So, November was a very busy month for me.

But I've already told you that story.

Sometime between my birthday and Thanksgiving I passed a very different sort of milestone.  It's not something most people would note, and with everything that was going on, I almost didn't remember it myself, until one night, seeking a little bit of quiet, I went for a short drive alone to sort out my thoughts.  Then it just kind of hit me sideways, like a little flashing light, just out of my line of vision, not that big a deal, but something I needed to remember.

The middle of November marked my 10th year of voluntary celibacy.

I undertook this journey when, at the end of my relationship with my daughter's father, I began to question why I kept getting into relationships that were pre-destined to end badly.  I constantly chose wildly inappropriate men, and ignored glaring red flags.  I was tired of my own behavior, and wanted to take a closer look at myself.  I also wanted to know what kind of relationships I would have, and how would they develop, if I removed sex from the equation.  It was to be, for me, a grand experiment in reshaping the way I viewed relationships, as well as my expectations regarding them.

Oh, the things you learn about yourself, when you remove all of your normal distractions!  It's important to note here that, for me, sex was a huge distraction.  It kept me from focusing on what I felt were my inadequacies, fed my mistaken notion that it was an equalizer between me and the "pretty" girls, and slowed down my eventual realization that relying solely on sex was no way to create, or maintain, a relationship.  Hard lesson to learn, but it's always better to figure that out sooner rather than later.

Some of what I learned I've touched on in other posts.  I finally figured out that I was jumping into relationships due to acute insecurity about my looks, or perceived lack thereof.  I realized that desperation attracts all the worst personality types, and any relationship with someone every bit as desperate and needy as you are is doomed to fail.  The most important takeaway from my strictly enforced vacation from relations, was that I started asking myself relevant questions about myself and my relationships: where did I want to go, what did I want to do and how do I relate to others?  It was only later that I found out that these are the kinds of question that relationship experts wish all people would ask themselves before entering into relationships and/or marriages.  Yeah, it would probably put them out of business, but a lot of heartache could be eliminated by a minimal amount of self examination beforehand.

1)  Who am I, really?
     Very few people know enough about themselves to really answer this question.  To be honest, though, most people will always be a work in progress, as the older we get, and the more we learn, we hopefully gain insight and wisdom, and become a little more refined in our behavior and approach to life.  But a little self-knowledge goes a long way.  I know that I am a rock and roll loving, Center-left, feminist, Christian introvert, with a serious tendency towards over helpfulness, that I channel into customer serviced based careers.  Knowing that about myself, why would I want to get involved with someone who hated rock music, was hard right politically, and really didn't like people who were different than themselves, just because he was good-looking, or had money, or a nice car?  This is just the situation that all of us, men and women get ourselves into, then cannot extricate ourselves from after we realize that we have gotten involved with the wrong person for the wrong reason.

2) What do I want/need/expect?
    If you have no idea what you want in a relationship, it's a lead pipe cinch you probably aren't going to get it.  You would think that was common sense, but this simple truth misses most people by a wide margin.  When I talk about wants, needs, and expectations, I am not talking about physical traits.  Everybody has their own specific set of features that works for them, so hey: Whatever Blows You Hair Back.  But once you have your person with your physical features of choice, then what?  Making sure that you know that you want someone who is kind to others, need someone with a sense of humor that is at least somewhat similar to yours, and expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect is merely scratching the surface of finding out what internal qualities are important to you.  In the end, it's those internal qualities that are going to determine whether of not what you have is a short fling, or the romance that will last until...

3) What really matters?
    I've noted before that the older I became (and frankly the longer this experiment has gone on), the more philosophical I became.  I came to the conclusion that if I couldn't make better choices in romantic partners than the messy people I kept attracting, then it was just better all around for me to simply not be in any relationship at all.  The focus was then on getting my life to the point where I was content no matter what happened, rather than pinning all of my hopes on my happiness coming from the outside, being provided by someone else.  Making peace with yourself, ( quirks, flaws, odd dents, and needed improvements), is the best possible thing you can do for yourself, and eventually for whomever you decide to bring into your life. 

