Dashed!

I spent a good part of the year dating a girl, and something about being in a relationship sucks up time for other things like, oh, blogging. ;-) But I did get the website re-started for TigersDream, and that site has links to my Zazzle products and my eBay auctions, which are new this year.

Anyway, in September, I realized there were some things about the relationship that weren't working for me--as a dating relationship. It was an amicable breakup and we're still close friends.

I've been slow to get back in the dating game, and she's prompting me to do more, but going to the speed dating event last week was all my decision. I talked to 10 women, including the girl mentioned above, and put on my list that I would talk with anyone who put me down. I also put down two folks I enjoyed talking to and would like to talk to more.

And the results are in: no matches. This means both that none of the 9 women I talked to wanted my contact information, and the two women I found interesting felt they had good enough prospects to not take anyone.

And... I'm really disappointed. Sad, disappointed, grieving, and frustrated.

It's not that I need more people in my life. It's that I'd like to find someone who sees what my friends see and is available for dating. But I don't know how to get more of what they see out into the public eye. I did try a couple new things this time: I looked for Artisan primaries and marked them down instead of the exciting Priests. I made every effort to not promise I could be anyone/anything they wanted (my usual pattern... start as a chameleon and then disappoint them as maintaining the agreeable exterior becomes too tiring).

The self-talk in my head says, "See! You should have known better!" (I hear this in the stereotypical New York Jewish Mother accent.) Whoever that woman is, she really doesn't like me. She's convinced I'm plain and difficult and not suited for human company. She sounds like the woman down the street who used to yell at us when we stumbled onto her lawn from where we were playing at the house next door. And I know the words come from real people too… a composite sketch of negative things people have said to and about me over the years. I wish the composite sketch of all the positive things was just as interesting and quick to come up in the internal movie theater.

Anyway. I’m at mid-relationship level in a world full of people who are operating lower than that. I want something more than a status quo relationship. And I’m interested in meeting people in their true energies and out of mine. I am really tired of disappointing people. Which is really about how often I’ve shown up outside of my intrinsic energies.

I’m in scarcity about being met in this way, and so I’m manifesting lots of scarcity. So, I guess the trick is to change the story.

• The “It wasn’t all bad” story: Not making a connection for dating through this process actually doesn’t mean I didn’t make connections. I did enjoy conversations with 4 women I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to before. I could talk to any one of those nine women in another environment and be quite comfortable.
• The sour grapes story: Of those 9 women, three were too distant to have a good connection with.
• The “numbers game” story: There were 30 women in my age range I didn’t get a chance to talk to. I wonder who I’ll meet next time.
• The “woe is me” story, dynamic version: *&%! ‘em all.
• The “woe is me” story, disarming verion: Well, I guess the person I was supposed to meet wasn’t there.
• The “woe is me” story, distant version: Yeah, whatever. I have better things to do with my life.

Okay. Recognizing they’re stories is a step toward getting playful and getting the positive energy I need to try on new beliefs.

The end of my Annus Horribilis

At the beginning of December last year, I was cleaning the snow off my car as it warmed up on a snowy Denver evening. A man approached me, asking a question about a cab. One had just pulled away from the curb so I pointed in that direction and went back to cleaning. A second man rode up on a mountain bike and the first demanded my purse. I don't carry one, and when I told him that, the man on the bike pulled a gun from his sweatshirt pocket and the guy on foot said, "We're not kidding. Where's the purse?" I insisted again that I don't carry one. He said, "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to borrow your car tonight." He got in and I started walking toward the closest people... with the guy on the bike following at a distance. As the man in my car pulled away, I said a kind of goodbye to a faithful car.

Sure, I believed at some level it would come back to me. My parents' cars have been stolen several times and they came back. A big part of me believed that would be the case here. That started to shift when, while doing Christmas shopping, I got into a conversation about auto thefts. She'd had a car just like mine stolen out of a parking lot. And it didn't come back to her. She gave me a guardian angel key ring and wished me the best of luck.

