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Friday, February 16, 2007

sex vs. babies

When I get down on myself, I tend to get kindof dramatic. That may not come across, and I truly appreciate your kind advice, I know I tend to romanticize motherhood, though I also am ready for the dirty work of it. I’ve been wondering if I wasn’t on the money with my whole “no drinking, no taxis, no sex” faux resolutions, if maybe they aren’t the way to go. At least the first two. I don’t really think it’s about sex vs. babies, not just for the obvious reasons, but it’s more that, well, I don’t really have sex in my current life, and I certainly don’t have a baby, and I’m not really sure how to go about acquiring either. Okay, yes, I know how easy it would be to get both, but I mean in responsible, healthy ways. I’ve been down the scary pregnancy test route before and it’s not pretty.

I just get…discouraged. And I know that negativity is one of the least attractive qualities in a person, I see it when others are like that around me. But I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily negative, or bitter, or cynical. More like resigned. I do think I only have it in me so many times to put myself out there before I just give up, and I’ve realized that the part I can control is my own reactions, although that’s much easier said than done. I’m so willing to bend myself into whatever some person wants me to be, but it’s not because I’m a doormat. It’s because it makes me feel good, it makes me feel useful, which is pretty much all I really want. I consider myself pretty low-maintenance when it comes to relationships, which may be delusional, but there you go.

I had read Susan Shapiro’s Secrets of a Fix-Up Fanatic, so when two separate friends offered to fix me up with people, I thought “Great, let’s try this.” What’s perhaps ironic is that I really liked both of these guys, and I think they liked me. With one, as I think I’ve alluded to, I had literally the best sex of my life. But the big problem was that because they’d been “recommended,” I thought we were on the same page about certain things that we just weren’t, things that would’ve been red flags and would’ve preempted both the fun, and the whole crying into my pillow part of it.

And yes, the cynical amongst us could say it’s all fodder for the novel, but I don’t see it like that. What’s funny to me is that back in the day, like last year and the year before, I’d think to myself, “If the perfect relationship came along but the person wanted you to stop writing your column, would you?” I would hope the perfect person for me wouldn’t ask me to do that, but you know, I’d have been willing to consider that. And so I felt almost relieved on the personal front when it ended. I’m not saying I want a sexless marriage so I can be part of David Blum’s target demographic; it’s not a chic thing or even something I necessarily aspire to, but let’s face it, I’m not getting laid right now either. I’d rather have a solid partner even if it’s in a mostly platonic way than no one at all. As I tried to shrug the tears out of my eyes as I wandered around Barnes & Noble after chatting away with strangers about erotica and BDSM and wishing my life were a teensy bit more normal, I found Caroline Knapp’s The Merry Recluse and of course snapped it up. And after multiple library borrowings, I got my own copy of Sarah Dunn’s The Big Love. Perhaps it’s totally ironic that the book I want to learn from is about an evangelical Christian woman’s take on sex and dating, but what I’m learning is that I’m not so far off from my character, who’s a virgin starting to explore her sexuality. It’s not that I’m a prude or anything, but I do look at my younger self and go “What?” I do have to ask myself why I can’t just be single and be happy with that, because there is a very real level at which I’m not happy with it, but I don’t want to just randomly date or hook up with people and I keep making basically exactly the same mistake over and over and not really being able to figure out how to fix it.

But I do know that much more than wanting to be loved or wanting attention or sex or any of that, I want to give all those things. Not in a completely lopsided way, but doing things for other people is what gets me off, and I meant that in both the prurient and non-prurient way. I keep wanting to write a personal ad but there are just too many intangibles for me, too many things I can’t put into words, too many things I have to figure out in the moment, in person.

