every Saturday rally and march. It isn’t wise or practical for me to try to camp out, but I otherwise support the Occupation in whatever way I can, whether it’s by waving at rush hour traffic alongside the sign-holders or bringing the food table a case of hot cocoa from the dollar store. This week, police in riot gear evicted people forcibly from the park with clubs, tear gas, and pepper spray, making dozens of arrests, confiscating sleeping bags and tarps, even destroying the food station with fire extinguishers. This violent crackdown has apparently been part of a coordinated national effort (according to the mayor of Oakland); the Wall Street occupiers have taken their case to court. I’m sure I could spend an entire post on what’s happening in my city and elsewhere, but there are plenty of savvy bloggers covering it already. This movement isn’t going away. And I’ve got smaller fish to fry at the moment…
I do feel badly for not camping out in the cold night after night like some of these intrepid kids, with my hyperactive bladder and my prodigious talent for creating pneumonia out of the simple head cold. Granted, I’m not nineteen anymore. I don’t have health insurance. But the limitless self-sacrifice and perfectionism bred into all good fundamentalist females nags at me that nothing short of dying of exposure for the cause is good enough. I feel guilty for sitting outside on my day off, enjoying the sunshine far from the Occupation, letting the rays work their magic on my moods. I feel guilty for not spending all my free waking hours with the dedicated core, who have been beaten and tear gassed and spent nights in jail. I feel guilty for using a good part of my time at the rallies scoping out the menfolk. Truth be told, I’ve learned to live on less than a shoestring and a prayer, and what I still want more than anything is to cherchez l’homme.
**
Apropos of that very issue, my biggest problem at the Saturday marches has not been police in riot gear. It’s been the problem of having to constantly dodge Eli. Every week, whether I come alone or am “shielded” by my activist friends (usually gay boyfriends like Greg or Danny), there he is, reappearing at every turn, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of people surround us.
Eli had called and emailed a couple of times since our unsavory little hiking expedition. I had not responded. “Don’t dignify him with a reply,” was the advice I received from friends both male and female. I didn’t know what to say, anyway. I couldn’t act as if everything were fine. And I really didn’t want to see him again, even if he had one of my favorite Tom Waits CDs. I didn’t want to have to attempt to explain myself, and face “who-me?” denial or supercilious condescension. Nor did I feel like inviting further unkindness about my ill-conceived drunken flirting.
It would all just be a repeat of the old and unhappy pattern I fall into, practically without fail, with very clever men who, when confronted with my intuitive or emotional grasp of a situation (especially one that may not reflect well upon them) have to pull out their semantic bag of tricks to demonstrate that they’re more “rational” and “objective” than I am — not to mention inarguably in the right. I don’t want play that tiresome, rigged game anymore. I’m done trying to date Dad. I’m OK letting Eli feel superior and right forever, if he wants; I just don’t want him around while he does it.
After one particularly obvious “dodge” at another Saturday march, he emailed me and said that since I hadn’t been responding, and seemed to not want to talk to him at Occupy, he had concluded that I didn’t feel like interacting right now. But he still needed to get my CD back to me.
After some thought, I wrote back:
That’s a fair enough assessment…
I dread ‘breaking up’ with friends, but it dawned upon me quite suddenly that our association has been a somewhat labored exercise in vanity. Yours and mine both. And life is simply too short to waste one’s time. (That’s a lesson I took, anyway, from the recent passing of a loved one.) If you’re looking for some further explanation, well, I don’t really feel like arguing about it. Which is why I postponed reply indefinitely.
I know I’m not such a big part of your life that you’ll miss me terribly much. I do miss my Tom Waits CD, though…you could just stick my name on it and drop it off to one of the dreaded hipster baristas at (the coffeehouse) the next time you’re in the neighborhood. I’m sure they’d get it back to me safely.
All of life is a series of experiments, no? Some of them work, some don’t. Cosi e la vita.
Eli did not reply. I was relieved.
But when I see him at the rallies now — he seems to make a point of stalking angrily by my friends and me — he shoots me the kind of stink-eye you’d typically only see coming from a wet cat who’d been thrown in the bath.
Surprisingly, I can live with that.
**
Thus ends the story of Eli. It was a rather lengthy dead-end street, but I guess I needed to follow it to its natural conclusion to see where it ended up.
Let’s move on to a tale Katherine Woodward Thomas tells in her book Calling In The One, which, as some of you know, I diligently workbooked my way through a year and a half ago in a concerted effort to be more relationship-ready.
Thomas’s client “Melissa” was a lesbian, but otherwise had a couple of essential things in common with me: she struggled with deep feelings of unworthiness, and she secretly feared that surrender to another person in love might mean surrender to control and even abuse. The latter was thanks to a frightening, domineering father; I got my love vs. control issues from both Mom and Dad and their nasty despot of a God.
