Dr. Phil is lying. You don’t teach people how to treat you, because most of us were not raised by wolves and therefore we do know how to properly treat each other.
I was a self-appointed teacher for a long time.
When someone did something off, or wrong, or lacking, I would explain/lecture/harangue and just generally need to talk it out. To fix the offender. To set him (and it was always a him – I don’t bother trying to fix my girl friends or my sisters) straight. To teach him how to treat me.
How condescending. I assumed that he didn’t know how to treat me correctly and that I could teach him.
Of course he knew how to behave properly. He just didn’t. No amount of teaching can fix that.
(I say “he” but there is a whole string of he’s.)
I suspect that attempting to teach someone how to treat you actually teaches them that you don’t know how to treat yourself.
Let’s be clear: I am not talking about walking away or going thermonuclear every time someone accidentally slights you or steps over a line. Absolutely have boundaries. Just don’t appoint yourself the border guard and the rehab/vocational counsellor.
I have a friend, Z. He and I used to be A Thing. When we were A Thing, he drove me off the freaking edge. He’d do something that upset me, I’d explain to him in heated detail what was wrong, and all the multiple, minute and cosmic ways he was wrong, and he’d say “okay.”
Bastard. Just. Refused. To. Engage.
(Hi sweetie. I really do love you and dinner is still on and on you. But you were a gawdawful boyfriend.)
And that – frankly – was awful and the wrong of him to do. Because he really was doing shit wrong. If he wanted to be with me, then he really should have apologized and changed his ways. But he wasn’t sorry and he wasn’t going to change his ways and let’s be honest, he didn’t really want to be with me, either.
So he wasn’t going to deal with my reaction to any of these things. I kept trying to believe he didn’t know how to behave properly with me; he did. He just didn’t want to. All my efforts to fix would be for naught.
His “ok” was simply the acknowledgement of reality. This is the way he was; I could accept it or not but there was no “fixing” it.
So that’s one reason not to fix. It is fruitless.
Here’s another reason: it is controlling and fantastic.
It means you’re treating a person like a lump of clay or a block of marble whence, Michaelangelo-like, you chip your David.
It means you have a fantasy of what this person/relationship should be and are trying to train the real live person to be your fantasy.
It means you think you have the inside track on proper behaviour and, mama-like, can train someone.
It means that you’re signing up to be the teacher.
It means you’re signing up to be the project manager.
I don’t want to be the teacher, project manager or the mother. I am already those things in every other sphere of my life. I want to be the lover.
And - my sisters, I’m talking to you – would you find it hot if your lover:
Wanted to fix you, teach you, sculpt you, make you into a better person and his fantasy?
I would be fucking appalled and think ‘this guy is a control-freak with Woman Issues’ and run far, far away.
Or try to fix him.
And yet…I think women have been trained to be The Teacher in relationships. To see potential. To kiss frogs. To be the catalyst and path to princedom.
No wonder we have this apparent un-match going on in relationships where women want to commit and work on relationships and fix their partner and men resist commitment and relationships and especially relationships that require work. Who really wants to be reminded of all their flaws and the fixes required?
(except I’m not 100% buying that bill of goods. My male friends don’t seem to have any issues committing or any abiding fear of relationships. Even Z, the batty-making one referenced above, now yearns for a deep, intimate, committed relationship.)
Remember my freak outs attempts to educate Z that were followed by his “okay” that Was Not Okay?
Recently, I freaked out on a different friend of mine and I was totally in the wrong. His response?
“ok.”
And this time, that was the right thing to do.
He didn’t try to teach me how to behave. There was a line that I crossed and he wasn’t going there with me. He wasn’t going to bother to explain why I was wrong; how I should have behaved; how best to make it up to him; or reward me for good behaviour and punish me for bad. I was simply wrong. It was my responsibility to see it, or not.
I saw it. Immediately.
(OMG how I saw it. Insert cringe here.)
And I did my best to fix it, right away, and will most likely not do that again.
(Most likely. Not 100% guaranteed. Perfection is not my thing.)
