The Elusive and Ubiquitous Anatomy of a Woman

The female body is a magical land isn’t it? So completely misunderstood by so many.  Sort of like rape and abuse I suppose.  The great mysteries and magic of it all is so astounding in spite of the medical advances and technology available.  Maybe it’s like the elusive giant squid, we knew it existed we just couldn’t seem to locate it, until recently.  Sort of like a vagina, and a uterus, and maybe a cervix, only deep in the cavernous ocean, far, far away.  Except, it’s not that difficult to locate the ubiquitous anatomy of a woman, what with all the women around, and the uterine probes, and legitimate rapes, and illegitimate births and what not.  Some things, have certainly been going on down there or in and around there for some time.

Maybe when John Mayer  sang, “your body’s a wonderland....” he was foreshadowing Representative Todd Akin’s comments.   "It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare,” Akin said in reference to conception that resulted from  a rape. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child."

 Aside from not being able to understand that a woman’s inner workings do not possess a shuffle type app that controls the fertilization of an egg when she is being raped, there is additional news that might be puzzling to Akin.   Contrary to the belief that women’s bodies have a special mechanism to self-abort a fetus or disallow one from being formed, as a result of rape, a study conducted by Princeton and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (2001) resulted in these findings: the rate of pregnancy from consensual, unprotected sex was 3.1 percent in contrast to the 6.4 percent resulting from rape.  If we go along with Akin’s thought (less) process, it would almost seem like the female body “wanted” to become pregnant from being raped, like it was asking for the “gift” if you consider what Representative Rick Santorum has to say about pregnancies resulting from rape.  

Although Santorum did not make the cut for presidential nomination, he is still in office.    These are his beliefs: Sexual freedom that results from contraception “has led to the debasement of women, mental illness, and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, causing infertility cancer, even death."  Do men that enjoy sexual freedoms suffer these same consequences? 

When pregnancy results from rape Santorum believes; “As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child....I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you....we have to make the best out of a bad situation.  One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be....

[Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It's supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal… but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…. This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”  

So this is just insanely hard for me to follow, women shouldn’t be sexual beings in control of their bodies and decisions, and when they are raped they should welcome this as a gift?  Maybe if we start questioning whether rape was special and legitimate, that might clarify some things.  And when do any of these vocal opponents of women’s rights to their own bodies state their beliefs about the responsibility of men?  And why aren’t men and women alike demanding this discourse?  

 It might  be interesting to determine what exactly Akin meant by “legitimate” rape.  Does “legitimate” refer to the woman “asking” for it, by her manner of dress, or her looks, or her inability to physically fight it off?  Does it mean she “deserved” it?  Was it the result of date rape?  Was it her spouse or a family member, did they believe they had rights to her body? I can’t imagine what would legitimize rape or what distinguishes it from being legitimate or not.  I guess I don’t really want to know.  I don’t want to know that in the minds of some, many sadly, there is some distinguishing element to whether or not rape is legitimate.  I wonder if these elements apply to Akin’s, or Sanatorum’s wife, daughter, mother, or sister? 

Mitt Romney has made many of his viewpoints regarding women clear.   He has stated unapologetically, “Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.”  Roe vs. Wade will be overturned under Romney's leadership.  That will take care of all the problems I guess.  No more mental illness, no more abortion, no more premarital sex and a chicken in every pot!

Let’s not stop here though, additionally, Romney does not believe equal pay is warranted. He refused to answer whether he would support the Lily Ledbetter Law.  This law does not guarantee equal pay.   The fine print uncovers that the Lily Ledbetter Law does not grant women equal pay-because, duh, in this country we don’t think that women need this right or protection exactly.  The Ledbetter Law simply allows women the opportunity to state the case that they are not being paid equally and then a court gets to determine the validity of the case, um, payroll can’t provide this information lickety split? So let me just stress another point here, not only is it ok for women to not get equal pay, but some believe they should not be able to bring it up and dispute it in a court of law. What this comes down to for me is that women are not to expect equal access to the rights and laws that men take for granted.  But I am surely all about crazy.

