As I sit here at work munching on granola, and drinking a coffee at 3:30PM on a Wednesday, after an interrupted afternoon workout that probably did nothing for me, it occurs to me that I haven't actually weighed myself in weeks. Weeks of fighting a cold, fighting a packed schedule, fighting the usual time spent in the office - it's a shame that stress has been found to cause weight gain; if it helped people lose weight, we'd probably all be thin as a rail by now. Rather, all those things have thrown off my schedule, and I haven't gotten to the gym nearly as much as I want to this month.
My kids gave me a FitBit for my birthday. It's lovely. They're lovely, and thoughtful. The FitBit gives me a lot of information. I'm thankful.
But it also gives me constant reminders. Persistently. And without fail, I ignore those reminders because my life doesn't really revolve around water intake, and how many steps I take every hour. I have a desk job, so it has to understand, if my goal is 8,000 steps, I'm going to do about 1,000 between 8AM and 5PM, and 7,000 from 5PM to 11PM. Maybe.
And yes, FitBit, my coffee is made with water. I'm counting it as water.
You're Unique, Just Like Everyone Else
In life, we run into people who just flat out don't get it when it comes to dating, or even just having relationships with members of the gender they'd like to date, or even just relating with other humans in general. I have many a female friend on social media that almost daily outline their dating woes, trials, and triumphs. I specify the females because:
- They're the most likely to post about their love lives, and
- They're the most likely to have disastrous experiences in their love lives
And I have to specify that perhaps I'm wrong about #2, and maybe men also have as many disastrous experiences, but we just don't hear about them. I can certainly attest. The relationship side of my life up until recently has been a rocky road that has left me with as many questions, and as much self-doubt as anything else that it has provided.
Now, to make this clear before I go any further, I understand that to women, men can be really scary. Like, fear for your life scary, even when they like you. I totally understand that our culture creates many men who fail to be rational thinkers, or be in touch with their emotions, or to look upon women with empathy, and understanding. It's terrible, and it's worthy of all women being on their most cautious, defenses up behavior. But men sometimes have their own stories, and I'd like to share one with you today.
Taking you back a long time. Thirty years, in fact, this November when this particular relationship came to an end. I broke up with her, and all things considered, it was probably the best move I could have made at the time. Regardless of my very limited relationship experience, it seemed like the right move. What happened in the ensuing year or two validated my decision.
The relationship started after my high-school graduation. She was only a few months younger, and still in high school, but we met in the summer, shortly after graduation on a night when a friend of mine, and I were heading out to go grad-party hopping. He needed to stop at his work to get his weekly pay to be able to afford our illicitly obtained beer, and gas for my car. While he was doing that, I waited in my brother's '86 Camaro, borrowed for the night, because my crappy 1980 Mitsubishi funded Dodge Challenger wasn't exactly a fun night out car, and my brother was out in his '84 Z-28 anyway, but I digress. While in the store getting his money, my friend bumped into his co-worker, told her about our plans, and invited her to join us.
Cool.
I was 17, and this was literally the first time I ever had a female peer in my car with me, for any reason whatsoever. In order to protect her identity from all no one of you reading this, we'll just call her Donna. Donna was about 5'2", lovely green eyes, long brown hair with typical frosted tips, circa 1989. She was cute, had a nice personality, but chain smoked, and that wasn't really doing it for me, so the night unfolded, we had fun, we said our good-nights, and I eventually drove both of them home; turned out they lived about two streets from each other in the same subdivision.
A week goes by, and my friend calls me to tell me that Donna told him she really liked me, and he should ask me if I would be interested in going out with her some time.
Cool. I was typically oblivious to any signals she might have been giving me. I actually kind of debated it. Despite this was the first woman who ever expressed a sincere interest in me, I'm really turned off by smoking.
Long story summed up, I eventually agreed, and we kicked off your typical high-school age relationship. It was mostly fun, nice to have a girlfriend after my high-school years of me being more awkward than a a fart in an elevator, and having the vague attention of approximately two females who were both far too shy to actually talk to me.
