Can't We Just Be Friends?

This week, the trickle of men wanting my friendship has become a deluge:

• My ex
• A guy I went out with twice that I'm not attracted to (but wish I were)
• A guy I went out with twice that isn't that attracted to me (but I think wishes he was)
• A guy I went out with once, 2 years ago, who made me feel really shitty about myself, but claims it was all him and can't we be friends?
• A married guy, a ferry ride away, that wanted me to be his mistress, but when I said no way, wants to be friends;
• A guy from Asheville NC
• A guy from Egypt

I can't do it. I don't understand how people make a friendship between a single, straight guy and a single straight gal work. I have gay friends that I adore, but that is different. With all the rest, there is an unspoken rejection on one side or the other.

Harry (in When Harry Met Sally) said something like "Men and women can't be friends because the sex thing always messes it up." And I agree.

All of this is underscored by Edmund. I knew Edmund in college. During my first year, he lived one hall over from me, and walked through my hall to get to the dining hall. Somehow or other, we became friends, and I thought he was was flirting with me here and there. Edmund was my height, incredibly thin and had a receding hair line. But he had sparkling, laughing eyes, clean energy and deep wisdom. I actually remember wishing I could fall for a guy like Edmund because he was, pretty clearly, 'in my league' so to speak. Be careful what you wish for.

Throughout college we were friends, but nothing more. After college, he moved to Seattle, and the following year, I did too (not for him--although it didn't hurt he was there). We became the very best of friends. We did everything together--hanging out at least 3 nights a week, watching Star Trek, talking on the phone every night before bed. And I fell for him; but he wasn't romantically interested in me. He would put his arm around me, run his fingers through my hair, kiss me on the eyes, and I would snuggle up next to him in a movie; but he 'didn't feel that way' about me. We shared our hopes, dreams and insecurities. He would spend hours (literally) on the phone, explaining how painful it was to him that 'no woman was romantically interested in him.' I guessed that I, somehow-or-other, just didn't qualify as a woman, in his eyes.

Finally, I literally broke up with him. I confronted him about whether he knew I was romantically interested (and he confirmed he did), asked what the hell he meant when he said no woman was interested in him, and told him I couldn't be his friend. That was 1998. He hadn't had a girlfriend since, when I saw him is 2005. I wonder if he is trying to find his way out of a very deep closet; clearly something is wrong because he would make someone very happy, should he ever figure out what the hell he wants. But I know what I want and a co-dependent, platonic, friendship with a man that sucks out all my romantic energy (not to mention my self-esteem) just isn't it.

All of this convinced me that friendships between straight men and women is something close to emotional cancer, to be avoided at all costs. I have to wonder if the universe is trying to teach me something here, but I don't see a way through this. I'm going to try and see if I can be a distant friend with my ex--I saw him this week and have no emotional stickiness towards him. I couldn't imagine getting back with him. But he feels stuck--he isn't growing, isn't deepening. I don't really see where the energy would come from his friendship. But I also feel like I owe him a little--not a lot, but he was an important part of my life and so if I can do coffee once a month without emotional blowback to me, I do want to do that.

But the rest--I don't know a way through this one. Part of it is my time. Some guy in Egypt or Asheville--I have no emotional stickiness there, but I have real friends, that I've been friends with for decades, and they rank higher.

The one that really matters, of course, is John; I'm attracted to him and I don't think he's all that attracted to me on a sexual level, otherwise, I think he'd try to find a way to make it work. But he does want friendship and I could see our friendship being SO illuminating and rich and enlightening and smart and fun. I kept going deeper and deeper into who I am and what makes me tick with him. In a little less than a month, he and I went deeper than all my therapists ever have. You can easily guess when he and I stopped corresponding simply by looking at the frequency of my posting here. And yet it feels like Edmund all over again. He would take the energy that I need if I'm going to find a partner, and I would be constantly questioning what was wrong with me that he wasn't attracted to me that way, and we'd flirt a little and I'd wonder what the hell it meant and try to believe if I just did something right, he'd finally be interested. I'd put my life on hold, waiting for him, and then I'd grow to hate him for it. John is going to make some woman incredibly happy, and I would watch from the sidelines and feel like my heart had been torn out and all my fire had been replaced with ice as I grew slowly numb. I can't put myself through that slow, inexorable rejection again, and I don't see another way out of it even as I miss him with every cell in my body.

I don't think anyone actually reads this blog, but if you do, and if you have made friendships work with single people of the gender to which you are attracted, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Into the Deep

I must believe in astrology, because if part of me didn't find it useful, I wouldn't follow it. Intellectually, I doubt it, but it just seems right an awful lot of the time.