Recently Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt Romney’s senior campaign adviser, said “…social issues important to women, such as contraception coverage and abortion rights, were “shiny objects” that were being used to distract voters.  Does he mean all the voters, the legitimate voters, or some of the easily distracted women-type voters, I wonder.   

I still don't quite see how these beliefs will impact men positively.  Will the over-turning of Roe vs Wade somehow result in men marrying the pregnant women?  Or there will be no more unmarried pregnant women?  Will there be fewer divorces because men will only be marrying chaste and pure women that have not had sex because they weren't permitted to go all mental from contraceptive use?  Child support not a concern because the lack of contraception will lead to happy, stable marriages?

I don’t want to pick on the Republican’s candidates exclusively here, but they are making it easy of late.  I feel pretty strongly about the way some of the previous Democratic candidates and elected officials have treated the women closest to them.   It doesn’t bode well for the rest of us women when men treat their wives with disrespect and dishonor, or other women like whores.  It's not OK when we are called sluts for using contraception.  It makes being a women in this nation, much more difficult then it needs to be.  We are after all a nation so concerned about human rights aren’t we?  Isn’t that why we have involved ourselves in so many other nations conflicts?  

Maybe it's time we started grasping that women actually are human and they deserve the same rights as men, in this nation and abroad even if the great mysteries of their uterine cavity continues to amaze us.  Perhaps Sojourner Truth asked the wrong question so many years ago.   Ain’t I a Human? might have been a better starting point.  It is easy enough to determine who the women are, we are the ones with the mysteriously functioning bodies. 

Palm Reading and Peace In My Future

Last week my daughter and I went to see a psychic. I’ve been toying with the idea for awhile, just for kicks, and maybe the receipt of a verbal agreement describing my destiny.  You know when there is great churning and change or stagnant stillness and you just start to wonder what the Universe has in store for you?   I'm looking to maybe decide whether I should buy the extra bathing suit on clearance because, just say, I might be moving to the Caribbean to become a wholesale conch shell dealer in three months, where I will meet my soul mate and live a life of calm and steel drum melodies?  Or maybe you decide to hold off paying that bill because the money you had set aside for it, is used to buy dinner at Luigi's where you run into your best friend from college and you decide on the spot to open that whirligig business you both always dreamed of?  And then you purchase the winning lottery ticket for the Powerball jackpot of $367,379, 081 with the change because the  psychic said something cryptic about Italian food and chance and now all of your bills are paid in full.

So my lovely and charming daughter decides to come home for a visit and we have a wonderful time.  She visits friends and hangs out with her sweet baby brother.  She charms me with her beautiful smile and everyone else in her path, because that’s just the kind of smile she possesses.  God, did I ever have a smile like that?  I’m going to try one on, because, man, that kind of smile can drop people to their knees and have them begging for mercy and offering to take you out for dinner at Luigi's or working overtime to vi for the chance to be your soul mate.  It’s also the kind of smile that just emanates radiance and some kind of glory.  You can’t help but feel calmed and aglow when that hits you.  That’s the kind of visit we have so of course we decide to cap it off with the visit to the psychic. 

The psychic is conveniently located near her apartment, and there's that smile, so I certainly can't help but drive her home, rather than put her on the train.   The waiting room at the psychic's locale also functions as an art gallery space which seems like a good sign.  She just had a spectacular art opening and I’m using art to process a few big and heavy bits and pieces of myself in the world of late.  The psychic appears to be stoned or maybe his hooded eyes are just a professional hazard from closing your eyes to bring in the light, or power, or spirits.  But I kinda think he was just high.

He offers a few different readings; palm, tarot and maybe mind, I can’t recall.  My daughter announces “Palm”, when he asks, I go along with this request.  Tarot sort of scares me, the cards don’t lie.  But the stoned guy?  He could be making everything up.    He begins.  First I have to place my palm on the table.  We are in the back corner of the room with dividers up to shield us from my daughter?  She is about 7 feet away and can hear everything.  The dividers just make it dark and mystic-like I suppose.  Except he can’t possibly see my palm, not the lines in it anyway.  He asks me to leave it on the table.  He glances at it once, and then its just there, awkward and curling the way hands do when they are placed on a table palm up, they start to curl, sort of like those really cool, plastic, filmy, fortune telling fish, remember those?  Well there’s my palm not being read and the psychic begins to reveal things to me.