Anyway, this was Melissa’s experience after working on her relationship blocks with Ms. Thomas:
As is often the case, the first several opportunities that Melissa encountered for romantic liaisons were again with people who were unavailable. One was an actress who was on her way out of town to do a play in another city, with an anticipated long run. The next was a smart and savvy bisexual woman who, it turned out, was still living with her ex-husband. The third, Alison, was the “woman of Melissa’s dreams.” She was everything that Melissa had hoped for — charismatic, bright, funny, spiritual, beautiful, and extremely accomplished. Unfortunately, Alison also happened to be in a long-term relationship with another woman, and together they were co-parenting a child. He was only five, and Alison made it clear that they were committed to living as a family unit until he graduated from high school. Talk about a no-win situation. I wish I could tell you that Melissa wasn’t tempted, but she was. It was agony for her to turn Alison down. But, after a few topsy-turvy weeks, turn her down she did. She made the difficult decision to avoid an avoidable drama, even if that meant that she would be alone in life. Two weeks after making this decision, Melissa met her partner, whom she considers to be the love of her life and her soul mate. Looking back, she now shudders to think how close she came to missing the opportunity to be with her mate, for what would surely have been another heartache and disappointment.
**
I guess you could say I’ve met my “Alison.”
Which, given this story, could be a good sign.
**
To return to the opening line: of course I know no one is “perfect.” The person to whom I refer is not even “perfect” in the way I used to define “perfect.” He’s not a scintillating graduate-level intellectual or committed progressive activist like Eli. He’s not a sculpted yoga god like Sonny who can quote the Dalai Lama while standing on his head. He makes the occasional very bad joke.
Our chemistry, however, was instantaneous and powerful, from the day he walked onto the call center floor three months ago. I felt like I’d been whacked upside the head by Cupid’s Louisville slugger. I didn’t know what hit me. And unlike nearly all the other men (save Sam) to whom I have traditionally been attracted, he makes me feel really, really good. He laughs heartily at my wisecracks, flushing red and showing a broad, irresistibly dimpled smile. He tells me I’m interesting/smart/awesome. He gets neither defensive nor aggressive about my diet, something I’ve come to expect from meat-eating men (cf. Herman Cain, “sissy pizza”). Nor does it seem to bother him one bit that I’ve read (insert intimidating philosopher here) and he hasn’t. Frankly, I couldn’t care less that he hasn’t read (insert intimidating philosopher here). The man seems wholly unthreatened by and is entirely respectful of me. I have nothing to battle or defend. This feels as strange, relaxing, and delicious as sliding into soft suede slippers after years of training one’s feet into hard, pointy pumps. Ahhhh.
Dan’s vocational passion in life is to build beautiful wooden furniture. He’s a master of his craft. His flawless pieces look like they should be sitting in the palatial homes featured in glossy style magazines. He even studied and apprenticed in Romania, his ancestral homeland. So yes, he’s another artist doing grunt work to pay the bills. (Next year he intends to start school to become a radiologist, which will pull in a better income.)
And no, he’s not another seductive, elusive tease like Ted, looking to snare groupies or score with pretty young things. He’s more like some big, friendly, handsome dog, a Labrador with his tail wagging, winning over the prickliest people with even-tempered bonhomie. The surly but essentially good-hearted old alcoholic who snarls at every newcomer chats him up amiably; even the hardcore lesbian feminist who criticizes almost everyone and everything finds him undeniably appealing. He seems to have absolutely no clue what a dreamboat he is (I think he resembles nothing so much as a proletarian American version of Colin Firth), which is totally refreshing after God’s various Gifts to Women, and makes him just that much more attractive. Dan belongs to my generation, so he remembers all the odd pop-culture ephemera from our childhood (e.g. the short-lived, silly TV series “The Greatest American Hero”) unlike our young cohorts. He loves to shop thrift stores. He digs my funky secondhand shoes.
But the real clincher is that he was raised by a fundamentalist mother and stepfather (!), so he knows right-wing Christian insanity intimately, from the inside — although it appears to have done him less damage than it did me. He’s not terribly interested in organized religion these days, but he’s not bitter. Long story short, it is very difficult not to fall in love with this guy. Madly. And in a tedious job where hours creep by like days, talking to Dan makes the hands of the clock fly.
He makes a point of mentioning his Asian-American wife, Mai, fairly frequently, as if to remind us both that he’s taken. His marriage appears to be harmonious; at the same time, our affinity is so strong even our hardcore lesbian coworker has noticed and commented on it. One of these days I need to inform Surly Alcoholic Stan (who is fond of me) that Dan is married — he seems at times to be trying to nudge me in Dan’s direction. I’m obviously not the only person who thinks we’d make a fine match.
It’s times like these that I almost wish we were renegade Mormons living in Idaho. That wouldn’t really work, though, because none of us want kids, and that’s the main justification for polygamy.
If Dan were my husband, however, I wouldn’t want to share him.
**
You-all don’t need to panic or get your knickers in a twist. You know me well enough to know that I have my own personal Hippocratic oath to “first do no harm.” I’m going to have to trust that the Right Thing is either just around the corner, as it was for Melissa, or that unforeseen events will dramatically change the current situation somehow, and let this become the Right Thing.