Or not.  In my 43 rotations around the sun, I have known many, many people whose primary goal in life was to get married. For a while, I was one of them.  As I got older, had children, struggled, renewed my faith, and simply kept living, it finally occurred to me that I was content with the basic parts of my life, whether I found a romantic partner or not. I had achieved a certain peace, and that was all that really mattered.

This path of celibacy is not for everyone, nor is it a cure-all for relational ills.  I knew what my weakness was, and I removed it.  That's not to say it's been an easy spiritual walk.  I am a complete hedonist, and I know it.  While I was getting my head together I used food to soothe my emotions, and subsequently gained a lot of weight that I now have to lose. These things happen. 

What's most important to me, is that I am not where I was ten years ago.  What I hope, is that I now know enough about myself to make better relationship choices, even if that choice is not to be involved in a relationship.   As far as I've come, to my own mind, I still have a long way to go.

Here's hoping the next journey will be every bit as interesting as this one.
    

I was born on a cool, Fall Saturday morning in 1971.

That might explain why Saturday mornings are my favorite times during the week.  It's often quiet in my house, which gives me time for prayer, devotion and reflection.  Creaking bones and sore hips and knees when I rolled out of bed one such Saturday morning, reminded me that I had driven almost 200 miles the day before, both in the course of work, and transporting a group of kids from an amusement park.  Clearly, I am not the long driving road warrior I used to be.  Time passes quickly.

I remember being a small child, running through the house, chasing my older sister.  I got my first lesson in watching where I was going when I caught a doorknob in the eye from a door my sister suddenly closed during the chase.  Mostly I remember those days as ones of tireless exploration, even if we could never wander far from the house (we were not allowed to wander anywhere our mother couldn't see us from any window in whatever house or apartment we lived in).  We always made our own adventures, playing out whatever stories we had scene enacted on our favorite cartoons, or we had read in a book earlier that week.

I remember elementary school as a time of expanding boundaries, frequent moves and learning the art of making friends quickly.  We changed schools multiple times during those years, and I rapidly figured out that if I didn't want to spend a lot of time alone, learning to read kids and seek out those willing to be friendly was going to have to become an art form I needed to master, the sooner the better for each change of location.  During that time I developed the ability to talk to anybody, at any time, about any subject you can think of or make up.  I also learned that carefully placed silences can be as comforting as conversation, and becoming a good listener is a talent few people really cultivate.  Being a constant outsider had it's advantages

Middle and High School brought some level of stability, as I was able to start and finish at the same schools, and I learned that relationships could be sustained over longer periods of time.  Here I was told that it was time to start planning my future.  Of the many iterations of What I Want To Be When I Grow Up that passed through my mind (and out of my mouth), the final two I settled on were actress or journalist.  I left high school, that became Actress (despite my crippling stage fright), Director, Producer and Writer.  I drifted far away from these goals as early motherhood became my reality, and all dreams artsy drifted into the frenzied background of a life spent in the constant care of and attention to first one, then two children. False starts, seminars, weekend classes, and eventually a sideline into IT later, all that remained was my desire to write.

I look back over my life in the 20+ years since the State of California legally declared me an adult, and I see not only a world that's changed, but a person that has had to learn and adapt to whatever the world threw at her.  Jobs, found and lost.  Frequent changes of residence.  The ups and downs of relationships.  New technology, both necessary and extraneous.  With all of these things, what I sincerely hope, is that I have learned things that will help me with my own children.  I truly believe that you learn to parent by remembering your life as a child, so that you can reference every stage they experience balanced against your own life.  We are not authoritarian strangers who don't understand what it's like to be young.  We've been where they've been, and once our children realize that we might just actually "get" them, without condemnation or condescension, we might finally find them listening to our offered wisdom and warnings.