He reveals …. “You like to travel and do a lot of shopping.”  I have a tan this summer.  I have worked this body tan like nobody's business.  I have been outside and horizontal in eight different states this summer.  I have been outside and vertical pushing a lawn-mower.  I have been outside a great deal.  This is not the kind of tan one would associate with Albany, where we were, or Rhinecliff, where I live.   So, the travel piece, a safe guess.  The shopping, wrong.  I wouldn’t say I like shopping.  I don’t generally have money to just shop for the pleasure of it, but I’m not certain if I had the Powerball jackpot funds I would like it that much either, but who knows?  I would be willing to explore this.  Next he starts to stumble around my children, "You have four children right?"  Wrong again.  "But there is a boy, a young boy that spends time with you?"   Ummm  Noooo.  "Maybe one of your children is expecting?"  Noooooo.  "You have 2 daughters?" Nope, only one.  Moments later he asks if I am concerned about my other daughter, the younger one.  Noooo, because I still only have one.  "Oh your son, you are worried about him, but he is good, a smart boy, you don’t need to worry he is very good.    Your husband and you…" Nope.   "You’ve been having trouble, not very big...you don’t agree on…"  Nope, as in no husband… "Oh but there’s someone else, I see him, he’s not being clear, he’s holding back, you want more,  I see someone tall."   Hmmm, well, nah, and definitely not.  "Oh, you aren’t ready, it’s not really a good time, maybe in a year or two, this is time for you to find peace."  Ok, maybe he has something here…."I see someone in 3 or 4 months.  He will be tall and in real estate."  Huh, I thought a year or two, but ok, tall and real estate…  alright.  I’m up for that. 

My daughter’s reading was just as telling.  She has 2 friends, well yeah but she has more than 2 and there aren’t two in particular that are the very best, she revealed she was an art student he “read” that she works with her hands…  He did tell us that we are looking for peace, that prayer is good, that eating healthy diets was something important for us to continue working on.  We hadn’t really started but it’s certainly something to start taking a little more seriously. 

I have been looking and working and practically demanding my next steps from the Universe lately.   And well, I just don’t have much clout with the planners of the Universe or the planners of much anything.  And all that working and nearly demanding neverrrrrr  goes over very big.  I was somewhat relieved that the Universe provided that great big doobie to this palm reader.  Otherwise I might be packing my bags and waiting to get on the end of Haley’s Comet or whatever great big comet is flying through in the near future if he was on his game and revealing anything remotely close to legitimate.

I think the message that was found in my palm between all of those daughters and the tall men that are hiding out close by or coming soon, was the message I have been fighting myself and the Universe about.  (Which might explain my clout around here.) I have been moving so fast and furiously  in fear that if I stop, I will not be able to get up again.   I have not permitted peace or calm to enter or even come close, in fear that it would engulf me.  I have been in fear of being incapable of caring for my children or myself if I slowed down for even a moment.  I am finally, maybe, ready to trust the Universe and slow down ever so slightly.  My daughter is smiling in that way she does, again.  Her sweet baby brother is not such a baby and finding his own way.  I got us through, we're good.  I can stop running so hard.   Funny how we lose sight of the knowledge that the Universe always has our backs.  Peace, prayer, more water, healthy foods.

I’ll be 98 when Haley comes back, It’s never too early to plan for the future right? I'll be working on that smile and house-shopping, or realtor shopping in the meantime.  Oh MY God, shopping!  He was right!  I guess I do like shopping! 