Dan has said, in a wholly unrelated conversation about his childhood, that he believes in Fate. I’ve always been an agnostic on the question (regardless of all the philosophers and theologians who have argued themselves blue in the face for centuries about it; let’s please not go there again). But say, for the sake of argument, that there were such a thing as Fate. I wonder, then: to what end would Dan enter my life at this precise moment in time? Ms. Thomas might say it’s a kind of test of my progress and resolve, like what Melissa went through with Alison. On the other hand, a romantically minded biographer of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (whose mantra is All’s Fair In Love And War) might disagree. You do, after all, hear stories about eventual couples who were married to other people when they met. It’s not unheard of. Many unpredictable things happen in life. Mai could have an affair with her coworker, and decide she wants to leave. Nearly half of all marriages don’t survive.
Unfortunately, I am neither omnipresent nor omniscient, and am forced to live my life forward, without 20/20 foresight. What I do know for sure is that whatever happens, it’s essential for me to hold to my own integrity. And have, dare I say it, a little faith.
It’s worth noting that I went through something like this once before, many years ago, with my dear friend Ben — and I (mostly) behaved myself. Ben was a brilliant Buddhist scholar with a wry sense of humor and impish blue eyes, and he was as fond of me as I was of him. He also married his fiancée, a warm and compassionate woman he loved, during the time that I knew him. I managed my feelings toward him pretty well, most likely because I didn’t feel as deprived around him as I did around the men I usually chased after. I felt loved, seen, and appreciated by Ben, and for that reason most of the time felt as if there were no significant lack. The only thing I ever felt I lacked, where he was concerned, was an intimate sexual relationship…on those nights when the gang would go out for beers and nachos, and I’d had a drink or two, I’d look across the table at him and feel a hopeless yearning (not to mention a wicked horniness). It was a bittersweet sort of ache, without the sharp edge of rejection that made my usual romantic obsessions so consistently and profoundly painful. I truly felt that if Ben could have been two people, he would have been with me too. Somehow that was a consolation.
**
It is heartening to meet someone wonderful, whom you find incredibly attractive, who also finds you wonderful and incredibly attractive. More often than not, I’ve wound up spending my time with an Eli or a Ted, someone who keeps me handy merely to stroke his ego while he chases other women. Once in a while there will be someone like Bart, the old college classmate who, despite my attempts to discourage him, cultivated a long-term crush on me, and recently announced that he was coming to town with his two daughters to scope out real estate. He wanted me to meet him and the girls. I nixed that meetup in genuine alarm. I was always slightly repelled by Bart, for reasons other than (or in addition to) his substantial girth. Possibly pheromones, possibly personality. But here I am, apologetically groping for acceptable reasons to refuse him.
And why should I? Sometimes I buy into that old double standard that women must look and act as alluring as possible (men being the visually oriented ones, after all), but must be able to “see past” a man’s slovenly exterior. The old Beauty and the Beast trap. And sometimes I resent that. There’s a voice (Mom?) that always whispers, “At least Bart likes you. You should take what you can get. The attractive ones are all jerks, anyway, who play around or think they’re better than you.” You may have heard this called conventional wisdom…
Meeting Dan gives me hope that the so-called conventional wisdom isn’t ironclad. Because, damn, the man is fine. He flips my switch like you wouldn’t believe. And he’s not a jerk. He’s not a player. He’s not aware enough of his own hotness to even think about being a player. I’ve seen pictures of his wife, and she’s not Zhang Ziyi.
Dan is an astoundingly modest man. Dan is an astoundingly attractive man. Dan thinks I’m astoundingly awesome just the way I am.
I sincerely hope that there’s another one out there just like him for me.
I think there IS another one like that out there for you. there are now over 7 billion people in the world (1.21 B in india alone). i believe that there is more than one match for every person. so, in the words of my relationship-seeking gay male friend bill: “NEXT!!!”. You write eloquently about relationships, but the underlying theme is LONELINESS and LONGING. In the words of my friend from my ill-fated PhD program Megan, “we are meant to be mated”. Then she found hers, imperfect, cross-country romance, but TRUE LOVE. I’ve lost contact with her, but I’m sure she’s still with him. It wasn’t long before she meet Ken that she was talking the same way as you are now. All is not lost.As far as running into undesirables goes, I must say that you live in a much smaller city than I do. Gross as it may be, it’s also strangely comforting. And you are doing ENOUGH for the “occupy” movement. Look what bloomberg destroyed with a flick of his wrist. you are doing PLENTY, milady.
Hey, KL, thanks for being the first to comment. Usually it’s bm3 in the middle of the night (well, I guess it’s daytime over there in Deutschland). I suppose I’m doing “enough” — for the movement, I mean — some people aren’t doing anything at all. Still, I know people who have gone to jail! With the paid work I’m doing for a progressive House candidate now, though, I had to agree not to get into any serious trouble.
I’m not saying all is lost…I think I left things on a hopeful note…I’m just trying to be comfortable in the space of unknowing, to be kind of Zen about it. Until two years ago, I was only operating on faith (despite 41 years’ experience) that I’d EVER know what it felt like to have my needs met — to be held, to feel loved and wanted and respected, to be really made love to and satisfied. I didn’t even know if it was possible!