It's not for the faint of heart, this business of shaping new adults.  Time transforms us all, from infant to child to teen to adult, with all of the lessons learned and wisdom earned along the way.  It's our job to remember, and pass what we know and all that we've learned on to the younger ones, enabling the next generation to build on whatever we started while innovating their approach.  This is how successful societies are built and sustained, and the one thing I hope will continue into the future.

In 10-15 years (Knock Wood!), I will likely add grandparent to my list of titles.  By then I will have had even more experiences to add to the education I'll be passing on to my own children.  And will be able to start anew passing on the stories, lessons and wisdom of my childhood years on to my next generation.  As I should.

There were ten of us in the room that warm Thursday evening.

All mothers, of various ages and races, from every corner of Los Angeles County: From the middle class suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, to the hip, laid back Westside, to two of us from the working class South Bay.  

Although we were all drawn there by the promise of a few dollars for a couple of hours of our time, answering a few questions for market research, once we introduced ourselves and began to tell our stories, a feeling washed over the room that women like us rarely feel.

We realized that we were surrounded by people that we didn't have to explain ourselves or our children to.  When you have multiple children with ADHD, isolation is the norm, and you get used to it.  With each answer to each prompt, every time another one of us told a story of dealing with multiple doctors and their varying opinions, of school teachers and administrators only too ready and willing to write a child off, of struggling with the unknown, then the search for answers once you found out what you may be dealing with, you could feel the breeze from all of the other heads nodding in agreement.  We all knew all too well what each other was going through.  We had all been there at one time or another.

We had all felt the sense of panic of knowing there was something not quite normal about our children  I would watch my son exhaust himself, and everyone else, racing from one activity to another, never staying with anything for long.  Or if there was nothing else to do, he would just crawl around in endless circles on the floor, completely freaking me out.  I had heard of ADHD, but hadn't really done much research on it when I took him with me to a research study appointment at UCLA.  The research assistant quietly observed him for the length of the appointment, then gently suggested that I bring him to be screened for another study they were doing on a medication for children with ADHD.  I spent the next month or so reading everything I could get my hands on about ADHD, and the writing on the wall could not have been any clearer.  I was prepared to put in work, because this was not going to be easy.

We talked of diagnoses, and the medication merry-go-round.  All of us had gone through a minimum of two medications and multiple doses before hitting on that perfect combination that worked.  Then realizing, for those of us with more than one child with ADHD, that the same magic combo that worked for Child One was highly unlikely to work for Child Two.  There is the ultimate juggling act of keeping up with Doctors, appointments, meds, school-related issues (and believe me, there are many), and the sneaking health issues that come up on the side.  Two of us have children that are perpetually underweight, (inviting scrutiny from the pediatricians) both because they are naturally small people, and because the prescribed medication kills their appetite.

We knew each others stories, and when the facilitator stepped out of the room, the relieved laughter started.  We were finally with other women that weren't judging us because our kids weren't hitting all of the same milestones at the same time as other kids.  And that was okay. We could admit that while we loved our children, we were glad to be away for a little while.  These kids require exhaustive micromanagement, and although this is entirely doable, none of us kid ourselves.  These children are WORK, with a capital W, and it gets tiring. Not that we don't love our children, obviously we do.  We were just realistic about the demands on our lives.

As we were leaving, a few of us talked on the way to the elevator.  It was nice escaping for an hour or so, and making a little extra cash to cover the endless extra expenses associated with child-rearing.  It was also nice to decompress from always having your guard up when talking about your children.  No Judgy McJudgerson mothers here, ready to alternately snark or condescend  at the mere mention of difficulty, or the slightest indication of any small triumph. The mother next to me was happy not to have to say "No" for an hour, and planned to extend her time away to the actual time she said she was going to be home by making a solo trip to the mall.  Not to buy anything, mind you.  Just for the quiet time alone.  We all understood perfectly.