High Heels, Cleavage and Hopes For A Cold Beer

Amid menopausal surges of electricity between my skin, high-alert wakefulness at 3 am, and the over-processing of 49 years of intermittent social anxiety, I decided to throw caution to the wind and reinvent myself.  With little more than hope and a prayer I take on the awkward wallflower, social buzz kill of myself and decide to get myself adorned in high heels and cleavage and set my scope on a MAN.  Already, we can see where this is going, but I can’t seem to stop, determination and disaster seem to be my only guides.  A whole bunch of hope, with a side of prayer have lead me to hopeless.

I typically try to speak from my personal perspective and I like to avoid generalizations and blanket statements.  But today I’m feeling somewhat grizzly and aggravated, I decided to make this a little broader and apologize in advance if this appears somewhat oversimplified. And I am wearing the heels, so I feel like I can do things a little differently, you know, outside of myself.  The Birkies, are in the closet for the time being.

I’ve come to the conclusion, for today, it might change later on down the road, but for today my conclusion is that women are hope mongers and men are hopeless. Well maybe not exactly hopeless but they don’t move or live and breathe in the land of hope, they may visit the bordering lands of hope from time to time but they aren’t springing from it. I imagine this is seen most clearly in couples. It seems these roles are played out or in need of being filled, by one and another in spite of the generalization of male and female coupledom, the hopeful and the hopeless. 

I’ll try to stay focused on my experience with hope mongering of late but I have that tendency to veer left and right and backwards before springing forward and then hitting the brakes hard to turn and look back at what I just ran over.  So buckle up, or get out of the road, fast 'cause I'm a comin'.

Hope seems to be the elixir for lifting us out of darkness or helping us calmly move across the street to avoid it.  I won’t say that I have been mired in a great deal of darkness over my lifespan, but I will assert that I seem tethered to it of late, stretching across two years. The ten years prior was my hope march, as I continually renewed hope and colored hope and decorated it with streamers and sparklers in an effort to keep hope alive.  That would be called the second half of a marriage that wasn’t working, or failed hope.  Maybe I can name my cottage that, in the way that people name cottages.  “Failed Hope”.  I would want it faded and crossed out and have another sign next to it:  Rapture Rebounds C’mon Down, or  probably Up, hope lifts us up, right?

Hope is like a drug for me and sometimes I lose sight of the fact that I am shaking and sweating and wearing my hope like a junkie.  I can’t see what that hope looks like to others and why they run from it.  Hope is a good thing, No?  Maybe not when I’m jonesing for it because I can’t quite see what I am being hopeful for, or about, or on top of.  I need hope to keep me moving and lately I might not be moving at all without it because I hit into one dark wall of hopeless that I have been tripping and running from.  It might be time to slow down and notice, it's not coming after me anymore, I can wipe myself off and move forward out of the shadow.  

I might also want to reframe this and imagine that this is a special gift.  Not too many people can take hope and twist it into something macabre and grisly.  It’s hope after all and damn it, why isn’t that a good thing?

So let me explain where my sense of hope-mongering and hopeless comes in tied to the sexes.  Here's my theory, although not entirely formalized: Women have cleavage.  The cleavage is because we typically have children.  And even when we don’t, we have nieces and nephews.  We have friends and sisters and colleagues that do.  We live in a world with children and the care of them.  Women raise children and it is impossible to raise children up without each day planning a hope fest.  Rockets and firecrackers to rally them into clothing.  Cartwheels and high-kicks to get them to eat a meal that will help them grow big and strong and hopeful.  Rainbows and moonbeams to get them to share a toy with a brother or sister or fellow friend.  We hope they get invited to the birthday parties, we hope they make the team.  We hope they get good grades and kind teachers.  We hope they don't suffer our flaws and our sometime weak dispositions.  We hope they don't have too many zits.  We hope they are healthy and capable, and if not, treated with dignity and offered love. We hope they reach their goals and don't ever fall too hard. Hope and more hope and bigger hope through middle school strife and high school pressures and college and workforce entry.  Women go to work and spread more hope.  We come home and hope the house didn’t burn down or the children didn’t perish. Women hope that when these children go they will now have time for themselves and their spouses.  We hope ourselves into faith and believing.  When things fall apart, there is always hope, or more hope to be found.