I understand that my situation sounds MAD. In all honesty, I used to secretly judge people who got what I thought were outrageously “inappropriate” or impossible crushes — on married or gay men, for instance — as being willfully foolish, because I always averted those myself. Gayness or a wedding ring was enough to throw me right off the scent, even (mostly) with Ben. This, however, is turning out to be far less cut-and-dried. I wouldn’t exactly call it love at first sight; I wouldn’t say Dan is the “type” that immediately knocks me out, like Sonny was. He’s more of a Clydesdale than a racing thoroughbred. But when he walked into the room that day, I had a powerful intuition, that sense of recognition you sometimes get, when you meet someone who will turn out to be instrumental or significant, somehow, in your life. And we hadn’t even shaken hands yet! Has that ever happened to you? I don’t know how else to describe it. I can rationalize it away when I’m at home, but there’s something ineffably powerful there. And it’s friendly, not scary. I’m not scared around Dan the way I was around Ted.
My old life coach was married when he met Cara on a retreat, the kind of spiritual retreat that never interested his wife. I watched him struggle and negotiate his way to the point of ending a union that had long since ceased to breathe in order to be with Cara. So I’m intimately familiar with one such scenario.
Not that I’m saying that’s what will happen. I don’t even know what SHOULD happen, or what the hell this is all about. What The Hell Is This? eh. But I’m not going to go around being reckless with other people’s lives or deceiving anyone. That’s just not how I roll. In two weeks, like Melissa, I could meet someone who makes me forget all about Dan. I’m not ruling that out. I’m not ruling anything out, except for one thing: a clandestine sexual affair with a married man.
Well, hope is a good thing, especially when it’s been in short supply. And though I tend toward polyamory, I’d agree that you’re better off keeping things friendly and Platonic.
It wasn’t all that long ago–two years, now–that I was flush with hope and optimism, as a result of having met the Object Of My Obsessions. Of course, that didn’t pan out, and in retrospect there was nothing in the cards anyway, but the whole experience reinvigorated me, at least for a little while. That may have played out: these days I more or less find myself resigned to my fate.
Glimmers of hope, though: went to a birthday party for one of my co-workers in telecomm that I don’t see very often. I remembered a good friend of hers that I talked to last time I was over there, and eVite said she was co-hosting the party. So I put on my best clubwear and went out there to make a good impression. Unfortunately, she was with some other guy, and wasn’t much for conversation beyond a few stray comments. However, I noticed that her date was bigger and huskier than I am, and certainly paunchier. So, maybe in other circumstances I could have gotten further, I don’t know.
Mostly, though, I think of myself as your boy Bart–there seems to be something about me that viscerally puts women off, and any efforts I make at being ingratiating simply prove annoying. Not sure what I can do, and that makes me wonder if I should do anything at all, other than be myself and see what shakes out. Of course, at age 43, that may not be the best strategy. But at least I’m doing no harm.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll meet someone through him that’s single. One thing I learned from the O.O.M.O. is that there are ponds out there I didn’t know to go fishing in.
Well, somebody, or rather two somebodies, I think, liked Bart well enough to have kids with him — he’s got three, one much older than the others. (By the way, he mentioned to me once that he has autistic tendencies. I don’t remember his exact words.) And somebody you like likes big husky guys. Bigger and huskier than you! No, I still don’t believe you’re babe kryptonite. Anyway, I find Bart’s whatever-it-is far more off-putting than your personal eccentricities. He just always rubbed me the wrong way. I was kind of shocked to find out that he liked me.
I’m not as sure now that I can be all that relaxed and Zen about this. It may be the thing that finally gets my ass out of the call center. Copious managerial bullshit couldn’t do it, Ted couldn’t do it…but this lovely, lovely, lovely man I can’t have may do it. In the immortal words of Cole Porter, every time we say goodbye, I die a little.
hi, glad to see a new post – as usual it will take some time for me to read all & respond – but wanted to say that it’s good you try to stay out of serious trouble like getting arrested or pepper sprayed and so on.
Yeah, I’m doing some work for a guy (currently a state House Dem) who’s challenging a Tea Party Republican in a recently redistricted district…I had to agree not to get into any real trouble. I’m usually gone by the time all hell breaks loose anyway. The cops like to work after dark.
Last week I went back and read over my first correspondences with the Object Of My Obsessions, my LiveJournal post “Blood Lust”, and your own commentary on both. Ain’t love grand? It really took me back to that heady feeling that anything could happen. Now, in your case, I’m not saying anything should, but I needed to re-experience that thrill. I’m hoping for the best your situation can bring. Any updates?
I don’t think I’m kryptonite, as you put it, so much as krypton–which Wikipedia describes as a “non-toxic asphyxiant” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton). As in, krypton is a gas that’s so inert, it won’t poison you, won’t damage you at all, because it won’t interact with your system…but it will displace oxygen, so that if you breathe it in, you can choke. (Talk about sucking all the air out of a room….) I think that describes me fairly well, actually.