And astrologically speaking, the full moon in my opposite sign means I'm having a hard time: "arguments are raging, conflicts are emerging, stressful situations are arising and misunderstandings keep taking place. It is also why you feel so emotionally vulnerable - and why secretly, deep down within, you feel fearful" (Jonathan Cainer, http://www.bubble.com/).

Well, I'm glad there's a good reason that I feel like hell. I was in the park yesterday, walking and looking down at the city, and I just burst into tears. I could have stopped myself. I've always been good at keeping up the public persona, but it didn't feel worth it. I'm tired of manipulating my emotions, tired of the gaping chasm between my public persona and who I am inside, tired of spending so much energy to protect my vulnerabilities. I did find a nook with privacy, but it surprised me that I just cried in public like that. I hope that isn't the first step towards tinfoil haberdashery, but I guess if that's where I end up being happy, I'll be fine with it by the time I make that choice. I'd rather live fully right now than spend so much energy on trying to stay within other people's definitions of normal.

What have I learned from this roller-coaster ride? Nothing. If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it exactly the same way. And so much. I've begun to actually feel (and not just know) that my biggest weaknesses are some of the best things I've got to offer. I've learned that I won't compromise on human connection. I can compromise on a ton of stuff that isn't essential, but truly connecting with another person, and letting him see who you really are is magical. Terrifying as all hell, but worth risking for, every single time. I've started to connect with people better--I don't multi-task when someone comes in my office to ask me a question. I actually stop what I'm doing and give them my full attention and work is more joyous and present because of it.

I would love to not need another AFOG (Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth), but, fundamentally, I don't believe we get to pick that easily. We have a choice: go deeper or numb out. We don't get to be static.

I spent a lot of energy (and pills) in the last decade trying to feel happy. I can manipulate my emotions pretty easily. Even though I've been off the SSRIs for 3 years, I still can on a short-term level--I have 'happy lists' on my iPod. I can choose what to think about, control my thoughts to be content, at least on a surface level. This seems like the ideal for a Jane Austen heroine, but it wasn't working for me; it kept me on a more superficial level and didn't allow me the level of connection for which I yearn . Not that I need to involve everyone in my own personal melodrama, but I probably need to allow myself to go into it and not view it only as a sign of weakness.

I'm proud of myself for not running away from the pain. It is really hard for me, but I am allowing myself to feel, and I believe I can only connect with another person as deeply as I feel the pain of loss.

My Great-Great-Great Grandfather's Granddaughter

So weird--my last name. It is really unusual--the only family with it in my state. And yet, my family has its share of "Smiths" and "Joneses." Why, by accident of birth, do I happen to have my father's father's father's father's father's last name? Or is there a reason for it? Just like my mitochondria are literally the descendants from my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's--is there something in my soul that is descended only through the male side?

I was 11 when my father told me that no man would ever love me if I didn't lose weight. I told him to fuck off. Men were scum if that was the only way they judged women and why the hell would I want a relationship that was basically based on me being an object, a piece of meat?

And I simultaneously shut down my heart, learned to stop hoping and never, ever let anyone know I wasn't strong and couldn't take care of myself. I never learned to flirt. Never learned I was, or might possibly be seen as attractive. All I knew was that I would fail as a woman, but if I didn't let anyone know I might yearn for connection, I could still succeed as an asexual human being.

I can tell you exactly where I was standing, what the light looked like. My dad probably doesn't remember that moment, that day, but he remembers being unkind to me on a number of occasions, without even knowing where it came from.

He has tried SO hard to make up for it. And yet, telling me I'm beautiful a dozen times in the last year (which he has done) doesn't erase those marks he never meant to leave. Where did that voice come from? None of us really know, but I have my guess.

I don't know the details of when my father's father turned into a tyrant but it happened sometime after my grandfather proposed to my grandmother and before my father was cognizant of his surroundings. My father rebelled against his father's criticism and discipline. Until I was born. At that point, my father was lost and fell into old patterns. He did his VERY best to change those, but it took time, and my soul still bares the traces not of who my dad is now, but who he was then.

My grandfather left the country he grew up in because his father was such a tyrant to him. My grandmother used to comment that she fell in love with a happy loving man and married a dictatorial tyrant. She didn't know how it happened, and I bet he didn't either.

My great-grandfather hated his father for seeing him as a failure. In Germany you take aptitude tests at an early age and my grandfather ended up in trade school. He never forgave his father for the sense of betrayal the father expressed, and his father probably never forgave his son for failing. Or maybe part of his desperately wanted to forgive his son, but he didn't know how. Who knows?

I don't know much about my great-great-grandfather. But his father, my great-great-great grandfather, was fired from his job as a school teacher in Germany for being too cruel and strict with the students. I could be wrong, but I expect that 'too strict' in Germany in the 19th century meant something very different from 'too strict' today. And I expect that generation after generation, good men have tried to let go of their father's influence, and have been unable. They've all rebelled and they've probably promised to try and be different, and then a family happens and they've lost authorship of the details of their lives and they fall into the only patterns they know.