Men, in contrast, are hopeful for a cold beer....but.... they’ll settle for a warm beer if they must, while the rest are chilling.  They are hopeful a woman can get the kids to stop making so much noise and just do all that business quietly. They are hopeful for quiet, or a TV screaming at them that they don’t need to answer but occasionally can yell back at if they are so moved.  They might be hopeful for attention but they don’t want too much of it.  Unless it's bursting with cleavage and heels, or barefoot.  (The Birkies are often associated with body hair and that's not so hopeful).  Men work hard and hope has nothing much to do with it.  They curse the gods when things fall apart and they hope for a cold beer but they’ll take the warm one while the rest are chilling.

I’ve been hopeful for a man.  But I might have been more hopeful for hope or using hope as some means to attract him.  And maybe it was difficult for him to fit all the mile high ecstatic expectations of hope and dreams and promises of the future of mankind, and the end of global warming, and freedom from poverty, and world peace. But y'know being all hopeful like, I really imagined he was cracked up for the task.  I don’t entirely understand why that was too much to present in my Technicolor hope van or yellow submarine of abundance and joy.  Honestly, it should have been flattering in its suffocating size and closing ceremony copiousness.  If you go for that sort of thing.  Which I never have before, so I might need to bring this down a few notches and just throw in a cartwheel.  I’ve been hopeful for a man, but a cold beer might have been more filling or at least a more logical starting point.  Tomorrow I put on the Birkies and regroup for a while....

Avoiding Crazy in the Bagging A Date Event

Recently a friend sent me a youtube link titled Speed Dating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RDnUUfgf0o&sns=em It chronicles dating habits from both the male and female perspective.  It’s a satirical look at how we stumble through dating in an effort to make ourselves seem commonly appealing and generically worthy.  Or that’s at least my take on it.  I suppose this is a necessary approach.  This same friend has shared a viewpoint on dating that seemed at first darkly cynical but lately I am reconsidering her outlook.  Ensnarement, is how she put it.  The youtube short basically corroborates this take. 

I have just completed an Olympic-sized attempt at bagging a date.  If crazy was the Gold Medal, I would be on the podium looking like a combination of  Susan Boyle and Tom Cruise on Oprah way back when.  If getting the date was the Gold Medal, well, I would need to go back home a loser and my hometown high school gym would have a few obligatory well wishers and maybe some chicken biscuits and gravy and cupcakes, some flat punch...  If getting through this chapter of my life working out how the hell to approach someone that is commonly appealing and generically worthy, then I might be playing T-ball and bumper bowling for several more years if I choose to continue to make dating an Olympic-sized activity. 

Suffice it to say being scary was not my goal but in one particular case it might be my legacy. Fortunately it was never road tested.  Sometimes, the more you try something, the worse it gets.  Sometimes the more you try something, the better you get at it.  And sometimes knowing when to stop and cut your losses is the only way to go.  Unfortunately, I was in need of a mercy killing.  Instead I bled out and left a mess of disproportionate horror.   I don't think I was entirely alone in it, but I can only speak for myself here and elsewhere.

I decided to put together a brief guide to refer to in the future.  Let’s see how this goes.

Avoiding Crazy in the Bagging A Date Event

 Pre-Event Primer- Don't refer to this as bagging a date, all sorts of wrong and insensitive.