This is the way of the parent of the child that needs a little more parenting than average.  There is always one more: one more teacher to talk to, one more form to fill out, one more evaluation to complete, one more medication to convince them to try.  It is a train in constant forward motion, often speeding, that just might change directions on a dime, frequently.  And as a parent, it's all you can do to try to keep the train on a set of tracks, any tracks, long enough to complete a trip.  All the while keeping your own train on track, just barely.

My son, my daughter and I all have some level of ADHD.  My daughter is the only person on any type of medication for it, as my son refuses to even consider it anymore, and I figured out how to deal with the worse parts of it before I knew what it was.  Not to say that any of us deals with it all particularly well, but we deal.  I finally admitted to myself once my daughter started elementary school that anything not written down was lost, and Google Calendar was a Godsend for a person who consistently forgot about appointments.  A friend taught me years ago how to create simple budgets that tracked where my money was going, and once combined with budget tools provided by my bank, I finally got control of my finances.  I am still broke all the time, but at least now I know where it all went.

My son has good intentions, but is struggling.  Even if he remembers daily tasks (going to class), details (assignments and due dates) escape him, and he refuses to write anything down. I understand that he wants to live without what he sees are crutches, but my role in this is to make sure that he realizes that real men DO get help when they need it, and there is no harm in admitting that you can't do everything by yourself.   He is also dealing with an LD related co-morbidity called Auditory Processing Disorder.  Meaning that what people say, and what he hears are often two entirely different things.  Oh the misunderstandings that arise from not hearing EXACTLY what was said!  Just learning to double-check verbal instructions and directions, and just follow normal conversations, has been a hurdle that took years to overcome.

My daughter is an extremely intelligent ball of energy, and having learned my lesson with my son, I make an effort to stay on top of everything going on at school.  Academically, there are no issues, but her occasional emotional outbursts, and out of left field health issues, keep me glued to my phone during the day, as I never know when THAT phone call will come, and she will need to be picked up immediately.  I find that teaching her to manage sudden change (and her emotions regarding those changes) is almost a full-time job.  Anyone that has ever worked with a highly strung child will agree that having to be on your toes at all times gives you the balance of a ballerina after several years of managing these children's fragile emotions.

But we manage.  All of us.  The women in that room, and parents around the world that have children that for some reason or another, require just a bit more work that the usual amount.  Especially when we ourselves take additional self management just to get through the day. We appreciate the little accomplishments because of the almost herculean effort it took to get to that point.  We finally get a little something we can celebrate.

And for a brief hour in a conference room in West Los Angeles, we got a moment to let go of all of the work, all of the hassle, and all of the judgement, and just breathe.

To say that Mother's Day means different things to different people is likely the understatement of the century.

For a lot of women, Mother's Day is the day when their successes and value as a Mother is applauded by all far and near.  If they have adult children, they call home or come visit for some combination of food, flowers, conversation, and possibly a walk or a movie.  Those with younger children may be treated to all manner of homemade gift by teachers that love any excuse to break out the arts and crafts.  This is all wonderful, obviously, but there is another group of mothers who we don't readily acknowledge for whom Mother's Day looms as a painful reminder of exactly how much they don't fit the norm.

This post is for them.

For the mothers whose children yell at inappropriate times, garnering them hard side-eye and loud whispers from everyone around them;

For the mothers who have children with behavior issues are that aren't as easily handled as the people giving you condescending, contradictory advice that you have already heard 50 times, tried, and already know that it either won't work, or will only work for a few minutes;

For the mothers who did everything they knew how to do: made sure their children went to school, took them to church, loved them, disciplined them, asked them about their day, and REALLY listened when they answered, and the child still made one or more truly bad decisions and is now incarcerated or dead;

For all of the mothers whose inner demons drove them to unspeakable pain, pain that translated into absent, neglectful or abusive parenting, and now their children are no longer with them;

For the mothers whose children have given up on life, despite their best efforts to encourage them;

For the mothers who children exist in that grey area where they doing neither poorly nor well: in reality, they aren't doing much of anything;

For the mothers who were imperfect, whose children are struggling, who now face down stares, whispers and judgment from family and friends;

For mothers for whom Mother's Day is a reminder of their frayed relationships with their own mothers:

I am one of you.  I understand, and I salute you.  I know the road you walk is not an easy one because I am currently on that path.  We are those who will never really know what kind of parent we were because are children are not on the same path other children are.  We get the occasional pat on the head or hand as assurance that we have not totally screwed up, but internally we can't help but look around us, wondering what our lives would be like if we were "normal" mothers.