December 31st passed, and then the 30 day anniversary of the theft passed, and I collected my title, remaining key, and all the paperwork for mailing. I put it off for a couple of days, and then finally put it in the mail. That was last week.

On Saturday, I bought a new car. I bought the car I would've bought 5 years ago if my partner hadn't pitched a fit about how driving Subaru's made her feel poor. Well, that should read, "my ex-girlfriend." In the 5 years of owning the instead car, we've had three breakups and two attempted reconciliations. The first of those breakups was on January 7, 2002. I remember this date because it was 2 days after my 5th anniversary at the company I was working with. It was also the day I was laid off. Yes, that's right. The break-up and the lay-off were the same day. And I was stuck making payments on a car I'd chosen because I thought we were in this relationship together... through better and worse.

Today I got the insurance settlement for that instead car. It takes care of every debt I still have from that year of heartbreak and unemployment. It pays for a couple more things I incured trying to get back together with her. In short, it is an end.

There are chapters in our lives, but I think life is a multi-volume work with major and minor arcs. I think I just finished Volume 3. I can't wait to see what the next book holds.

More on Personal Ads

When it says "Be afraid of love" -- it means, "I'm too distant right now to connect with anyone, so keep your expectations low."

When it says "Huge heart!" -- it means, "I don't have much to give other than acceptance. And I may be too busy with my friends to make room for you unless you sweep me off my feet."

When it has a gender identification ("Butch", "Femme") -- it means there are expectations that you'll have an identification too... and you're willing to be stereotyped by it.

When it says "Aren't there any smart, stable, fun women out there?" -- It means, "I can't find them where I've been hanging out, but don't want to change."

Jealousy

Disclaimer: It's been my policy here to talk about *me*, not other people, so I'm not going to go into what's triggering this exploration today. But for any of you who interacted with me over the last half of the week -- it's probably not you. And if it is you, you're not the only one. Relax.

I have generally pursued a tit-for-tat policy when it comes to jealousy... Which meant trying to assuage my jealousy by reviewing a list of things the other person was likely to feel jealous of me for. I have lots of good things in my life. I have a few good things I would like more of in my life, but my life is pretty darn good.

But the tit-for-tat method has proven pretty inadequate when it comes to actually making the feelings of jealousy go away. Instead of releasing jealousy, it seems to add anger and haughtieness to the pile. Which does make jealousy only one of the feelings I'm living through, but all three of those are darn hard to sleep through. Plus, when I get in touch with what a great person I am in X way, I then get really bitter that there's no one in my life who also realizes I'm this wonderful. In short... It's the fast path to sleepless nights and imitating my mother's worst traits.

So, I tried something different last night. I decided to focus on sitting with the jealousy and just letting that feeling go. (Disclaimer 2: It's still not you! There were multiple events to deal with last night.) I admitted I was feeling jealous and disappointed... but got to sleep much faster with just those feelings to sort through.

Is it okay to blog after the first date?

I'm gonna say "no," but I'm happy to say we agreed it was only the first. And that's good news. ;-)

I was describing person xx to a friend and realized the similarities in life circumstances between xx and a mutual aquaintance of ours. Let's call her Antonia. Antonia is a lovely person trying to come to terms with what her life means right now. And I said to my friend, "Where Antonia feels like a grenade with the pin pulled, xx feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon with the dog at your feet and a mug of cocoa."

"Don't Go Insane"

This week I was elected to the board at my church. This is a surprise to me because I still feel so young... and then I remember I'm coming up on 40. I'm not as young as I feel. ;-) The other surprise was the great enthusiasm friends and acquaintances had for the chance to vote for me. I felt loved and appreciated. I feel that so often here, and it is such a contrast to my default feeling of "otherness" in group settings.

One friend I've worked with on projects said, "Congratulations. Now just don't go insane on us." I asked him to elaborate. He said he would, but hasn't yet. And I'm mulling the statement over in the empty space.