1.     Be Yourself  (but don’t let out what that means)

2.     Don’t ask too many questions

3.     Don’t answer any questions directly

4.     Don’t text, sext, IM or chat

5.     Go for Passive, Hope to Calmly Assert, and Then Head to Aloof

6.     See What Happens, but don’t expect anything

1.     Be Yourself (but don’t let out what that means)

Lately, being myself means so many things at so many times it is honestly difficult to not appear crazy if you catch me at the wrong time and you haven’t been around me enough to know you caught me at the wrong time.  Come back later, as in a year from now or five minutes from now depending on your level of tolerance.  I am interested in jump starting the dating thing now, but I am recovering from a twenty year marriage.  As I am recovering, I occasionally bump into the court system and a drawn out divorce process.  It stirs up all sorts of emotions.  I occasionally step in questionable judgment regarding the male gender side of our species and attempt to wipe some old shit off my feet (this never looks attractive or feels good), Look the other way, it’s not your shit but I don’t want to smell of it, and I don’t want you to smell it at all, it needs to be wiped off, sorry, what else can I say?  I occasionally attempt to prove my own worthiness by well, I have probably brought crazy here just to feel different, new, improved, ready and I’m happy to say, I just am-worthy, no need to work this end as though I were trying out for America’s Got Crazy or Talent or whatever reality show superstardom launching pad of the year is being showcased.   

My “self”?  I’m getting back to open and somewhat calm, but I am also fiercely independent and spirited.  Calm is a place I need to call home but I like some level of adventure occasionally.  I don’t like drama in spite of the amount of energy I have launched at dating and the consequential drama it has effected.  I bled out, I needed a mercy killing, but I’ve thankfully exhausted this activity and can now, again, walk upright with composure.   It feels good to be home. I'll work at mysterious and alluring, but not too much.

2.     Don’t ask too many questions

I have been a long time confused about the way to get to know someone.  I like to know people deeply.  Not everyone, but if I am interested in potentially spending time with someone intimately, romantically, or even just more than most others, I like to know who they are.  I ask questions.  I’m curious.  I don’t have to ask all the questions at once, I suppose.  I have learned it’s overwhelming and sometimes it comes off as intense or pushy or too direct or whatever, Jeez Louise, sometimes it’s really just OK to answer questions if someone is asking.  But I don’t get to make up the rules.  Sometimes I do need to conform to them, I suppose, or I can just avoid the whack jobs that feel the need to shut down and get all secretive and interpret this as something dark and evil.  Lighten Up Peeps,  life’s short, what are you waiting for?  Tell your story and shine, I’m not taking notes.  (Well I might be, I’m a writer, I like to take notes…but it doesn’t mean anything…. Except that I am interested or..... well, maybe you are a whack job!)

3.     Don’t answer any questions directly

In keeping with not asking too many questions, I find people don’t always like to be answered. They want to be intrigued and imagine you to be some wild fantasy object and if you answer them, you ruin the fantasy and now what?  I have a tendency toward honesty and directness.  I don’t generally like to mess around in this area.  I usually believe, perhaps, wrongly, when people ask questions, they want to know the answer.  I am starting to pick up serious vibes this isn’t the case.  Last week, for instance, I was at a collaborative work session and a supervisor asked the team a question regarding how to proceed.  There were two choices.  The room went quiet, temporarily and people started looking down and avoiding the question.  Only temporarily because when I realized enough polite time went by to speak, I spoke.  I answered the question, directly, with evidence to support my opinion.  Three others quickly agreed with my answer and a decision was made.  It wasn’t anything controversial so it was strange to me that we were asked a question and no one seemed to want to answer it.  It’s worse that I am sometimes viewed as too strong or direct in these instances.  

I am starting to wonder if question asking is some sort of philosophical domain that needs to be dealt with philosophically.  Many people answer questions with questions or by submitting to the question asker.   “What do you want to do this weekend?”  “What would you like to do?”  “I’m not sure, do you want to stay around here?”  “What else did you have in mind?”….  Do questions get answered if the tree falls on the question asker in the forest and no one is there to hear the tree fall?  

Sigh, kick, muffle.  What do I want to do this weekend?  "I want to go sit by the river, with a glass of wine, and recline a bit while asking you questions and finding out more about you."  In my mind I will be thinking or hoping:  "I want you to ask me some questions too and sneak a kiss and dominate the conversation with your tongue" BUZZZZ  WRONG ANSWER.

4.     Don’t text, sext, IM or chat

Well, this is especially close to home and it might be a very good idea for me to avoid at all costs.  My IPhone also needed a mercy killing, it was an accomplice to a virtual nightmare that I seemed trapped in.