We will do all of the right things on Sunday.  Some of will go to church, smile with everyone else, and accept the greetings of the day.  Someday, we hope, everything will be alright, or normal at least.  Until then, at least on the inside, Mother's Day is just another day.

Society taught me from an early age that I was ugly.

Even from my birth in 1971, I did not fit the popular standard of what was considered "beautiful", so I adapted to life as the type of person that I was perceived to be.  Second best.    When hanging out with any group of people, I was generally the one no one really spoke to anymore than they absolutely had to, which forced me to learn how to be funny as quickly as possible so that whatever brief conversation I got to have with someone would at least be a memorable one.  Being considered unattractive and being an introvert (I sometimes wonder if the former fed the latter), I became the fly on the wall of every social situation, my lack of interaction with others enabling me to become a seasoned observer of human behavior.

I used to be mystified by certain people's reaction to me.  Saying hello to people, and having them look around to make sure no one is watching before they return the greeting is a very instructive lesson in how human nature works.  No one wants to be seen acknowledging someone thought to be ugly.   Unless of course they are reminding you of this fact, loudly and with a great deal of derision.

I wish I could say that my experiences were unique.  Perusing the website Jezebel last week, I came across a posting from a young woman who was ruthlessly catcalled by men for no other reason than they did NOT find her attractive: 
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/ugly-c-nt-my-experience-of-street-harassment-1561588177/all    We've reached a point in society where polite behavior is a rare commodity.  Especially as it pertains to the old saying that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.  This rule seemingly does not pertain to anyone society sees as unacceptable in any way.  Especially women.  Women are then subject from to anything from being ignored during routine social interactions to the loud, brutal assessments hurled at the author of the piece above.

But where does all of this come from?

My friend Susan sums it all up nicely: "We're conditioned to accept the societal definitions of beauty, which seem to grow narrower every year. Women are conditioned from the cradle. It keeps us in line and pits us against one another. If we weren't so busy worrying about what we looked like, imagine what we'd accomplish."

As it stands, the societal definition of beauty runs to the Scandinavian look: tall and slim, with pale skin, hair and eyes, is thought to be the absolute ideal.  The further you move away from that definition of beauty, the less worthy you are of consideration.  The less worthy you are of consideration, the more certain people feel that they are quite justified in being critical about any and every aspect of your personal appearance, or barring that, simply being dismissive of you altogether.  And while this is true across the board, women get the brunt of the harshest forms of this scrutiny.

The messages I have received from the media over the last couple of decades (or since I have been conscious enough to realize that there are subtle messages underlying a great deal of what we see), is that the main purpose of a woman's life is for men between the ages of 18-49 to find her attractive enough to have sex with.  In order to meet this goal, you must be as close as possible to the description outlined above, and if you are not, it is strongly encouraged that you spend as much time, money and effort as humanly possible in dogged pursuit of the ideal.  To be unable to spend your life chasing what for most amounts to an almost impossible ideal, due to disability, might garner you a pass from men who see the ideal as their due in life, if not their own goal to attain.  If you are unwilling to devote your life to becoming pleasing to the eye of random passerby on the street due to disinterest, or the fact that less than 5% of the population possess the ideal appearance naturally, and to spend too much time wishing to be something you are not is inherently mentally unhealthy, be prepared to be shown no mercy.