Which doesn’t preclude any interaction, per se. Saturday night at the club, I struck up a conversation with Mary, a phlebotomist. She was a tomboy, which I like, of course–but she kept looking at her phone (the wallpaper of which was her and another tomboy chick, so I figured my odds of getting anywhere at next to or below nothing). Apparently, she was expecting to meet someone. Good and well, I bought her a drink and kept her company until I left, just around midnight. That’s still more socializing than I do in the normal course of my clubbing. Good practice, if nothing else.
This Saturday, gonna try something different. Newly divorced Danger has suggested that we go out together, not to meet chicks, but to try and hook up. And he knows just the place, he says. Well, why not? Maybe it’s time I tried that.
Russ, I swear, you should have an Asperger standup comedy routine. The krypton thing made me LOL. You’re a gas! Ar ar. Remember, it’s a proven fact that chicks dig funny. Although that still may not work with lesbians. Now what’s this about Danger? I forget who Danger is. And are you trying to just hook up with the ladies, or each other? Your wording really left me confused. But in a highly intrigued way. Please advise.
As pour moi, I am sick and tired of obsessions of any kind. I mean, I could sit around and work myself up into a lather in the usual way, imagining this or that scenario, or inflating Dan to superhuman proportions, as I am wont to do, but he keeps bringing me back down to earth. Because even after all is said and done, he’s still Just Regular Dan. Easygoing and approachable and on my side…as much as he can be, anyway. I adore him, but he’s only a human — a sweet, slightly goofy human who, were I a straight man, would be a beloved buddy. He’s THAT guy. Not the dashing figure a girl expects to sweep in on a white horse. Not Mr. Darcy coming through the trees in a wet shirt. (Even if he looks like Colin Firth.) That’s not to say that when he scoots his chair over and leans in close to hear me (over the rapid-fire answering machines being autodialed), I don’t have the violent urge to seize his stubbled face and kiss him, losing my fingers in his thick, wavy brown hair. No, I’d like to climb in his lap, actually. I lust for my “buddy.” My yummy homie. I feel slightly ridiculous. But I do really hate to see him go at the end of the day.
I’ve given myself a theoretical loophole: that is, in the realm of science fiction. Since time is curved, and particles can be in two places at once, and Schrodinger’s cat is both alive and dead, I’ve decided to believe that in a parallel universe I meet Dan before he meets Mai, and we have our shot. We get to be a couple. I get to make all the sweet, hot love to him I could possibly desire in the days, weeks, and months we spend together, and avoid some of the agony I went through in the 00s because I know what it’s like to be loved in return by a kind and trustworthy man. Maybe we part as good friends, and he still winds up with Mai (who can provide him with the large, warm extended family and amazing Asian cuisine I can’t, and who doesn’t think his jokes are groaners). But I get my shot with him, so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on something. I can pretend I’ve been there already.
Danger’s original middle name was Granger, but shortly before his kids were born, he had it legally changed to Danger. His wife, Dr. Poly, did the same. And when his two girls were born, he included Danger in among the dozen or so middle names they have. All so they can each claim, with complete veracity, “Ha! Danger is my *middle name*!…”
Their house, in Ravenna, was nicknamed Danger House. And they printed up Danger House t-shirts, in all sizes, for both men and women (and kids): basic black, with a hazard symbol on the front (an exclamation point inside a red triangle) and the words Danger House. Frequent visitors were offered a complimentary t-shirt. My Crazy (Ex-) Roommate got one; I still have mine–though since their divorce, I never wear mine around him.
By this description, you should immediately figure out who Danger is. (But just in case not, it’s Eric.)
A few weeks ago over lunch I was describing my clubgoing and lack of success in meeting chicks, so he suggested that we go out together, maybe I’d have more luck if I wasn’t such a lone wolf; he himself is trying to jumpstart his dating and sex life, since the divorce earlier this year. Then he brought up a singles club he and Dr. Poly would go to (they had an open marriage, if you recall). We were going this Saturday, but that’s been rescheduled to the club’s goth night, which is Thursday. This place isn’t a meet-and-greet, it’s geared toward action. I’ve heard of the place, even the Object Of My Obsessions had floated the idea, but I’ve never gone. Well, why not? I can’t strike out any more than I have up to this point, right? (Knowing me, however, I’ll probably find some way to do exactly that. In a week’s time I’ll be able to say.)
Ah, OK, he did cross my mind, but I wasn’t sure. The way you worded things originally left much up to speculation! Good luck on your wolf-duo excursion into the wild…my only advice is not to go in thinking you’re going to strike out. This has been how I’ve been going into work lately — expecting donors to say no — and three quota warnings later I can tell you this is an excellent strategy for failure.
BREAKING NEWS: Katherine Woodward Thomas is going through a DIVORCE. I’m currently sitting in my warm kitchen on a snow-stormy day sipping tea and listening to her free Webinar about surviving breakups! Suddenly she’s all about impermanence. The guru of “finding The One” is now talking about how people nowadays have two or three major relationships throughout the course of their lives. Her marriage lasted ten years…but now it’s over. And she (unlike our aforementioned friend) was the one championing a forever monogamous Happily Ever After.