It turns out this is not specific to me.  I just read a few articles stating that there is a growing trend of men staying in the text phase and never progressing.  I seemed to have gotten caught up here working myself into a near fit to move things out of this phase.  The harder I tried the deeper and longer I got stuck.  It was like a black hole of communication meltdown, misunderstanding and generalized muck.  It started out as flirtatious and exciting.  It ended with me waving the flag of wingnut.  I’m starting to think it’s ok to just love and embrace my inner crazy.  Go all out.  Men basically expect women to be hysterical, dramatic, psycho's, can’t we at least loosen up our grip here and take off the control top whacko minimizer?  Then maybe they can loosen up the bait and trap routine of setting us up for crazy.  I think we would all get along a lot better this way.  But then we avoid all that mystery and intrigue and name-calling…

Honestly, how long was it going to take before I became a little annoyed, incensed, and downright pushy about a date that was offered or suggested or mildly hinted at for four months?  I know this should be a rhetorical question.  I wasn’t supposed to wait or work so hard on it and certainly not for four months.  I was supposed to shut things down until someone actually brightened my doorway.  I just fancy myself all sorts of open and patient and well there was attraction and I am not exactly available for a big commitment at this time, and some of the texts made me smile widely, and I just loves me a challenge.  It felt really good until it felt really crazy.

Texting is a dangerous tool for communicating in the predating stage due to the fact that it lacks 2 1/2 of the 3 components of communication.  I'll allow verbal to get a 1/2 point because the words are available.  Verbal, Paraverbal, and Nonverbal messages work in conjunction to effectively deliver information and thoughts. Those key components used to get to know someone and get all giddy about their smiles, or the way they breathe in when you say their name out loud or how their eyes twinkle or practically pulse when you smile as you say hello.  The words that are chosen, need intonation and body language to communicate meaning and emotion.    And my texts just don’t provide any of that no matter how over the top hard I tried.

As for sexting, chatting, IMing same goes….

One male perspective can be found at the following link. http://www.divinecaroline.com/22064/28021-men-text-message-dating-game It’s very funny and straightforward and I think the male perspective is pretty important. 

5.     Go for Passive, Hope to Calmly Assert, and Then Head to Aloof

I know that there are some generic guidelines that are supposed to be adhered to or at the very least respected and attempted.  Allowing the man to be in control, setting up the playing field as to appear worthy of the chase, not seem overly interested in sex while still being sexy....By now I do understand that no one likes pushy or direct or aggressive and sometimes honest seems quite threatening and a bit too self-actualized for common appeal or generic worthiness.  I’m not sure how much I can contain some of this and I’m not really sure that I want to.  I’ve never been strident for an elongated amount of time, and never without due cause, and I don’t really think forceful would fairly describe me.  I don’t easily tolerate bs, but I don’t have to make this my vocation, I can walk away, far away when it appears, I don't want to waste too much time wiping off the bottom of my shoes.

I have high expectations for myself.  This doesn't make me look very passive or submissive. I don’t direct or demand the expectations of others.  I’m generally busy working towards my own goals so that I may progress toward Nirvana at a snails pace through the infinity time continuum.   I can maybe do this a little quieter.  I don’t know, I'm willing to try.  I can be quiet and observe and take things in, I do this very well in fact, and it is much more in keeping with my sense of me.  I certainly enjoy watching others achieve big and small moments of bliss. 

I might want to package or reframe some of this slightly.  I can happily attend to my goals and enjoy the small moments of happiness that have been scattered through every one of my days.  This may look like aloofness if that’s important to someone.  I can calmly assert when needed, smile coquettishly, laugh lightly, speak sparingly.

6.     See What Happens, but don’t expect anything

Chill.  Let go. Feel the peace.  Breathe in the calm and hold on to it.  Release and start again.   OK with one minor alteration.  Expect great things.  Expect the best from myself and look for that in others.   Shine and be shined upon but go about my days without a dating or relationship care in the world.

I might need to think this over...

