Saturday, July 12, 2014

No Sex in the City: Part 1

  In a city of 8 million-plus, people (who don't live in New York City) think it should be easy to find someone.  I get whistled at, hollered at, you know, the usual bull from men old enough to be my Father.  Or from men who don't actually mean anything by it, they're just bored.  Or men who just want to get in and out of your pants, both being fast and without substance.
Every time I go visit my family in North Carolina and arrive man-less my Aunt says to me, "Don't they have any men up there in New York?!  I love my Aunt but this question annoys the crap out of me.  Not only for obvious reasons but because our family is epically bad at relationships.  So, I've never understood why she has always been so eager for me to get into one.  My late Father would always say to me, "Don't listen to them Babe.  Misery loves company." My Father was a smart man.  Because the truth of this statement gets more obvious with each passing year.
But it gets to me.  I was talking to my Blogger friend Sarah, who's blog is hilarious, about her latest dating adventures and my lack thereof.  Honestly, the whole thing started when I asked her, "Why does Senior People Dating keep sending me emails?" You see, they started sending me emails on my birthday this year.  You guys, I'm young.  Like way way too young for that website. I have to tell you that getting emails from a site my Mother should be on didn't boost my confidence either.
Especially since lately I've been feeling a shift in my heart, spirit, or whatever.  I've never been one to ask God about when I'm getting married or where my husband is, until lately.  There will be more on why in Part 2, but I've been thinking about it lately.  What is my role in the man repellent I am clearly spraying on myself everyday?
  I think that it all comes down to expectations and the personal issues and misconceptions we each have about ourselves and others.  Women want to be understood in a way only God can know you.  Like, we want our men to get us in this way so deep they can read our minds.  Well, they freaking can't read our minds!  And honestly, if they could, we wouldn't actually want them in there all the time because it gets kind of crazy in there.  
But then on the flip-side so many men want this Gisele Bundchen looking, Victoria's Secret wearing, french maid, who is brilliant and speaks 20 languages.  She must come with zero issues and never have had any baggage but must be deep in this way that only actually comes from a person who has been through the rough stuff of life.
I think it is these expectations that leads us to suffer bloodshed, tears and soul-crushing heartbreak. Sarah's blog about her online dating adventures had a post about a man whose profile was so bad, I was rendered speechless.  Until I wasn't.
I'm Not a Fat Girl But....
I'm processing all of this and wondering what happened?  I look back and I don't know that we have ever had a healthy understanding of what true-love, life-long companionship and partnership are.  Yes, Jesus gives us tools but honestly I sometimes wish God had allowed him to get married.  We really need that picture laid out for us explicitly.  Not just in a allegorical way or Him leaving it up to us to interpret the scriptures and try to piece it all together between, Revelation, Galatians and Philippians.
I don't have any answers right now.  I'm not asking for Bible verses on the subject, I know those.  This is me, doing my processing through my writing.  I may not figure it out even on a small level and that'll be whatever it's going to be.  But I'm just hoping that by the end I'm a little less afraid of what could one day be ahead and that I can walk into the unknown okay with not knowing as much as I think I should know.  Everyday is a day to learn, everything is a learning process.  You don't heal in one day and you don't know a third of the answers by the end of your life.  But, "when you know better, you do better" - Maya Angelou