My co-worker always has “a great weekend!” compared to my lame ones. In fact, my whole summer’s been lame because I can’t find a girlfriend. She keeps telling me if I stop “looking” I’ll meet somebody. I believe that’s true for women, not men. A woman just needs to show up and men hit on her. She’ll enjoy herself, give out her number, and perhaps go out with a guy. She may discover he's married, or has tons of baggage, but she had a good time and a few free meals, and her self-esteem remains intact.
--Just Unloading
According to you, all a girl needs to do is “show up.” Okay, maybe so -- if the girl’s name is Angelina Jolie. She can probably put as little prep into going out as some guys do: Hose herself down, shake the water off like a big dog, slap on some deodorant, and dig through the pile for a shirt and pants dark enough that the biohazards mostly blend in.
As for the mere mortal woman who just shows up, guys mainly notice her when she’s blocking their path to the woman who spent countless hours trying to look like all she did was show up: plucking, teasing, squeezing, highlighting, low-lighting, pushing up, working out, sucking in, and, for the truly fun part, paying $100-plus dollars to get waxed and plucked in the last place you’d ever want tweezers or hot wax.
Yet, in that utopia in your head that is being female, no woman’s ever too fat, too flat, or too aggressively average-looking to be hounded for her phone number. And then, even if a girl’s looking for love, it’s all good as long as she can snag a free steak or two before she discovers Mr. Wonderful #7,412 is just looking to have sex with somebody other than his wife: “Crushing disappointment? Thanks, I’ll take mine medium rare, with a side of garlic mashed potatoes.”
The truth is, your co-worker who always has “a great weekend!” probably doesn’t feel that way because she has dozens of men drooling into her shoe. Research by psychologist Martin Seligman and others shows that people with an optimistic orientation toward life are not only happier but more successful in getting what they want. There’s more to this than running around telling yourself you’re wonderful or buying into pop fluffology like “The Secret,” which claims people are only fat because they’re thinking “fat thoughts.” (Couldn’t possibly be that they’re doing it while speed-eating donuts.) Get Seligman’s book “Learned Optimism,” and see how to put a more positive spin on your setbacks, and rejigger where you put credit or blame. Stop complaining and look on the bright side, and you may find that’s where the girls are.
But, wait -- aren’t you supposed to stop looking? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean staying home and waiting for women to parachute into your backyard. It means stop looking desperate, which is how you come off when the success or failure of your weekend hinges on your ability to make total strangers you have no control over bend to your will. Beyond that, I suspect you aren’t looking for love so much as you’re looking for victory -- making your approach more us versus them than us connecting with them. Changing that takes time. Start going out just to have fun, and show interest in women beyond merely acquiring one, and you should come to appreciate them, and not just in the way a lion appreciates a zebra.
I’m a 23-year-old woman and my boyfriend is 37. We’ve been very happy and communicate well, but I recently started hanging with a guy my own age, and I ended up having feelings for him, too. I hate going behind my boyfriend’s back when he’s fully committed, but my biggest fear is that my family will think he’s too old for me, and their approval means a lot. I need to choose soon because I hate lying to people I love. How do I decide who’s right for me, and what should I base my decision on?
--Confused
Write each guy’s name in catsup on your kitchen counter. Find a pregnant iguana. Clip its toenails and scatter them in a circular pattern around each name. Walk outside and ask the first person you see their name. More than eight letters? Go with the older guy. Fewer than eight? The young dude. Or…just dump both, leave the iguana to lick up the catsup, and throw yourself at the next guy who asks you the time.No, I’m not kidding. At this stage in your life, this is as good a method as any for deciding who will stay and who will go. The truth is, nobody is particularly right or wrong for you because there isn’t a whole lot of you to be right or wrong for. In fact, if you’re like a lot of people in their early 20s, you’re a larva in shoes. With boobs and a job, you probably look the part of an adult, but at best, you’re the test market for Smirnoff Ice and probably have a hard time with existential questions deeper than “Bleu cheese or ranch?”
