Reflections from Vermont, Part Two
Note: you can’t say I didn’t warn you that this kind of thing might be coming. In some ways, this connects to this, which I have plenty of thoughts on, and I’ll get to them eventually.
After 23.5 years of life, I’ve become somewhat notorious for being serially single, due about 60% to my own accord and 30% to my frequently questionnable taste in guys. A Reader’s Digest style summation in three sentences: In went to a sheltered private school, thanks to which I was a completely clueless, naive and socially awkward high schooler. By the time I turned into something resembling a swan, I was bitter, anxious to leave Seattle and “in love” with someone significantly older than me. In college, the dudes I saw were either fresh off break-ups or unwilling to commit. I wanted what I couldn’t have, and what I could have were the dudes who seemed to fall for me just because I said more than 10 words to them.
I’ve had mediocre luck in romance since college, mostly because it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Almost all of the positive interaction with men in my life has been with my guy friends. And that’s always been fine with me, because I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, I’ve always had a lot of close guy friends, and after high school (with one exception during college), I finally stopped being the girl who always fell in love with her guy friends. Additionally, after such a long period of romantic interests being completely unreliable, untrustworthy and often not worth the trouble, my friends became increasingly important. Concentrating more on friends than lovers made sense. I have better luck with friends. Recent months notwithstanding, I’m generally an extremely reliable friend.
I also completely suffered from not knowing what I wanted. Sure, I had the picture perfect ideal relationship in mind, the same kind of dream that most people with a lifestyle similar to mine want. Someone with a social life but not so much of one that you never get any alone time. Someone who’s ambitious but not too ambitious. Someone who’s crazy about you but not borderline stalker crazy about you. A freak in the bedroom who’s presentable to the parents. Someone who’s street/everyday smart and booksmart. Someone who likes a lot of the things you like but can still expose you to new things. So on and so forth, all those perfect mediums. I was never able to solve - still can’t - what it was that drew me to romantic disaster. More often than not I had already committed to a course of action before I had any hint of its dangers/repurcussions, by which point it was too late to turn around (Have you ever tried to stop a Virgo from doing something they’re determined to do? Not.Bloody.Likely.). I’ve been drifting through the past couple years, gathering bits and pieces of clues of what I want and how I can find it in non-assholeish forms, but rarely dedicated to any sort of outcome (recent developments aside, and one or two exceptions - “Everybody needs somebody sometimes…”).
At last, the point of all of this backstory! (I can’t help it, I’m reading Rushdie… and I’m me.)
When I was in Vermont I, unsurprisingly, spent a lot of time relaxing with chill dudes. At some point, I heard two guys talk about how they were kind of amazed at the fact that the women they were in love with loved them right back. It was, without a doubt, the sweetest, most honest and eye-opening conversation I have ever heard take place between men my age. (Less recently, an older man expressed that most women deserve better than the men they get.)
At some point I got used to men with outlandish criteria for commitment, who required women who were MENSA members and porn stars. I got used to men who not only believed that such women actually existed, but that they deserved them, that the world owed it to them. A flesh and blood goddess couldn’t hold a candle to the statue in their minds. And the sweet geeks I met did it too, they just did it backwards.
But that conversation in Vermont spelled it all out for me.
I want men who respect real women. There are amazing, real women in this world, and I know they’re hard to find, but hell, amazing men are hard to find, too. The word respect is important, because I know plenty of men who love all women, any woman. Which is great, but it’s my general experience that it’s great be liked/loved for yourself, for the complete package, not simply because you happen to be there. And I’m not saying women don’t do the whole exultation thing, I know plenty who do. In some ways, I point a finger at celebrity culture, in others, I point one at the ambitious nature of my generation. All I know is that I can put together a long list of names of people who worship characters in movies and books before they give credit to someone sitting next to them. I am frequently in awe of people I know. My friends. My hopeful lovers. And I think it needs to be there. I think it’s important for it to be there.
Oh, and one small thing. Flowers. A man has never given me flowers. It’s cliche by now, I guess, but it’d be nice, even just once. If chivalry isn’t dead, he’s definitely hiding from me.