You will be assailed from all sides by well meaning, if misguided, attempts to steer you back on to the correct path of low-grade self hatred. It is the economic engine on which the beauty industry thrives.  Some will try cajoling, others will insult and demean you, but the larger goal is to let you know, by all means necessary that as you are, you are not acceptable to the male gaze. And if you dare to carry yourself with any kind of confidence (Those of us who have decided to be happy with our selves whether people find us attractive or not), despite being considered unattractive, many of the supremely insecure, who rely on others for validation, will make it their mission in life to remind you that, by popular estimation, you are not enough.  How dare you be happy with yourself, as is!  Don't you know that you are supposed to be striving to conform to what random strangers feel you should be so said random strangers won't have to tell you that you are still not acceptable to them?

If you are still unattractive, unwilling to attempt conformity, and perhaps content with yourself, you will be ignored, with an extra helping of contempt and scorn.  The comments section of the Jezebel piece will bear this out.  There are too many women who have been overlooked or ignored out right for no other reason than they were thought to be ugly.  To be thought of as ugly, but not sufficiently humble, will earn you large doses of what I like to call aggressive ignoring.  This is when someone attempts to interact in a normal way, and realizing that a horrified reaction is an overreaction, the person they attempted to interact with openly ignores them.  I can't tell you how many times, I've tried to participate in a normal discussion (after weighing my words carefully to make sure that my contribution was on topic and appropriate), only to be roundly ignored as if I weren't part of the group.  As I look around me, I see other women subject to this same treatment, and I shudder to think what internal processes they must go through just to get through the day.  For some, it must feel like the treatment they received in childhood never ended.

My friend Lisa put it this way: "When you're bullied as a child, you know who's bullying you and why. You learn how the system works because you have to in order to survive. I think it's the same for any children who are victimized by anyone for any reason, their brains develop a very sophisticated level of insight into the situation and they become very wise about it at an early age. Part of the damage that causes is that you never truly break out of that schema for the rest of your life, even though the bullying has stopped and everyone has grown up, you still read the people around you as though they're getting ready to bully you for the same childish reasons. And you don't even know you're doing that most of the time."

It's a strange road we walk, those thought of as ugly and/or unattractive.  It's a road made stranger by the fact that we live in a world where singling us out for random verbal and/or psychological abuse is thought of as perfectly acceptable as we are not considered real people, if we are in fact considered at all.  Pretty people will tell you that theirs is no easy walk through life either, what with the constant belief by those in the middle of the spectrum (neither conforming to the ideal nor considered ugly),that they are coasting through life on their looks, and are unlikely to have either any real talent or intelligence.  Women feel like they can't win no matter where they are on the spectrum.  This subject was covered in depth, and quite well in 1990 by Naomi Wolf in her book "The Beauty Myth".  The sad thing  about this is that, 24 years after the publication of Wolf's book, not only has very little changed, the treatment of women, based solely on their perceived attractiveness to a specific demographic of men, has actually gotten worse.  To paraphrase Wolf's opening, as women make larger social and political strides, the definition of the ideal woman becomes narrower, and those who do not conform are now met with open hostility by those who feel threatened by changes in the world, and feel the need to maintain the status quo the only way they know how.  Crush anybody you feel is beneath you by any means necessary.  These people don't realize that not everybody is entitled to their opinion, the person you are trying to embarrass has been hearing some version of the same thing all their life, and it costs you absolutely nothing to be polite to someone that is being polite to you.

I am an idealist.  In an ideal world, what is on the inside really would count, and people would treat you accordingly.  If only.....

I almost didn't write a post this week.

Busy, distracted by work and other issues, blah, blah, blah.  You know how these things go.

Then I got hit by perhaps the corniest inspiration on the face of the earth.