I have been told that I think too much.  A few times, by a few people.  So naturally, I start looking into this.  And basically that causes me to think about it.  I guess it could be true.  I suppose I like to think that I am taking in information and making sense of it.  I like to go deep, I’m usually just thinking about what others are saying or doing around me, possibly in an effort to understand how I relate in comparison, or how best to understand and relate to what’s being shared.  It might even be a result of really hearing someone and giving what they are saying great credence and thoughtfulness, which certainly requires thinking. I take in most heavy information this way.  Not all information, just the big heavy variety, and I have been in an unusually long period of heaviness.  I don't really stress the small stuff and turn it into big stuff. 

Recently when I was told this, I decided to think it over.  I am big on reflection and I thought this needed a little examining.  I am not entirely sure if I think too much based on what I have been hearing someone else say lately, because I have also been told I don’t listen.  Except that I have heard this, so I must have been listening.  But hearing and listening aren’t exactly the same.  I suppose it’s kind of like tasting and eating? Or touching and feeling?  Smoking and inhaling?  OK I suppose I might be overthinking this… I might need to think about that….

I am usually listening, I may not always appear to be acting in kind.  I’m kinda wiggly, and fidgety.  I do sometimes jump ahead which means I may not be listening actively.  I’m fairly active, all the time.  It’s incredibly difficult for me to be inactive and listening.  I might be actively attending to something else in relation to one part of what I heard while I was listening and then I am off and running, or pouncing or pulling up facts and figures to substantiate what was said earlier….It’s definitely active and listening but maybe not active listening.    I sometimes start attending to something else as I listen, I get distracted easily.  But in reality?  I am listening, I will be thinking about what I heard for quite some time afterwards and reflecting and considering from a variety of angles.  I listen in the utmost active way and I can recall a great deal of what was shared long afterwards in case you want to discuss it at a later date.

It has been said that I am intense.  I can’t exactly comment on that, well I could but I don't like to think about it.  Because I have nothing to add.  Or retract.  That’s one that I have to sheepishly move to the back of the room and hang low and hope no one saw me enter, until something is said that I hear and I don't like much because it is way off base and somewhat damaging or disturbing and then I don’t think about it long enough and just go right ahead and react to, or respond to, or scream at, or stare down, or hrumpf at.   And that might be when, you are sorry I didn’t think that through a little more carefully or maybe just a little more. I don't react intensely to everything that I hear and don't agree with, it's those big heavy damaging things.... ya know, the intensely wrong information.

I like to think that I am impassioned.  And thoughtful.  And I also like to think that I do listen really well, most times.  It is true that I am often distracted and excited about one thing or another.  I don’t think this is necessarily bad, I do think it is not easy for everyone to deal with.  And, in that case, they may want to think some things over without questioning me for my thinking or their perception of my thoughts or thought process.  

When it is clear that what is being shared is in need of my full attention, I am a good listener. But this is a collaborative effort, this listening and being listened to.  I am going to need a few things established if you want me to really listen.  I need to be in a quiet location, so that I may fully listen, because well, I listen to everything.  I need to be able to see and hear and sometimes even feel what is being shared.  I rely heavily on eye contact and inflection and tone.  Non-verbal cues are really very telling and might scream out information that is missing from the verbal telling.  I may need clarification and the opportunity to ask questions so that I can fully understand.  Not because I need to overthink or analyze.  I take listening pretty seriously and I prefer not to jump to conclusions or react too quickly.  Maybe this is something I might have a tendency toward in the absence of clarity and the presence of passion.  Aside from thinking, I also like to be active and action comes from response and reaction, but I might benefit from slowing down here before bounding off and responding or reacting in an effort to be active.

On a final note, after reviewing the issue of thinking too much, I did a little research.  It turns out if a person suffers from thinking too much, they typically don't do very much.  They tend to suffer from "paralysis by analysis"  meaning they aren't able to act on  very much because they are too busy thinking too much and worrying about too many things, and well, I don't have time to think about all of this, I have way too much to do.  But I am more than happy to listen, actively, in the presence of your company and a quiet location if you have something important to share with me.