So Donna, and I spent a lot of time together that summer, and the relationship carried on into Autumn. There was a lot of kissing, and a lot of exploration, and fun dates, and hanging out in her basement when her parents got into some mood that they didn't want her going out. But there were a lot of underlying, nagging issues that I can only explain as challenging to my world view, and moral/ethical code.
Such as, she smoked. Big turnoff. Her family was "born again" which as far as I could tell meant they were using religion as an excuse to put up boundaries where they didn't need to be, while ignoring the complete lack of boundaries that flew in the face of any teachings of Christianity. They were selfish. Donna had two older sisters, a younger sister, and two younger brothers. Her mom would complain that she couldn't afford clothes for the kids, but somehow managed to buy a 60" rear projection TV, which at the time, those were like buying your own theater, in cost, not quality. Her father drove a scooter to work due to multiple DUI's, but her parents still got high on the back porch multiple nights every week. Her older two sisters both did something to warrant their parents "Disowning" them. A concept that made no sense to me. (Born again? Forgiveness, anyone? Especially for your own kids?) Both of her older sisters seemed nice, but struggling to make it in life, late teens, early twenties, and both on their own with no family support.
I got dragged into family arguments. It became expected that I go with them to visit her older siblings as they tried to "work out their differences." Was yelled at for "not setting a good example" for her younger siblings, which apparently as their parents, they weren't obligated to provide instead of their daughter's boyfriend?
It was a bit of a mess. After just over four months, I decided I'd probably like to open myself up to other possibilities. I was in college, I had a new job, I was meeting many new people, and I honestly just wasn't enjoying the relationship, nor did I see a long term future in it. I explained this to her, and said I think it's best we move on. She took it hard, and was upset, but alas, breakups are often upsetting, especially to the person who is being broken up with. Here is what happened next:
She told me she was pregnant. She was not.
She told me she was sleeping with my best friend. She was not.
She drove her car into a bridge, and told my best friend to demand I go see her in the hospital.
She would call my house, and leave threatening messages on my family's answering machine.
Her mom would call my house, and leave threatening messages on my family's answering machine.
She, and her mom would stalk me to places like department stores, and at work, and sometimes confront me in threatening ways.
Eight months later, she had a guy friend, and a bunch of his friends, stalk me to a house party thrown by the guys I went to Bills games with in an attempt to jump me. Fortunately my friends, and my friends parents had my back, and there were more people on my side, than on their side. The unwelcomed guests were run off quickly.
These things continued for well over a year after the breakup.
My point being, although it is less frequent, women can be just as disturbing in terms of how they handle relationships, so don't discount men's stories of harassment, abuse, and violence just because they're men.
On That Note
So I went from awkward, unpopular nerd, to stalked, and threatened. Meanwhile I had a bunch of relationships of, "I really REALLY like you, but not like that," with women. It was a great way to start off my relationship history, and left me even more insecure, and doubting my value to people. But I learned in time, that's just how it is, and I need to have patience with myself, more than patience with others. In those times when you've stopped worrying about it, and start focusing on other things, amazing people come into your life. When you're forcing it, less than amazing people come into your life.
Just my two-cents of my old age wisdom. Picture me peeling an apple and eating slices off the blade of my pocket knife while sitting in a porch rocker while telling you this. It might make more of an impact.
A straw hat, and denim overalls are also nice additions.
Welcome to Halloween
I'm late in finishing this. Halloween is... well, today. I have no costume, but the weather forecast is shit for the rest of this week, so I won't be out frolicking with Trick-or-Treaters as I had hoped. This year marks, literally, the first time I've lived somewhere where there is a potential for trick-or-treaters visiting. It's kind of exciting. I think I want to sit on the porch and take a lot of cool costume photos. 🙂
Except everyone will probably be in ponchos, and soaking wet....