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, radio stations like to bombard you with all the love songs they think you can possibly stand.  A grinch I am not, but I like to rock out when I'm driving, and all that soft, slow stuff makes me flip the station faster than you can say "talk radio".  A couple of days ago, though, I got caught on the tail end of a song I liked by the Foreigner track "I Want To Know What Love Is".  I let out a snort, then said to no one in particular, "Wouldn't we all?"  Later on that night,  the song replayed in my mind a few times (because that's how earworms work, unfortunately), and I realized that the song was such a hit because it stated a profound truth in an extremely, almost excessively simple way.  A man has been hurt many times, but he wants to try again, hopefully missing any landmines on the way.  What he would like, he says in the song, is some kind of map or guidebook that would tell him what he is looking for and how to get there.

It's like that with us singles.  Been around a few times, not all of them pleasant.  Wouldn't mind getting out there and trying again, but so many considerations.  One of the biggest considerations is where to start.

I have to say I like the way singer Howard Jones sang the question: What is Love, anyway?  Does anybody love anybody anyway?

The question is not as cynical as it sounds, and really neither am I.

A point of reference for me as to what Love is, is the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians in the Bible.  To me, it makes some very good all around points about what love is, and is not, and how you treat people when love is involved.  It also goes far beyond romantic relationships into the larger kinds of love.  I have a great deal of affection for the New International Version, so that's the translation I'll be working from here.

What I have always understood from this particular passage was that while there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and can do a lot of things, if they are not doing it from a place of love, it means nothing.  If you knew, beyond a doubt, that you stood to gain absolutely NOTHING from your efforts, but that maybe, just maybe, you might help one person, would you do it anyway?  That might be a little on the extreme side of examples, but a small sample of what it means to use your gifts and talents out of love.

This passage is the one most often read at weddings, for the obvious reason that it lays out in very plain language how we are to treat each other in day to day relationships.  We need to demonstrate patience with, and kindness towards one another.  (As difficult as I know this can be, because there are people that will go out of their way to work our LAST nerve!)  When we love each other, there is no need for envy, or bragging, and among real friends, pride never enters into the conversation.  Not dishonoring others and not being self seeking are two sides of the same coin: one example might be gossiping  about someone else in order to bring down others estimation of them in order to bring yourself up in the eyes of those same people.  No, you are not to be happy when bad things happen to people you don't like, but be happy when the truth comes out for truths sake, nothing else.  With love, the urge is always there to protect, trust, hope and persevere.  These last four are much harder for those who have been hurt (or manipulated), but if they are thought of as goals, rather than insurmountable obstacles, they may be achievable.

We all grow and change over time.  Very few of us look, act or think the same as we did when we were children, and for good reason.  We know more than we did then, we can reason, and we have more self control than we used to.  Well some of us do.  The one thing that never changes is Love.  Perfect love, without flaw or defect (or price or hidden agenda or any of the modern equivalents) will always, we hope, come to drive out the imperfect, shed light on dark corners, and answer questions we've always had.  This is what we'd like to think.  What we dream of.  What we hope for.

I think so anyway.

I read.  A lot.

Because it is the current thing to do, much of my reading is done online.  Because I can be a bit of a masochist, I tend to read a lot of relationship articles, and receive items in my news feed from two relationship themed Facebook pages, Thoughts of a Real Man (A young man from Georgia sharing his ideas on life, spirituality and relationships) and Dating and Waiting (support for those who are voluntarily abstinent for spiritual reasons). Much of the talk about male/female relationships in the articles and news feed items I read surround the idea of finding, and/or keeping a good man or good woman. 

The most interesting reading is sometimes the Comments section.  Guarded by the relative anonymity of the internet, people let fly with whatever it is they are truly thinking and feeling, that goodness only knows they would never say in real life. Perusing the comments, I see that there are a lot of people that believe that a good man or good woman does not exist.  They take the position that if they can't find the right partner, and repeatedly have crappy relationships, it just HAS to be the other person's fault that these relationships did not work out.  There is something wrong with the entire opposite group, because they have done everything right.  This is hyperbole of course, and comments sections are often full of it.   My take on it, however, is that good men and women tend to miss each other, often by a wide margin, quite like the cliched ships passing each other in the night.   After reading hundreds of these articles over the years, along with the associated comments, I began to form a theory of what was driving some of our worst relationship behaviors.