And so, it is fitting that I bear my great-great-great grandfather's name. To this day, I yearn for someone who is strict and sees the world as right and wrong to tell me I'm OK the way I am. I yearn for the love and the approval of someone in charge. I don't like those scars on my soul, but I accept them. And I realize the power they have for me, both in the erotic context and also with love.

My great-great-great grandfather has a great-great-great granddaughter who bears his name, has all the strength he would have wished for his sons and uses it to try and re-inscribe the patriarchal expectations in a way that is a little more loving and humane, truly, intensely and vitally in this moment.

WD-40 for my Emotional Armor

"Sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad. And the world goes round."

So, I had to let John go. I was one of the first two people he met in this world, and he, rightfully, wants a chance to play and not be tied down. He also wants to do piercings, extreme play, far more extreme than I could ever do. And part of me wants to scream 'are you insane? do you know how rarely it is to have this emotional connection? this intellectual connection? How rare and precious to find that with the BDSM?" But I know he needs to go there and he won't be happy until he explores it himself and figures out what he wants. So painful and I find myself again looking for ways to look at how I protect myself and at what cost.

It seems like there is this cost/benefit issue--the more I protect myself, the less open I am and the less open I am, the less attractive I am. For some reason, in the past 2 months I've decided "to hell with it--I'm going for it." And I met these two amazing men. And I have felt so bereft by their loss. Intellectually, I am trying to force, seduce, and tantalize myself to stay open, and I can feel every part of me saying "are you insane? This roller-coaster yet again? I can't do it."

I don't know where the right balance lies. Intellectually I'd rather go through the pain of opening, mourning and learning to be open again, but I just don't know how strong I actually am.

Someone To Watch Over Me....

The ad I run on the kinky website is superlative. I say that not only because I can become occasionally enamored of my own posts, but because women write to say I've articulated what they've always felt and men write saying "Like you, I have no interest in long distance, but wow--you're going to make some man very lucky." A co-owner of the local S&M club contacted me, and he has many more-experienced women, but clearly my ad intrigued him.

Unfortunately, it is a double-edged sword--a man last week was 'shocked' I would say 'slow down.' He was edging perilously close to cybering, and I want someone in flesh and blood. Cybering might be great for someone you already loved who was away, but for me it would only ever be for that. But then he earnestly exclaimed "But I feel like I've known you my whole life, I've been searching for you my whole life, you are my lost half." Which may have been a line, but I believe it has a kernel of truth to it (especially as he then deleted his profile from the site). The problem, of course, is that I didn't feel like I knew him at all. He knew me from my ad--his was 3 sentences.

But this one man, John, this gem of a human. We haven't met yet, and I don't allow myself to fall for men I haven't met. It is foolish (and look what happened the last time I fell for a man, and I'd met him!). Nevertheless, as Joni Mitchell might say "Help me, I think I'm falling..."

I look up to him, a rarity for me. For several years I've attempted to convince myself that I don't have to look up to a man because there are so few that I honestly look up to. I didn't respect the choices my ex was making, and that, fundamentally, is one of the 2 reasons we had to break up (the other is that his erotic mind craved all darkness and I thrive on an interplay between darkness and tenderness). I believe that this inability to look up to most men is egotistical, obnoxious, and self-centered. So I tried to wish it out of existence. Problem, though is that it is true.

John, is so clearly smarter than me, which I adore. (If he didn't appreciate my mind, it would be problematic, but he does.) As we talk, I'm learning things about myself. The quality of our conversations is like nothing I've ever seen. I've never met a man who could match me on that level. If we do hit it off, well, I think we could compile our e-mails into a book. He has only recently come to terms with wiitwd, and I still have much angst. But the angst on both sides is linked to some of the fundamental philosophical questions plaguing gen Xers, the interplay of sexuality and power, of what Eros looks like for both of us.

He had me do one small thing for him last night, and it was a complete surrender. And much of my protective defenses melted in that moment. All of which terrifies me. But his tenderness, his cherishment (is that a word?), his care. Maybe I'm just being a silly girl, but once again, this is worth risking the possibility of getting hurt.

The one strength I've developed in the last few months is the ability to open up to someone, get hurt, accept that, and move on without allowing pieces of emotional armour to ensnare their way into and around my heart. I seem to open more and more with each connection and loss. I don't know how or where that strength is coming from. In the past, I believed I could only open myself up to a limited number of men before it made me hard and bitter, but now it feels like I'm opening more deeply with each person, allowing myself not to run from the emotional pain, and letting go of any recriminations. Compared to my past declarations that "I'm strong"--this is a very different strength. This strength to be vulnerable is an energy that I find enriching. The only cost is allowing myself to feel the pain fully in the present moment.