You don’t teach people how to treat you. You simply know how you must be treated and accept nothing else. You trust that the people in your life can fix themselves, course-correct, and that they weren’t raised by wolves.
I believe there are any number of people who could be your lover and your love. Sometimes timing tells you who to love or who not to love. Sometimes love is a decision and you love the one you’re with. Although I don’t entirely unbelieve in soul-mates, I don’t think there is only The One.
And yet.
There was a man. A man I never forgot.
We dated years and years ago. It was love. It was terrible timing. He was the last man I dated before I embarked on a married-with-kids life with someone else.
We met again. When I hugged him, he smelled the same. He smelled good. He still wears the same cologne and in an olefactory second my life kaleidoscoped: for years, every Christmas, I bought that cologne - his cologne – for someone else. Unconsciously. I didn’t even know I was doing it until I smelled him, again.
I wanted X to smell like Y.
I wanted X to be Y.
I knew this already. Even while enmeshed in my family life, I googled him. I checked for him on Facebook. I asked mutual friends about him. I heard he was married and living in the same neighbourhood as me.
After my split, I thought about him a lot.
I thought about our first date – the most romantic date of my life – and our kisses – the best of my life – and how my three page, 100 item list of Things I Want in a Partner was, essentially, a portrait of him.
I thought about all the little but grand ways he tried to make my life easier, when we were together – a really, trying, exhausting time of three jobs and pending grad school – and how I have always wanted that kind of support. How I am looking for it, still.
I was having coffee with a friend, who said, oh guess who I saw yesterday? And I said Y.
Neither of us had seen him for years. She said, how could you possibly know that? I said, because I’ve been thinking about him. I said, is he still married? Is he single? If he’s single, I’m going to marry him.
She said, he’s single. And he asked about you.
I said, give me his phone number.
We went for a drink, the three of us. To catch up. The two of us – Y and I -sat close, talked all night, talked with our hands and our hands landed on each others arms and wrists and touch was part of the conversation and our mutual friend sighed Why am I here? and texted friends all night.
And I thought: it is not just me. It is him, too. It is still here. It is here, right now, with us, and of us.
I told him everything – every detail of the last two handfuls of years – except the thing I most wanted to say. I wanted to tell him something – the truth.
That I was sorry. That I needed to say I was sorry.
That he had offered me everything I wanted and I was unable to accept it.
That I didn’t know what to do with his competence because I don’t know what to do when a man doesn’t need me.
That certainty, that surety, that he was for me and I was for him, for always: I was shaken. I couldn’t shake it. Despite the manifestly unshaky evidence -nothing - that it was only me feeling this way.
A year passed. I left an unprepared, rambling mess of a voicemail.
Two weeks later, he called me. He was tired. I could hear it in his voice.
We met. We had a raw conversation. We opened Pandora’s box and told the brave truth about who we were, to each other, then. And now, even though now was not to be, because he was not free to love me.
That hope, like water, was hard to contain in my porous membrane and it spilled all over the place. At a lunchy-brainstorm-afternoon-with-kids, I poured out my hopeful, storytelling heart to Danielle LaPorte, who doesn’t believe in meant-to-be, and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and made me promise to invite her to our wedding. She loves weddings. (I don’t.)
But he had a life, and someone, and so of course it was not to be. It was all my own fantasy.
What???? What about that little rock of certainty, my little nugget of knowledge that we were supposed to be together? Where do I go from here?
Nowhere. I walked away from my imaginary future, but not really. I hoped. I wished. I wrestled with my truth and wondered: what do I do with my certainty that he was The One?
I go back to where I started, to what I really know when I scrape back the stories: that there is no One. No pre-destined. No meant to be.
Like this:
We’re not from the same tribe, are we?
Feline. Bear.
Fire. Earth.
Arrow. Tree.
Finally, I revel in that.
We are choice.
Precise and free in the choosing.
Not slotted, or arranged, or karmic.
Not mated, or introduced.
Not even necessary.
Rather: Essential, my Love.
Rather: Chosen, my Love.
With select scars and stories,
full of rise and honey and dreams.
Inevitably I fly high into romance on the wings of butterflies.
