Monday, February 26, 2007
One of those hard lessons
When I was younger, girls would pass on dating me with distressing regularity. At the time, I felt like I was missing out on something and naturally assumed that there was something wrong with my approach, or with me as a person. My insecurities ran wild, and this, combined with some other issues I was struggling with at the time, combined to turn me into a deeply depressed mess. Of course, time has shone a light on the errors of my ways and experience has taught me that the problem was not entirely mine.
I understand now why my dating life was stillborn and take full responsibility for my part in that process. I'm a slow mover, which is to say I like to get to know someone before making an emotional investment. Unfortunately, at least where my sex life has been concerned, I have to make that emotional investment before I am anywhere near getting physical. That is to say, things almost never made it to the point of getting physical. Therefore, every girl eventually walked because they believed that I wasn't interested. Inevitably they would move on and I would be left wondering what I had done wrong. After all, I hadn't even tried to do all those things that girls supposedly hated guys trying to do! What the hell was the problem?
It would take years for me to realize that not doing those things was EXACTLY what was driving them away.
Here's the essential truth about women that escaped my young, poorly educated mind for years: Women complain that every guy is constantly trying to bed them, but assume you are not interested if you are NOT constantly trying to bed them. What women really want, what they seem to need on some level, is to have their attractiveness validated in the form of male interest, but the validating nature of that interest is usually dependent on who is expressing it. For most women I've hung out with/dated/been interested in, the only form of attraction they seem to understand is that which involves a guy trying to put-penis-in-vagina-to-make-happiness-explosion. Not having any real mentors growing up, no one explained this little tidbit to me and I suffered for it. Knowing what I know now, it's difficult not to physically slap my forehead in disbelief at my own ignorance, but what can I do, I just didn't know.
It's so obvious now, 10 years and many failed attempts later. And in some ways, the entire dynamic is totally understandable. After all, most women are taught, and choose to believe, that all guys are in relationships for is the banging. This might even be a generalization that's accurate, but like all rules, there are exceptions. We're all taught that guys are nothing more than dumb fuck-machines that answer to their penises first, their consciences second, if ever. If they have a heart, or listen to it at all, they are either gay, closeted gay, or spineless. That seems to be the societal standard. Subsequently, most women seem to believe that establishing a relationship is more about witholding sex "until they're sure he cares" than it is about establishing a mutually caring, healthy, intimate interralationship.
It's the age old fallacy that sex=love. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that doesn't matter. Some women embrace this fact and become the type that jump right into sex in an effort to get down to "what everyone really wants", but there's so much wrong with that approach, I don't know where to start. In my mind, it's the equivalent of settling for a hundred Kia Sephias when what you really dream of having is a Bentley Continental GT. You may never get the Bentley, but in pursuing it you will have at the very least put yourself in a position to have something more than a fucking Kia, but then Kias are enough for some people, so there you go.
In my experience, women's complaints aren't about guys trying to get in their pants, it's about guys they aren't attracted to trying to get in their pants. If a girl is into a guy, they want him in their pants and you most definitely won't hear them complaining if he's trying to get there. In this way, the inverse of my old fears became the real concern. If a girl is into you and you are not trying to get in her pants, she will inevitably put you in the friend zone and move on to seek that sort of attention elsewhere. For many women, this is one of the only forms of validation they perceive as being available to them. For most of the women I have met, a guy being attracted to them is part of validating their perception of themselves.
At the time, realizing that this was the way of the world, and believing the perception that my thinking doomed me to failure in a world that acts this way, drove me to bitterness. As I've grown older, I find myself more accepting of the phenomena. I'm less interested than ever in being a part of the manipulation involved in exploiting this particular part of the social dynamic, but being aware and accepting it as something beyond my power to change has helped me find some harmony with it.
I had no understanding of how things worked in the real world, because I was too lost in my ideals and childish musings on the subject of love in this world. Subsequently, I missed a number of opportunities because of it. Do I have regrets? No, at least not where my behavior was concerned, because the sort of girls I typically have been attracted to tend to be insecure and usually of the promiscuous/serial-monogamous persuasion. Looking back, none of them were really looking for what I'm after, and all of them would have eventually left me brokenhearted anyway, so what seemed like a loss then was really a net gain in the long run. Better things end before you're emotionally in, than come to a messy end after a deeper attachment has developed...definitely one lesson I learned firsthand, the hard way.
"Going without" while taking the time to really know some people that were actively "going with" taught me that what they had wasn't what I wanted, and that time has shown that it was they who were ultimately starving. People who use their physicality as a means of being validated typically end up on the outside of happiness looking in. They use and get used, pile up regrets and mistakes, and have to live with all of it as they grow old. Some come to terms and make a sort of peace with it, but most seem to remain stuck in the manipulative, "get what you can" cycle until they've emptied themselves of any chance of knowing love and used their bodies up in their pursuit of momentary validation. The problem in a life without love is that everything is temporary; temporary relationships, temporary happiness, temporary satisfactions.
And that's what I'll never understand about most people. All this doing wrong by their Self in pursuit of validation only works to hamper their ability to ever truly make any progress toward real understanding of themselves. It makes no sense to me, and women continue to mystify in this regard. The moral of the story, and the fundamental point behind this post, is that a willingness to accept less than what you are looking for is a guarantee that you will end up with exactly that. Most people do, when you get right down to it, but there's nothing desirable about being like most people.
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wish i had something to contribute from the diametrical perspective, but i've never wanted a guy in my pants, nor had one i was attracted to try to get there.
I know you are probably closer to saintliness than even I can hope to ever be, but never? Never is as unpossible as always! Yes, unpossible! ;)
it's a sign of issues in itself, i promise!
Goddamned issues...why do we all have to have issues? That's it, I'm absolving the entire world of its collective issues. F#@* issues!!
I concur, f--- the issues! PS: Slade is awesome! I love her comments.
slade is a devout Christian and Republican! Despite all that, she's good people. ;)
i'm neither, really. just a good actress.
:)
Bulllllllshiiiiit!