What would it mean for me to go insane?

The unanswered question is whether C was referencing something he's seen in me, or whether he's talking about another woman we both know who is no longer involved with the church. I have told him in the past that I relate to her because I burn out like she did. Take a position of authority, mix in a feeling of entitlement to control, stir in a healthy measure of real people, and you get someone who is increasingly mad at the incompetence around her.

I do this. I'd like to think it's rare, but it happened last summer on a trip with some folks I didn't know too well and I'm now embarassed to face.

So, what are the keys to my not going insane in this venture?

1. Recognize the contributions of the majority of the group exceed my own contributions.
2. Take time off when needed. Do not say "yes" to everything. Make sure I'm rested.
3. Do not make great personal sacrifices of time, money, or effort based on unspoken barter agreements.
4. Recognize that board membership is a call to serve the community in a particular way. It is not a position of power, but a position of responsibility.

And I will need to double-check on this, but I think the major expectation of the board is to make good decisions for the church. I think there are secondary expectations: modelling good church behavior, communicating clearly with the congregation, taking on leadership roles as needed. But I suspect that if meeting any of those expectations results in me moving toward insanity, they would suddenly become secondary to a lot of things.

New Entry

I'm compiling a list of 10 rules about personal ads, and I've just added one. It's bad luck to post about a response to a personal ad. In lieu of that, I'm posting my daily horoscope for today:

Meeting someone new always brings along a medley of feelings: apprehension, excitement and anticipation, for starters. Most of those feelings are carryovers from the past, inspired by memories that were either very good, or ... very not so good. At any rate, you're due for some of those to come along now -- of the entirely pleasant variety. Don't be surprised if this is the start of a new friendship that won't be going anywhere for a good, long while.

Hooey

"The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers."
- Brian Tracy

I have a thing for get rich quick schemes. Over the years I've become less of a sucker, but I still have my moments. In one of those moments a couple years ago (I believe I was unemployed and recently single..) I signed up for several Nightingale-Conant communiques. One I still get is "Motivational Quote of the Day".

Most of the time, these are insipid quotes from tape programs sold by Nightingale-Conant. Once a week or so, I get a quote that's really well... best to say it's a koan. It makes me look at the world differently.

Rarely, I get a quote, like this one, that's just crap.

"The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers."
- Brian Tracy

What separates the winners from the losers is taking the next step. The one after you're miserable, in pain, and want to quit. It's sitting down and writing the day after you've run out of passion for the story. It's standing on one leg for another minute after you've already lost your balance. It's daring to send the story in for one more rejection. It's chosing to walk to lunch today. It's deciding the person over there who scares you could actually be a friend.

First steps are fairly easy. Especially if they involve no more than sending money to someone. Of course, what Tracy really means is, "Winners buy into my program. Losers do not." And really, I'm okay with being a loser in his eyes.

NaNoWriMo

This is the year. I'm going to (finally) write my first novel this year. I'm going to use the NaNoWriMo program to help me do it.

I'm choosing NaNoWriMo because... well I'm already able to write a novel. I may not be a great fiction writer, but that comes from practice. What I have a tendancy to do is get bogged down in details. I'm like a fractal generator when it comes to details... Every layer of detail has another layer that I want to capture. Not just the room, the chair, not just the chair, the wood. Not just the wood, the construction.

By imposing a 30-day limit to get from start to finish on a story that's at least 50,000 words long, I think I'll have an incentive to skim some of the detail.

I've also decided that it's okay to follow the "first novel" cliche... I'm planning to write a book based on a largely autobiographical story that happened around my first year in college. It actually covered more than two school years, but I'm going to compress it into one.

There are four women who form the substance of the story, and maybe the reason I'm ready to write the story now is "Sex in the City". I feel much more comfortable handling stories and points of view for four women than I did before that series came along. I also have a better sense of how unique voices work.

So, that's the news. A novel -- or the rough draft of one -- in November. I'll keep you posted.