The Gurly Life

At long last, another breakthrough

I know you've all been wondering: where have those posts gone, the ones where I have some epiphany about myself, and then write about it like I have no sense of decency?

After years of Landmark Education and PAX Programs and various other personal growth stuff, I think I sorted through most of the shittiest stuff. I don't mean to suggest I couldn't use some improvements, the remodeling never really ends, but the focus has shifted from lifting barriers to building skills that I either don't have, or want to improve.

Naturally, as I build skills, I come across a few barriers. After all, if I didn't have the barriers, I'd already have the skills, right?

So here's a really juicy one. I don't like to admit this one because it makes me look very bad, and I don't like to look very bad - just bad enough to be interesting. This has been brewing for a few weeks, and it's probably rambly.

As you know, I have specifically been doing a lot of work in the relationships realm. My goal is to (one day while I'm still young enough to chew my own food) be in a relationship that is empowering and fulfilling. Much of the work I've done in the last few years has been to that goal. In the recent past, my focus has shifted away from my own individual stuff to partnership. I've been looking at what partnership skills do I need, would I like to have, and so on, especially since partnership skills translate really well in every area of life. I figured even if I have no romantic partnership, I still have friends, family, work, neighbors, and so on. Can't hurt, right?

Of course, though, the focus is relationships.

Imagine if you will the setting: it is early evening in Los Feliz, I am going for a brisk walk in the neighborhood, enjoying nature and listening to music on my iPod. I'm feelin' pretty special, with all my partnership skills, and I'm all, check me out I'm totally fabulous, that's me, yup, yup (nevermind that I'm still single, don't use facts to confuse the issues, please, you know how I hate that).

I'm bouncing along thinking about how great I am (this is always a red flag) and how superior I am to all those other women, poor dears, who are actually in relationships that work, and it suddenly hits me, like a turd between the eyes: that I'm often calibrating who I am in order to catch the right guy (not just any guy, mind you, the right one, whatever the heck that means). I suddenly noticed how I watch myself when I interact with men to see if I'm doing it right. And really, what it comes down to is that I haven't been doing all this personal growth stuff to be a better person, but to manipulate the right guy, when I find him, into being with me, because I'm so awesome. Urgh.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently sleazy about proactively looking for a partner -- it's just that there was something, I don't know, weaselly about how I've been doing it. It's hard to explain, though as you read this you might be thinking, yeah I see it too, but the place I was standing to set my intention was a crappy place. It was like putting ice cream on poo and trying to sell it like a delicious banana split. No, that's not poo, it's chocolate. NOT delicious.

So I walked along a bit more, and thought to myself, what if I do all that I'm doing for no reason at all, just because that's who I am and being a good person is important to me? What a fucking idea!

But that's not all. What also became evident is why I have in the past (thankfully not anymore) been a magnet for married guys. It's a mechanism that I had sort of identified, it had to do with how I engage with men (obviously!), but I hadn't seen the mechanism's agenda. And while I was on my walk, I saw it, and recoiled at the ugliness of it all. Thankfully, it was night, no one could see the grimace on my face, or the gagging. What causes that shift in who I'm being that attracts married men is a voice in my head that says that I want that man to risk something for me, because that means I'm worth something.

What. The fuck. Is that?????

Until I saw that, the best I could is notice when a married guy would start being interested, and bring down the shutters. Not a very empowering defense mechanism, by the way, I don't recommend it. Now I can see it before it even begins. I can hear the voice in my head like I'm some schizo patient off her meds, and I can feel my body shift and my face take on a different expression, it's really weird and creepy. Sooo gross.

All this I saw several weeks before I even left for vacation. I think it was some time in March or April. The first thing that happened was that the emotional charge in the realm of relationships fell away. All of a sudden, I wasn't emotionally invested in getting a relationship. For several weeks, I just didn't care at all about this part of my life. At. All. I forgot to get online to check my profile for weeks at a time, and when I did remember and found no messages from anyone, I'd think, meh, I have to work on my profile anyway, whatever.

Since then I have been noticing immediately when "the married man bomb" activates and have been easily able to disarm it. Over time it is activating less and less and has almost disappeared.

So ... yikes, right?

Now that I've settled, and the married guy issue is disappearing, I'm back doing my work on partnership, and still looking for an awesome guy, sans frustration and disappointment. Thus far, no flopping between white-knuckling it and giving up in resignation.

Now I can get back to the business of playing with my camera, preparing my Guide to Egypt: A Pictorial Representation, and standing on my head for 5 minutes at a time.

Life is good.

Three weddings and a funeral

Yeah. MY funeral.

Ok, I exaggerate, I admit it. But since there is no pictorial representation (stop pressuring me!!!), I have to get creative. More pictorial representations will come soon, but for now there are words, words, WORDS!