Yet I plot – and make – cautious exits well-marked by righteousness and reason. I watch, wait, evaluate and think my way through break-ups.
********
Butterflies.
I question butterflies. I like them. They don’t happen to me a lot. What’s that all about?
Romance novels and chick flicks and Disney movies and even Isabel Allende (I just made fervent sign of the cross over my literate, magic-loving heart and any time I mention her name, you should do the same) make it seem like love is lightning bolt.
Or a flock of butterflies.
- Which is why, when they happen to me, I get very stupid. I hook into a myth that tells me This Is IT.
- Which is also why – beyond the obvious sexism of the cruder versions – I had a profoundly emotional reaction to the Seduction Community. I felt like PUAs were teaching men how to game the myth – and that this was wildly unfair. Society makes good and sure most women get socialized into thinking that butterflies are a precursor to The Big Love That Was Meant To Be – and to embrace them. Then PUAs come along and tell guys how to induce the butterflies, to hook into the myth – and therefore the romanticized decision-making that accompanies the invoking of that myth – without actually delivering the outcome the myth promises. So women making decisions based on romance and myth and butterflies are malleable – and easily screwed*, both by PUAs and our own stories.
- Because they are our own stories. Women write them, tell them, buy them.
So. Back to butterflies. In my most recent romance – with a very sweet man I actually called “my boyfriend” (very rare occurrence) AND introduced to my friends (very, very rare occurrence) – we both worried that we lacked butterflies.
What did that mean? What did it our future hold if the beginning lacked butterflies? We certainly didn’t lack for hot sex (oh yeah), great conversation and easy company. But the stomach-flips? Nope.
Let’s flip that.
When we were little, my sister was a word-scrambler. At Disneyland, she saw the monorail, and shrieked “Look, look the runamail!”
She got excited by butterflies and called them “flutterbys”.
I know, I know. They’re all toxic and commitment phobic.
I’m not buying that. Most of us – men and women – fall in love and get married** at some point in our lives, which suggests to me that most of us – men and women – get to a wanting-love place and find a person with whom to share that place.
I don’t think the problem is men. I think the problem is my screening process and the fact that I was trying to force my reality to match fantasy.
Fantasy is good. Excellent. Delicious.
It is simply not a great place from which to launch life-altering decisions.
***************
The fantasy:
the one. meant to be. predestined. love at first sight. butterflies.
that attraction means something more than “I’m attracted to you”
There is no soul mate. I know, this is particularly hard news to take because you are longing for The One 24-7. But, guess what, The One is The One because you say he/she is. And that’s way more liberating and empowering than anything preordained or supposedly destined.
Choice. Chosen. Decided, deciding, every day.
Selection.
***********
A word that keeps coming up in my hypnotherapy sessions is selection. I’m actually more passive than active with romantic selection (hence: not the right kinds of men). I often reward persistence. I have been moved by the force of another’s (apparent) desire for me. I have valued The Relationship and The Relationship Products instead of weighing the worth of the person in front of me. I have made decisions based on emotion. I almost always enter into romance hastily, and on pure emotion. I have made decisions based on potential. I have bought a LOT of fixer-uppers and then, once, fully moved in and committed to the renovation, realized: I can’t live like this.
I have lied to myself. I have spent a lot of time wishing and a-hoping and a-praying that something wasn’t true.
Like my Very Bad Lying Man.
On our first date, he said and signalled things that were food to a hungry soul. He showed he was attracted to me. He made me laugh. He was clear from the drop that he knew what he wanted and what he wanted was me. He walked me to my car and noticed my headlights weren’t bright enough and said he’d help me switch them out for shinier ones. Who doesn’t want more shine? He kissed me passionately and well. He called me to make sure I arrived home safely. I felt desired, respected and protected.
Heady stuff.
And that sweet stuff, even for the decidedly unsweet person, is easy to do (and fake) on a first date: a few well-chosen words, touches on the arm and the small of the back, holding doors open, offer to help solve a problem, a steamy kiss, a quick and caring call.
Butterflies.
*******
“I want something, and you’re here” is not selection.