It seems like I’m getting bombarded with messages lately from every direction to take risks, speak one’s mind, declare one’s feelings. If I were just a tad more religious (I AM definitely superstitious) I’d really make something of that. KWT’s divorce is just another shakeup of the old assumptions. File under Things You Never Expected to Happen.
As it is, I had a fascinating and vivid dream the night before last. Dan and I were apparently rehearsing some (largely improvised) roles in a space resembling my old yoga studio. We were both “in character,” and our characters were a man and a woman married to other people who were struggling with their feelings toward one another. (!) My character’s name was almost the same as mine. Dan was doing his “part” wonderfully, charismatically, delivering a witty and impassioned monologue in which his feelings for the woman (me) were, although not explicit, painfully clear. I was so enraptured by his “performance” that I forgot to play my part, and only when he paused did I murmur some weak impromptu lines in an East Coast accent about her diabetes and her approaching 25th anniversary. Utterly lame. But I had gotten distracted by the whole performance being so utterly close to home, and by the convincing passion coming from Dan. Toward the end of my dream, he broke character and explained to me, as if to help with my character’s motivation — and this is the part that gets me most — “Remember, these two are thinking about each other all the time.” I’m sure I blushed. It was like he was reading my mind.
I wonder if Dan thinks about me when I’m not around.
sry for not yet commenting – my excuse is I had to gave up my freelance job after 10 years and had a rough time – now slowly entering calmer seas again…stay tuned.
Not sure what to expect of this venture; but I’ve been going to Little Red Studio for some of their parties for the last few years (their New Year’s party is a complete trip–http://russthelibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/it-never-got-weird-enough-for-me.html). That scene also has a lot of crossover with the Seattle Erotic Arts festival and such, and I’ve noticed that the crowd is about my age (or slightly older), don’t tend to be athletic or underweight, and seemed to be skewed toward those with leather and/or domination/submission proclivities. So, I’ll just have to see what Thursday night holds. It’ll break the monotony, if nothing else.
I know what you mean about going in expecting to fail. Unfortunately, that seems to be my mindset. I’ve had too many years of no returns on my investments. In truth, I’m not sure what I’d do with any attention that came my way. I go out on the weekends expecting to be home, alone, by midnight or one. And the apartment isn’t really ready to welcome any guests. I keep telling myself I need to work on that, but I can’t seem to get motivated. Which is one reason why Danger’s suggestion makes sense: I need a jumpstart.
That’s an intriguing and eloquent dream you had. And it’s nice to dream, but don’t lose sight of the situation: he’s still married. Do you want to allow yourself to wonder if he thinks of you? I’m worried that you may be taking this Thomas character’s divorce as a sign that you should take action–which may be flirting with disaster.
Where’s my Blue?
Where’s my Blue?
Ain’t these tears in my eyes callin’ you?
Sorry to hear about your work troubles, bm3. Hope smoother sailing is ahead. Looking forward to your return.
Russ — believe me, I understand that mindset, and I do think it contributes to self-fulfilling prophecy. It does get projected outward, however subtly.
I find it somewhat amusing that our greatest resident advocate for polyamory is suddenly alarmed that I might attempt to thrust myself between a monogamous married couple! I point out Katherine’s divorce as a rather staggering instance of nothing being written in stone. She, of all people! Yet according to her, it was a natural evolution. This doesn’t mean I’m going to try to push the river.
My dreams have indeed become extraordinarily intriguing and eloquent. They tell me that I’m weary of playing roles, choking back my authentic reactions, and keeping off the proverbial grass. In the aforementioned dream of Dan, I also stole two free classes from the yoga studio by bypassing the front desk unnoticed, and in doing so felt as if I’d “stuck it to” my old boss. Earlier in the same dream I told off a donor on the phone, informing him that he had been unpardonably rude and had really hurt my feelings! These are liberties I’m not allowed in real life, but in my dream they were extremely satisfying.
Last night I dreamt I was trying to play-act the role of lesbian, making out with a truly beautiful woman with long curly hair, telling her how beautiful she was. She was a fine kisser, but at a certain point she wanted more, and I was not prepared to give her more. I finally had to tell her that, as lovely as she was, I wasn’t up for going down, so to speak. She wondered why on earth I was pretending, and wasting both our time. Why, indeed? After that I was at some sort of strange picnic, writing notes back and forth to one of the most caustic, outspoken, assertive women I know, who could give fuck-all about what other people think. I was wearing these uncomfortable high-heeled pumps (see above post, ha) that were very “feminine” and cute, but terrible to walk in. It was getting dark, and I — looking for a bathroom, as I often do in dreams — marched boldly into a staff building (Authorized Personnel Only) on this university campus, as if I belonged there. The heel broke off one pump, and the shoe fell apart. Tell me that isn’t some serious symbolism!