The behavior is due to what I am going to call the Shiny Penny theory. Everybody wants the shiny, new penny; not because it holds any real value,  but because it is pretty. All men and women want the prettiest or handsomest, most noticeable partner. Sometimes I think it's because we are fundamentally insecure, and feel the need to prove that we are able to attract and retain a better looking mate than the next person. To achieve that goal, we ignore is  glaring red flags that tell us that this is not the person we should be with. Then rather than take responsibility for our own poor choice of romantic partner, we turn our focus outward, and state that "All men/women are (fill in the blank with your favorite stereotype)!"  We can't admit to ourselves that perhaps we made judgment errors based on incorrect or incomplete information, or blatantly overlooked faults.

This is where we go wrong. Instead of turning our focus upward (for some, seeking spiritual guidance) and/or inward (introspection; what part did I play in my own situation) in order to heal ourselves and discover what we need (not want. I will go into more detail about this later) going forward, we just hop from relationship to relationship, dragging our poor decisions with us, then wonder why nothing ever works out.   Add the societal pressure to get coupled up, WITH ANYBODY, or risk being alone (this is the ultimate shame by society's estimation) to the aforementioned insecurity, a little sprinkle of media driven unrealistic expectations, and you have the reason for the staggeringly high failure rate of modern relationships.

Yes, I am speaking from experience.  Years of being reminded, often in the unkindest way possible, that I did not, ahem, fit the popular standard of beauty, resulted in a fractured sense of self worth.  I am a female, after all.  If I am not "pretty", then what am I?  (Keep in mind that this was during the 80's.)  What I needed, I told myself, was a way to prove that I was just as acceptable as other girls.  Male attention, specifically in the form of a boyfriend was what was called for.  Not just any boyfriend would do, of course, thus beginning my crippling addiction to what we used to call "pretty boys".  Now called metro-sexuals, these were guys with very fine features that took excellent care of themselves, were always well groomed and well dressed, and had personalities specific to guys that receive a great deal of female attention.  Not all of them were charming, but self-absorbed, just the ones I gravitated to, which set the tone for every bad relationship I was to have later.  Well, that and a steady diet of Cinderella, romance novels and romantic comedies.  Yes, I know these things are ridiculous.  I'm an introvert, okay?  That was my reading kick for about six years.

But I digress...

15 years and many relationships (and two children!) later I finally figured out that fear of being alone plus huge amounts of insecurity equals desperation.  Desperation draws the worst possible people into your life.  You may get what you want; a partner with looks, money, status or whatever you deem important.  However, it is almost a guarantee, that you won't have what you need; kindness, empathy, and the kind of love that doesn't fade in the face of trials and disagreements.  Now if you are one of those people out there that went into a relationship situation both fearful of being alone and horribly personally insecure, and got everything you wanted and needed, and are still happily together to this day, then I say Congratulations, I'm happy for you, this blog post is not meant for you, and you can move on.  Nothing to see here.

This blog post is for the seekers.  Those that have done the internal work they needed to do, and would like to get out there again, but are reluctant due to the mistakes they've made in the past.  Those that now realize that Needs; those intangible, internal qualities that make a person suitable for relationships, are more important than WANTS; external qualities that can come and go.  Now you know that who they are on the inside and how they treat themselves, you and others is the meat and potatoes; what they look like and what they have is gravy and dessert, respectively.   You have made peace with your own faults, and rather than expect perfection from others, you know what faults you can handle in others, and which will make you walk away.  You are no longer focused on searching for a good man or a good woman; you are focused on developing the kind of internal qualities that you need in a relationship so that you can attract those qualities in someone else.

If this sounds like you, then you are ready to move on.  Best wishes.  Remember that like ships on the water, you are free to set your own pace.  You can either use your motor (online dating), or sail with the wind (casual meetings through friends or just wherever).  No rush (despite what society says) and enjoy the journey.  It'll definitely be worth both the work, and the wait.