THINGS THAT I THINK THAT I AM THINKING ABOUT

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN YOURSELF?


That is where I believe the answer primarily lies when it comes to finding a partner for a loveship™ (trademark Lovebabz!). I don’t think a loveship is about finding someone who ‘completes you’ as awesome as that sounds. I still think of that as an ego-centric approach to love, because it is means that you are consumed by your own needs and desires. That is selfishness at its highest, and partially explains why there is such a market for relationship advice.




I saw this video last week and it is part of what inspired me to address the topic of why there seems to be such a big problem in the loveship arena between men and women. Love, sometimes has you go out on a dare once you have reached the point where you have prepared as best you can, accumulated all the relevant information and then, decided that you were as ready as you can be. “Here… goes… something…” the little girl says in a halting voice that is tinged with fear as she prepares to go down her first ski jump. And the exhilaration she feels after she goes downhill is priceless! What an experience!!


This is the kind of lesson that I think a few of the folks I have dated maybe could have used… I don’t know. I mean, why would you go all the way to the top if you did not want to ski back down? Why do you say that you want a special love in your life if you do not want to be open to love when the possibility arrives in your life?


FACING YOUR FEARS


After I received my diagnosis and decided that I was better off getting my life together on my own, it wasn’t because I was disillusioned by women or anything like that. Though it was disappointing how little support and understanding I got from Mookie Dee, what did sink in and open up scars was the reason she gave for becoming so distant from me.


When we had our ‘exit interview’ she said that she felt that she needed to look out for her and her daughter and that being in love simply was not that important to her. I understood that she was losing her job and I was having my struggles but man, with love not being important to her, the outcome of our relationship left a bad taste in my mouth.


A phrase that is part of my internal lexicon is one I got from former Notre Dame football coach Bob Davie. “We knew the environment,” which can only be interpreted one way that simply, you knew already what you were getting into. But I also think that the words imply that you were also prepared to deal with whatever it was that you were about to face. There is also the context to consider. He said this to reporters after a very bad loss to the University of Miami, back when ‘the U’ was making its reputation. Someone must have asked him about whether or not the team was prepared for the game and the raucousness of the crowd at the Orange Bowl, where the University of Miami played their home games back then. Another problem that causes so much disillusionment among women is that they go into relationships without fully preparing themselves for all or as many of the possible outcomes that they may encounter.


Some women are like my friend the Fly Skimmie, smart, grounded, and accomplished. I know she is self-made, and took full advantage of as many opportunities as her life offered to her. But despite being a super cool person, with outstanding skills as a homemaker, kind and thoughtful, she is still hopelessly single. Though we don’t keep in touch like all that, she has been a part of me long enough for me to pick up on how that is going for her. And like a lot of professional women, she has been through the same kind of disappointment that Silva described when she tried but ultimately couldn’t, spin her ‘dating herself’ into a positive thing.


I don’t try to be an expert on relationships… but I do share what I know from my experiences. The reason that I knew that for a woman of her quality to resign herself to treating herself as she would like to be treated is a sign that she has been defeated, if not surrendered, to the implacable oppression that accompanies her loneliness. Not only is the picture book romance from her youthful fantasies not going to occur, but she may not even find a cat to be an acceptable stand-in for her dream husband.


What I do get is that it is a bitter pill to be alone when you feel like you have done all the ‘right’ things to make yourself a good catch. But the environment has changed and many women haven’t changed with it. I read a article in Newsweek about how the paradigm has shifted and the expectations of young women in college were different and for some it was understood that they could expect be the primary wage-earner in their marriage. I mention that because it is simply a sign that not only are roles changing but outlooks on what kind of relationships will be available to women when they make themselves available for a relationship.


Mookie Dee did not prioritize love in her life… which was news to me because as I have said in these pages (somewhere!) before, when I enter a relationship it is with an eye to what will be the end of it. This is why I don’t feel so bad about the early burglary years I spent in the ‘Run ‘n Shoot’. Because I did communicate clearly and in no uncertain terms what I was about to potential ‘notches’. But this was not a philosophy that I used just to mollify my internal conscious. Letting someone know what they were dealing with and getting into is something that is a part of my practice in more hopeful and substantial relationships.