As I recently mentioned, I have had a lot going on. A lot. So here's a recap of what went on this weekend.

1. Dating and such, i.e., 3 weddings

A few months ago I made the decision not to blog about specific dates and men much because having the blog as a background made it more interesting for me to be on bad dates than on good ones. Be careful what you ask for and all that.

I am still doing lots of personal growth work in this area, it just never seems to end. That I can talk about in more detail.

To the point: this weekend I went on 3 dates with 3 different men. One of these guys was Bob, who I've mentioned before. And yes, he's aware of my other dates and being a very cool and generous guy he thinks it's great that I date, thankyouverymuch.

All three men are terrific, and it is the first time in a long time (ever?) that I'm not operating from scarcity. The point being that I recently managed to dislodge yet another crummy belief about me and relationships that had been stuck like a barnacle on the ass of my fabulousness. I know, vivid, right?

The barnacle was that single men my age are not interested in me (and the flip side of that, which is that only unavailable men are interested). What strikes me about this little nugget of joy is that it is VERY specific. Mmh. I have been forced to give up the more generic "men are not interested in me" because it so obviously isn't true as to be bordering on insanity. So I went more specific, this way I got to keep it. Sweet.

I was doing an exercise from Calling In The One (see the What I'm Reading list in the right panel), and I had to look at what I get out of keeping certain beliefs, and being single. This is not the first time I have looked at this question, but I haven't looked at it in a significant amount of time. I've uncovered all kinds of crap since, so it's not too surprising that the inquiry was almost a new one for me. What I saw was that I get to be safe. Because as much as it frustrates me to be constantly circled by unavailable men, and sometimes pains me, there is really no chance that I will really, truly put myself at risk with any of them. Even if I want to (or say that I want to, because really, I don't), they make sure I get shut down. So then I'm all mopey and hurt, but safe.

Even if I find a great guy, I soon find something about him that I cannot possibly put up with so I can continue to complain about how there are no great guys, and the great guys don't like me, blah blah blah. And on it goes.

It's very likely that I've seen this before, and shared it before, but this time it hit me like a ton of bricks. I proceeded to call myself a lot of names, including a fucking liar. Don't worry, it wasn't one of those woe is me kind of things. It was like looking for my keys for hours and they were on the table the whole time, in plain sight, and I wasted all this time being blind. Like that.

I also noticed I do something sneaky to men who are available: just as we get close and all is going well, I drop-kick them. It's not a very obvious thing, because I'm somewhat subtle about it, but that's what I do. That way, I get to push them away first and I get to be right about how I'm not important or unwanted or unlovable, or whatever the self-flagellation of the moment is.

But it's not over. I then got to see how when I'm found out, I have an overwhelming sense that I need to walk from this relationship. I make up excuses like, who is this person to point out that I do such and such? How dare they? Pshaw! What is underneath this is that I'm very invested in looking good and doing it right, and I'm unwilling to be human and imperfect, i.e., look bad. In other words, I'm unwilling to be vulnerable. So rather than simply address the issue, I walk.

Wow, right? I mean, what a fucking racket. I mean, this is like trying to surf the entire internet - it can't be done, you don't get to the end of the internet. You just keep finding interesting stuff and thank goodness for the internet.

And all of a sudden, I get more interest from single and available men in one week than I've had for the past 7 years (I exaggerate, but really, not that much - ask Deirdre, she'll confirm).

We shall see what comes of this.

As an aside, I seem to have an unusual number of people in my life who have no qualms telling me when I'm full of shit and/or when I'm being a jerk. You know who you are. And I want to take this opportunity to tell you that YOU ROCK!! I have very few friends who enable me, thank goodness, they mostly call me on my shit all the time and force me to grow, as uncomfortable as that may be for me.

2. An event, i.e., the funeral

Not really a funeral, not even close. On Saturday I helped out at the Brown Club of Southern California's annual GaLA Bruno, which is our annual membership drive. We had an awesome event, at the home of Matt Miller '83 and his wife Jody Miller. Matt is the host of Left Right And Center on KCRW, one of our local public radios.

We even had a string quartet!

This was the view from their house. I know, right??

Matt said something very interesting: that we can't move forward in politics because special interests on both sides pressure the politicians not to talk about certain things. Thus, the dialog is not honest and open. No open dialogue, no progress. I'm curious to know what these things are that are not being discussed.

A great event, but the temperatures finally dropped (well it IS November, for heaven's sake) so I was freezing for about 5 hours. My feet were so cold I was in pain. I know that in the grand scheme of things it was not very cold. Don't judge me. Needless to say, I was dead at the end of the day - get it? dead? funeral? ha ha. On Sunday I worked out and met a friend for coffee, then basically went back to bed. Och. I slept a lot. And now I'm fine.

The end [curtsies].

Oh God!

No, no, seriously, I am grace personified. But the electric slide will never be the same.