And so I return to my sister’s childhood wisdom and name butterflies for what they are: pretty, fleeting, flitting flutterbys.
*Please note that I don’t have any issue with the carnal connotation of “screwing”. Really and truly. In fact, I like that sort of thing. I just don’t like when we lie and trick and bullshit our way into people’s affections and elicit implicit expectations in order to get laid.
**using “married” and “marriage” as a short-hand for deep, loving, intimate committed relationship. Marriage can be a symptom of such a thing or a condition thereof. But not always.
But it does seem to me that the conspicuous markers of extreme masculinity – displays of power and dominance – are style without substance unless accompanied by an ethic of care and protection.
Recently, I’ve had experiences with men who cultivate the Alpha male style without being grounded in the Alpha male responsibilities.
They come at me all bossy and dominant – which, admittedly, sometimes I like (in small doses in very particular circumstances) – and expect to be respected as The Leader without offering the benefits of being led.
It’s a caricature of adult masculinity.
I wish our culture had more roles and nuances and courses of expression and leadership outside of “alpha” to offer our men.
For the last two hours, I sat in this chair and soaked up parts I – XXXII (and there are ten more chapters!) of her real-life love. I feel like a thirteen year old who just discovered Harlequin Romances under her mother’s bed.
(That really happened. After I discovered them, I started swiping them, hiding them under my bed until I was finished them, and then returning them to their rightful place under her bed.)
I didn’t realize I was carrying around this bruise.
The last two months, I’ve been Figuring Things Out and unlearning the grooves.
You know the grooves in a record? Where the needle just goes, easily, effortlessly?
I’m avoiding those. I’m carving new lines to follow.
It was all pretty rational. I started watching behaviour instead of sinking into it. Something shifted, and I just started seeing the guys who want to date me (and date me) as they are rather than through mists of wishes and expectation.
It has been pretty cool. I was feeling very cool (and a bit self-righteous, too).
And then the goddamned Pioneer Woman with her epic/mundane romance and her ranch and her decisive man undid me.
So, back to the land of emotion. Oh hell.
I’m grateful.
I’m learning something too, something that I keep trying to talk myself out of: stories. stories. stories.
There are stories I tell myself every time I write about my life:
that I should write something weighty and researched and reasoned and important instead of snippets from my life
that I should use my education for something and talking about my love life probably doesn’t count as that something
that I should stop stripping textually naked on my blog
that I only have so many bits of flesh to offer and I need to keep some for myself
that when I write about my year of living romantically dangerously, you’ll assume that my life is a roller-coaster and that my kids are unwashed and neglected
that it all amounts to Not That Much and nothing important. Just emotional frippery
But, reading The Pioneer Woman and crying - even though I know better, what the hell is wrong with me?! - I realized that stories are why I’m here and why you’re here too. Stories are us.
Yo. I’m a fragile flower. Rejection is my nemesis.
And because of that, I’m softening up to sections of the Seduction Community.
(Also: cleavage. Dating gurus are not all teaching “How To Bed as Many Naive Twenty-Five Year Olds as Possible Through the Judicious Use of Insults”. I could be a little more sensitive to the differences and nuances and lines that cut across the “how to date better/improve your social skills” field.)
This week I read David DeAngelo’s “Double Your Dating” and was shocked – SHOCKED, I TELL YOU – to discover that it was useful and I liked it.
Sure, there were bits that irritated me – more on that, in another piece to follow – but I put myself in the shoes of his target audience and grew a little respect. Even gratitude.
DO NOT TELL ANYONE.
Because, as I mentioned, I’m a fragile, rejection-averse flower. I go on a lot of dates but I have no recollection of EVER asking a man out (unless we were, you know, married) or initiating a first kiss. I have been turned down for sex three times in my life.
So of course when I read detailed instructions on how to approach women and escalate a new relationship it seems a bit foreign to me.
It IS foreign to me – because someone else always handles it.
So maybe I should be glad that there are men teaching other men how to handle this with ease and grace (and that there are men willing to learn this, thereby making things more comfortable for me).
Because if I had to handle this I’d be paying for sex and growing old with cats.
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