Saturday, September 4, 2010

Late Night Realizations: or, When Did This Happen?

When I was young, I could paint a future with any man I dated.  No matter how mundane the time we spent.  No matter how little true feeling I had for the person, I could always imagine a future with him. We'll call it desperation or maybe wishful thinking.  Naw ... desperation is most likely it.  I will save you the details, but I had some separation anxiety and some difficulty being alone in my teens and early 20's.  The end result of that was a string of unsuccessful relationships that were based on little, or no, real connection or emotion.

Fast forward to now.  Fast forward to tonight, actually.  I sit here typing after having another good date.  There was a connection.  There was feeling.  And, there was a complete inability to imagine how I could ever really have a relationship with this guy.  Sometimes I try to imagine it just for the hell of it. These days, I have little luck imagining a successful relationship with anyone.

I have honed in on what I want in men.  Not this list of qualities that I expect to find all in one man, but an idea of things that will and won't work.  I know when to call it quits and stop responding to texts.  I know when something is just not worth the time.  I also know when it will be something worth while.  Yet, I can't ever see a future with any of the men I date.  I feel love for some of them, deep admiration for others.  I find qualities that are great and there are probably 4 guys that I am currently seeing that I want to keep seeing.

So, as I lay here tonight, attempting sleep next to another wonderful man, I can't help but wonder if I will ever meet anyone that I can imagine settling down with.  I also wonder what happened between my early 20's and now.  I am about 20 days from my 30th birthday and somewhere along the way, I stopped planning my future with men and became happier than I have ever been.  My only concern is, if this kind of change happened in my 20's, what will my 30's hold and how will I feel when I'm 40???  I guess only time will tell.

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About Me

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I am the product-child of the Women's Lib movement. I have a grade A education, a promising career and no immediate goal for children or a spouse. I will be 30 this year and I have spent many years in monogamous relationships. In and out of 1 to 2 year relationships, I always dated with the goal of meeting someone special. Most of the time I didn't date. Most of the time I found myself falling into relationship after relationship. These relationships were doomed to fail. They were all built on expectations that were, for me, unattainable. I love meeting new people. I find sex enjoyable and empowering and I am not happy when I am monogamous. So, after my last break-up, after taking some time to grieve, I decided to cut my societal puppet strings and get back in the game. I set out on a mission to spend the Summer of 2010 dating as many men as possible. My only initial criteria was attraction. My only limitation was - no love and no structured relationships. This is my date by date tale of what life can be like outside of the goals of relationships and love.