And yes, sometimes I wonder if I should delete my website, my blog, my online everything. I won’t, but I sometimes fantasize about it, sometimes wonder if I haven’t royally screwed myself over and out of the kind of relationship that I want by the career I’ve chosen. I’m proud of most of the writing and editing I’ve done and I don’t think I’m a lost cause but I do know I’ve repelled some people with what I do for a living, and while most of the time, there are rewards that make up for it, those aren’t rewards I can curl up next to in bed at night. Being interviewed by some newspaper or having a pretty book cover or whatever the accolade du jour is in no way replaces the babies I want to nurture, the partner I want to learn to cook for, all those other things. I was half joking when I said the whole single mom route is looking inevitable, but I’m pretty open to it in a few years. First priority is my loans, and kindof bolstering my brain and my heart so they are not both so stuck in junior high stupid mode. I really do think there’s a level at which my maturity is stunted, there’s a reason why I pick guys who, say, hire prostitutes instead of coming to my birthday party, or knock up their real girlfriend instead of me, or whatever. There’s nothing I can do about those people (and I'm sure the idea of me spending even two seconds pining for either of them has anyone who made it this far thinking I'm the crazy one, and I am, but still, I have my moments where I'd take them back, infrequent moments, but moments nonetheless), but the fact that I seem to go for that type, or a series of other types who are all wrong for me, is something I want and need to fix, and I guess ultimately my point is, if it’s those guys or being on my own, clearly on my own is better. The utopian part of me would indeed like to think I can “have it all” but I live half my life off in the clouds in some utopian fantasy that I try to bring myself back to reality as often as I can.

And adding to all of this really is this way that I’m losing my mind, losing track of things. I feel like I’ll forget what day it is, forget where I’m supposed to be. Last night I freaked out cause I thought I was an hour late to this event I had to speak at, and last week I lost my cell phone, Wednesday I think I left my hat at UCB. I just don’t know how to hold it all together and I feel like I’ve set myself up for failure, and I don’t want to fail, I really don’t, but I don’t quite know how to make things work properly. But I’m trying. And it’s Friday, finally. Not a long weekend for me but two days is long enough. I am going to try to get back on my early to bed, early to rise schedule because I think it’s much healthier for me. And for real no drinking, I’ve done way too much of it and it’s really not good for me, it just twists me all around and makes all my problems show up in such sharper relief when I’m no longer buzzed. I know that, and I do it anyway, and that’s why reading Caroline Knapp is comforting but scary. I’m not an alcoholic but all those things she talks about, I’m so right there. To me it’s not about the alcohol but the symptoms, that hollowness which I seem to have almost all the time. I’m not gonna lie; when I’m dating someone for real, which has really only happened once since K. and I don’t need to go into that drama again, I don’t have that hollowness. I have someone to focus on and I really did in ways that still linger. Tuesday was a kinda fucked up night too, although there was an adorable little girl and her cool parents at Sutra, but in terms of “exorcising my ex,” so didn’t happen. I kept looking over my shoulder, worried he’d show up, feeling utterly out of place once we left and went to the Heeb party. That’s why I loved the Rejection Show on Wednesday, and Happy Corp. Those feel like mine, my friends, my people, places I discovered and carved out my own communities within. It’s ironic but awesome that the comedy community seems to be where I feel the most at home. I heard from so many people who I think really liked what I read on Wednesday, who didn’t make me feel like a freak. Maybe because they go there with their jokes and stories, sometimes sexually, but certainly about dating. It’s masked behind humor, sure, whereas here I’m usually just like “watch my heart bleed all over the place,” but they get it, and I love them for it.

So I’ll be okay, but I think I need some downtime. With all the trips and crazy March coming up and writing my book and juggling juggling, dealing with any dating mishaps is just too much for me, it makes the whole precarious house of cards my emotional well-being is resting on tumble. I forget sometimes how quickly I go from super smiley giddy to crying into my pillow, and I mean that pretty literally. I have one of the thinnest skins you’ll find and I wish I could be tougher, I wish I didn’t need to share that, because of course that gives anyone reading this ammunition to use against me someday. Of course it means that I’m flawed and I admit it and for the people looking for perfect, unflawed people to date, they can count me out. But the truth is I don’t want someone unflawed either. I like the flaws, the dark sides, the uniqueness, the quirkiness. I’m not saying please show up at my door with massive amounts of baggage in hand, but a little is okay. That’s not the kind of thing I can put in a personal ad, which is why I just write them in my head and vomit all this out here. Yes, I’m single because I blog, and much as I’d like to apologize for that or not do it, I just can’t.

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