For some reason my parents were in this building, in a sort of banquet room. Some kind of church function had just ended. My dad tried to slip a paternalistic arm around me (as if to say: our family is harmonious) while talking to someone, and I wriggled out of his grasp. My mother came after me, full of shame-on-yous, and I unloaded an obscenity-laden tirade upon her about why I hadn’t visited them in “FIVE FUCKING YEARS!!!” Exhausted by the outburst but also exhilarated, I returned to my caustic friend outside. We were going to catch a bus, but I still needed to find a bathroom. Somehow during that quest, I lost her, and instead found a couple of my call center cohorts, an ex-con and a laid-back young brunette. It was daytime again. They got ahead of me when I took the long way around a deep ditch rather than leaping over it in one jump the way they did. I followed them to a place in the concrete by the road where you could scoot under it sideways. Once through this narrow passage, I found myself dropping into the gymnasium locker room/pool area of my old high school, which was closed and locked to outsiders. Once again I was somewhere I was technically Not Allowed. I couldn’t find my coworkers again, but I wandered around the mostly empty high school until I woke up — of course having to pee.
Really, I could write a dissertation.
Wait, back up: when did I ever *advocate* polyamory? Or anything else? That goes against my ethic. Sure, I may offer advice (unbidden), but I don’t proselytize.
If I may: it has been my experience that by force of my personality, people interpret my self-expression as some sort of generalized call to action, that if I’m an unrepentant carnivore, then I must think that everyone at large should eat steak. This is not the case: I’m all about individual choice and action. Remember that I’m an atheist to the core, yet my last two roommates were devout Catholics, and we got along just fine (at least on that count). I even hustled My Crazy (Ex-) Roommate out the door to get to mass, even though I myself don’t have much regard for Catholic ritual; but, apparently there’s a point in the service that, if she wasn’t there for it, she would have missed too much for it to “count”. So (because I was driving her), I’d tell her to get a move on, or she’d miss “the kick-off” (as I referred to it, whatever it was).
As regards my sexual politics, it goes like this: I’m not monogamous, I don’t think monogamy is a virtue, and I wouldn’t expect it (or even want it) from anyone I was in a relationship with. HOWEVER, I can respect it in others–having been raised half-Hispanic, I know damn well that in some quarters, if you look at a man’s woman the wrong way, you could be *killed*. And though monogamy isn’t my thing, that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong choice for others; I don’t expect everyone else to be just like me. I could even partner with someone who insisted on monogamy: I could accept it as a rule in a relationship, if the relationship as a whole was something I wanted. I wouldn’t have too much trouble with that–not because of my own lack of luck in getting laid in general, but rather because I’m very much a one-on-one person. One of the reasons I wasn’t very vocal in seminar was because I often get lost in a larger crowd, I prefer smaller groups. This is one of the reasons I don’t write more: I don’t have a need to please a large group, I’m satisfied just to play to a given few. Yes, I used to act in high school and college–but I’ve never been stagestruck. I’m just not addicted to the applause.
So if I’m advocating anything at all, it’s self-expression and actualization. And that means respecting the choices of others, even if they are working against their own self-interests. My own ethic in your situation would be to recognize that Dan and his wife are happy in their monogamous relationship. That is my own ethic, and shouldn’t dictate your own behavior and choices, but that’s where I’m coming from. Not that I think you’re about to go and be a homewrecker, but I’m in no way bringing polyamory into this. I’m much more worried that, despite what you keep saying about wanting to avoid obsession, that you might be doing just that, in spite of yourself. At least with that one role-playing dream.
Your more recent risk-taking dream is encouraging. All I can offer there is to say that “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” should be balanced with “Look before you leap”.
Also, there’s this:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-in-dream-smells-smoke,2873/
Wait, back up: you acted in high school?
But seriously…am I the only one who remembers long, protracted arguments trying to explain to you/Russ why polyamory may be damaging for some people? And that was one I never seemed to win!!! I’m sure it’s back somewhere in the murky depths of comment-land. But there are 81 posts (!) and I don’t feel like weeding through them all just to say “Well, then, what is THIS?”
I can’t help but wonder why you’re so worried this time. All I’m doing is being is curious and circumspect — playing “wait and see” with these variable emotions, wondering about the input coming my way — and I’ve already assured everyone I won’t get sexually involved with Dan on the sly. He’s not the type of guy who cheats on his wife, anyhow. If he were, I doubt I’d have such a high estimation of him.
It should be noted that I’ve almost never dreamt about the innumerable men with whom I’ve been almost pathologically obsessed (not until years later, anyway), perhaps because my conscious mind was chewing on them constantly. I don’t have to chew on Dan constantly with my imagination, because the relationship is already satisfying, at least to some extent, as it was with Ben. Besides, like I said, he brings me down to earth with his ordinariness (which I don’t mean in a bad way). I *have* tried to console myself with the abovementioned “science fiction”, but that’s the extent of the fictions (other than this trippy, vivid stuff coming out of my unconscious). Sometimes I do try to picture what I’ll tell him if/when I leave the call center. I would want him to know, definitively, but in the classy, hands-off manner of a “Mark”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n39jYAfn7no
You should have been more worried about me when I was having elaborate sexual fantasies about Ted, and thinking about him from morning until night — that unrepentant chippie-chaser whom I had already mentioned early on was going to be a bad bet. He gave me a world of hurt, and I saw it coming…and I still fed those fantasies all day long.
