Monday, April 13, 2009

THEORY AND PRACTICE

PRELUDE

Watching a repeat of 'The Millionaire Matchmaker' this past Sunday, was an example of someone asking for what they want, then when they get it, they find that it wasn't as great an idea as they originally thought it would be.

The client, 'Sex Toy Dave', a nerd from Boston who came to El-Ay, and made his loot dealing in the industry, came to the Patti (the Matchmaker) last season to help him find him a wife.

Part of the process is her going to his place, checking him out as well as interviewing girls. She had already gone thru his place and his expectations once, and though that date didn't lead to anything, he was back, to try again.

About his 'wants' ... he wanted someone who understood that he was trying to live a lifestyle that was 'in-tune' with the industry ... pseudo swinger. The problem with that, is that he is really a nerd from Boston, and while he is saying he want this 'open' woman to be his partner, he also wants her to be smart, and potentially a good housewife and mother. R-r-r-ight. Anywho, Patti goes out and finds this BEE-yoootiful Asian lass, who talks all the talk he SAID he wanted in a girl.

They had two dates. The first one went 'awkwardly well'. She had all the surface things, plus was 'down' for the Hugh Hefner kind of stuff. The second date, where she was more aggressive, was just 'awkward'. Though she was all of what he asked for, he found out what we know in the hood as 'making a 'ho' into a housewife'. That is something that can't be done. 'Sex Toy Dave' had to find that out the hard way. I think that is part of what happens when you go from one end of the spectrum to the other. From 'loser' to 'chooser'.

He asked for his school boy fantasy, and discovered that what played well in his dreams, did not seem as neat in reality. Nothing was 'wrong', but Dave saw that his 'fantasy' did not really translate well into 'reality'. Be careful what you ask for, you just may get it!

Dave found himself stuck in 'the gap', lost in the 'emotional friction' of his hopes and intentions. He couldn't reconcile being with the mother of his children, as he 'played' with others. It was as if the realization of his fantasy wasn't as cool as he thought.

THEORY AND PRACTICE

I don't know where I picked that up from ... but I have used it, to describe what I call as the problem that you have when you find yourself lost in the gap between your desires and the reality of where ever you are. You are experiencing a problem between 'theory and practice'.

Though it can't be said enough how ill-advised going back to a person you broke up from, I thought because I hadn't ever done it, I couldn't 'know' it. At the time I thought of it, I was still wishing me and Tee Jay could find our way back to one another. For a lot of reasons, it made sense ... in fact, it STILL makes sense, for different reasons than it did when I came up with the idea.

Doing the post mortem to my first attempt to 're-date' Mookie, I find myself going back to the exit interview, and coming back to the SAME REASONS that I hadn't tried it before I was in my mid-thirties. Women can get stuck in a relationship vacuum, where they only see things from 'what they want' and often that 'want' isn't based on 'what they have to offer'.

What she think she can get, she doesn't have what it takes to 'have'. 'Unrealistic', comes to mind when I think of our conversations, and it was stuff that had she let me know in the early stages of our relationship, we could have had a different dynamic, or not had bothered each other at all.

Eh, I wasn't too surprised. It was after all, part of why she didn't make the cut the FIRST time. But what is driving me to think that this is a good idea, is that whatever crap I brought to 'us' the first time, I can solve for. Unfortunately, part of that 'vacuum thinking', she forgot the crap to HER, in the equation.

Mookie has 'opted out' of relationships. She says that being married or in a relationship isn't that important to her, for sure not what it is to me. Fine, but since I told her that AT THE BEGINNING that I thought that a relationship was key to my happiness, you'd have thought she could have dropped that in or near the beginning of our relationship.

Still, I felt good about myself. Not only wasn't it my fault, but there weren't any of 'the usual suspects' that caused other relationships to fail. So I learned new things about love, new things about myself. I had wanted to see how far I could go in a relationship, because that was one of the things that I thought was something I had no problem doing. But I learned with Tee Jay, that I was still a little 'shy' to push myself beyond the hurt and pain, into agony and resignation.

NEXT: THE ONE WHO STARTED IT ALL

4 comments:

Beth said...

I have never heard of that show. Sounds like a trip.

Senorita said...

I remember Sex Toy Dave. What a
TOOL. Johanna was just what he ordered, and he couldn't handle her. He needs a lot of luck because a classy woman wouldn't seriously date a man who does pole tricks and sells dildos.

This entry reminds me of a song by Ludacris: " Can't turn a ho into a housewife, hos don't act right, hos on a mission, hos on a crackpipe."

Her Side said...

omg. I saw the Sex Toy Dave episode. He was the absolute perfect example of a person with unreasonable wants that don't translate well in practice.

At some point, we all suffered this disease - from the moment we had our first crush and fantasized about the kind of mate we wanted.

We build a fantasy on paper - or on a computer like Weird Science. We find somebody who just about hits the target and find out we were aiming for the wrong thing.

I find that it's a natural part of the learning process when it comes to relationships. Fortunately, some of us dropped the childhood fantasy at an appropriate time. Poor Dave got stuck in adolescence for decades. LOL

Her Side said...

Oh. I had to come back and ask this:

You notice how many men on that show have totally unreasonable expectations? They all want a "perfect 10" who will offer endless sex, fantastic fun, eternal youth, a Harvard education, pop-out babies, keep the house, have no bad habits, and host cool parties.

Half those guys asking for perfection look like hopeless dorks, lack an attractive personality, and coast on their net worth.

Not only is such a woman terribly hard to find (if at all), but you bring up the very important question: "What do you have to offer that would make such a woman wanna stick around??"