My recollection of our discussion on the matter wasn’t that you were saying that polyamory *may* be damaging for *some* people–you seemed to be arguing that polyamory was straight-up damaging. Which, of course, I would disagree with. I wouldn’t argue that it may be damaging for some–but that doesn’t hold for everyone. Once again, I think I may be too assertive for my own good.
Good to hear you’re keeping your perspective on this. I remember my continuous thinking about the Object Of My Obsessions. I don’t think I idealized her out of all proportion, but she did seem larger than life for a while there. Oddly enough, I don’t consider that to be my big mistake in the matter. If anything, I miss feeling that way. These days, I’m not feeling much of anything.
Less than an hour til Danger comes to pick me up. There’s an orientation session at 6:30pm, then a dance party later in the evening, which I’m given to understand is a hook-up scene. At this point, I have little enthusiasm for it; I’m more curious than anything. Like I say, what I really need at this point is for something to *happen*, to remind me that it’s not all hopeless (that *I’m* not hopeless). If nothing else, it sounds like a cool goth music night. Well, let’s see what happens next–
…and I am not assertive ENOUGH for my own good! Which is perhaps what much of this is about, especially all the vivid dreams. Today I got reamed out mightily by some $1000-donor-douchebag who saw fit to treat me poorly just because he could. I cried afterward, but they were tears of anger. After twenty-odd years in customer service professions, a person gets tired of responding with the utmost forbearance and politeness to such shows of disrespect bordering on verbal abuse.
I’m sure I reacted with irritation before to the suggestion that I might do something reckless, because I’ve spent so much of my life going out of my way NOT to make trouble for other people, and to leave a light footprint behind me on the earth — to the point of giving up a number of things many people wouldn’t — and I guess it made me want to snarl, “Give me some freaking credit already!!” Sometimes I think I have a far lesser sense of entitlement than the average person. The customer service professions have not helped this in any way. It’s always give way, give way, give way…lie down and roll over and show your belly! Consider that my very first love decided to throw me under the bus in favor of my trusted girlfriend, and I never once questioned their “right” to be together. Who was I to stand in the way of their “love?” But I have never felt that same sense of entitlement. My lack of entitlement acts an inhibitor now (I can only sit back and marvel at the impulsively bedhopping spouses in a Woody Allen film), but perhaps this whole experience with Danny has brought to light that deep (and wounded) feeling that my desires (and I) matter less than those of everyone else, as well as that perennial habit I’ve developed of giving way on everything. And frankly, my unconscious has had it up to here!!!
At any rate, it won’t do me any good to obsess over Dan; being brought back to the present moment each day gives me greater peace of mind. There are times I forget about him entirely. I do think I finally understand something of Kierkegaard and of faith, although my “resignation” and “movement of faith” simply lie in the thought: If not this, something better. I don’t know how to explain it to an existentialist, but I do feel as if Dan showed up in my life for a reason.
Good luck tonight! If nothing else, look at it as an educational introductory foray. Stay curious.
Hang in there (for as long as you can). Remember, in customer service, you’re not supposed to like that kind of ugly behavior, or to accept that it’s right and proper–you’re paid to roll with it. Our office manager back in telecomm would say to the phone people, you’ve got to have your armor on when you take calls. Myself, I had the highest regard for our customer service group: they were the ones taking bullets for all the asshole ideas for “improved” services and features our executives were throwing around. That’s tough work.
Incidentally, at one point the sales team leader had suggested to the office manager that, as the data entry guy (and not on the call queue), that I should be calling up customers to follow up on incomplete addresses or credit card numbers, rather than have the phone people do it. He shot that down out of hand, citing that I’m the *last* person in the company that should be talking to the customer base.
Some people *can’t* do what you’re doing.
As for as rolling over for people or not, dealing with customers isn’t the place to work that out, as you know. On the interpersonal level, I’d say you’ve come a long way, based on what you written. And of course you are entitled to be selfish now and again, even if (especially if) it means making some waves. Following someone into the kitchen and planting a good, sincere kiss may not get the results you’d hoped for–but I’m heartened that you’re capable of doing it.
Not everybody *can* do that.
About last night: I think I’ll take the details of that off-book. That whole “it never got weird enough for me” outlook is going to be put to the test.
Thanks for the acknowledgment. I may be ABLE to force myself to do it, but what I do is still brutal on a constitutionally introverted and sensitive person dealing with lifelong self-esteem issues. (It’s gotten to the point that even just four hours at a time feels like too much.) Thanks too for reminding me of what I did with Brendan. That seems so long ago, now. I haven’t done anything that gutsy in quite some time. Reading Sam my blog entry about him the night we got together might have been sort of brave, but I was pretty sure where things were going when he brought a bottle of wine.
Can’t wait to hear about your walk on the wild side.