Yet, chances are, pretty much all you have are questions -- big, looming ones like “Who am I?” -- which you can’t duck by answering “Who am I with?” Do yourself a favor; admit you aren’t sure who you are, and start trying on selves like day-of-the-week underwear. So, Saturday morning, you’re a blank slate, tabula rasa, but after a weekend matting your hair into dreads, you slouch into work all tabula Rasta. Tuesday, maybe you throw on a Che Guevara T-shirt and march to your cubicle as girl revolutionary. Oops, the office know-it-all tells you the guy was actually a mass murderer. You slink to the bathroom, turn your shirt inside out, and vow to sneak out early to celebrate capitalism at the mall.
Your real problem isn’t choosing between the two guys, but the fact that you seem to approach life like a contestant on “The Price Is Right,” glancing nervously at your 12 inbred relatives in the audience for hints at the answers. Take your biggest fear, for example. It isn’t that your relationship won’t meet your needs, but that it won’t meet your parents’. Ma-ma! That’s exactly why you shouldn’t get serious with any guy right now, especially a much older one. Since you don’t know who you are, it’s easy to fall into being who you think he wants. And instead of looking for your own answers, you’re prone to lean over and, essentially, cheat off his SAT.
To figure out what’s right for you, have the guts to throw yourself into what could be wrong for you. Take risks. Make mistakes. Date mistakes. Live it up. Just not so much that you end up maimed, pregnant, or dead. In the wise words of the ancient philosopher Sir Mick Jagger, “It’s okay letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back.”
I’m in love with a man I’ve been seeing long distance for six months. He's funny, interesting, and sexy, and I really admire the way he is with people and my horses. He quit his job to move to be with me, but then, without explanation, began interviewing elsewhere. I also learned he hadn’t told his three adult daughters that he and their mother have been divorced for a year! He finally told them on the day he couldn't avoid my meeting one of the daughters. I last saw him three months ago, and he’s been breaking plans to meet ever since and calling and e-mailing less and less. Last week, he e-mailed that I was “just great,” but he couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Well, I’d like a relationship with this man. I know underneath he's caring, loving, and considerate. A great companion.
--Missing Him
Yes, he seems like the perfect companion -- for any girl who can make do with a big carrot in a man’s pocket and a pat or two on the withers.
But, wait…it appears he also has a way with people! (A way of what?) I’m guessing he smiles at the waitress, asks about her bursitis, and leaves 25 percent. But, what about his people? Maybe a guy “forgets” to tell his kids that he got hair plugs or that he’s renting their rooms to strangers. What kind of father waits an entire year -- until his daughter’s about to catch him with his girlfriend -- to break the news that he and Mom have, uh, decided to date other people?
This was a sign -- one of many -- that the follow-up to sweeping you off your feet would probably be dropping you on your coccyx. He was moving to be with you, but then he wasn’t, and never mind why. You’re supposedly in a six-month relationship, but you haven’t seen the guy in half as many months, and he’s calling and e-mailing “less and less.” Wow, right out of Shakespeare -- except in “Romeo and Juliet,” the big question was “Wherefore art thou?” not “Where the hell have you been these past three months?”
Naturally, you prefer to focus on what a “great companion” he is…underneath. (Are you looking for a relationship or a career in mining?) My guess -- you’re not just looking for a relationship but are so desperate for one you’re willing to overlook almost anything: Oh, he eats babies? Well…only after giving them “fair chase”! Being long distance kept inconvenient truths safely out of the way, leaving you to fill in the blanks with wishful thinking and misty memories of just how darn wonderful he was with Mr. Ed.
For future reference, when your boyfriend says he can’t figure out how to make it work, he isn’t telling you he’s stumped, he’s telling you to move on. While positive thinking can be a terrific tool (per my friend Rob Long, “Life hands you cancer, make cancerade!”), you need to bring a little pessimism into your life, and explore why dating a particular guy might be ill-advised, impractical, or downright dim. If you must think positive, opt for “I’m okay with or without a man” before you start swooning, “Why, he’s a regular Lone Ranger! Hi-yo, Silver, and away!” -- and you should catch on quicker when a man’s particularly good at the “away!”
September 5, 2007I’m a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne, serving in Iraq. My wife of a year, whom I love and adore, has recently begun telling me she’s lonely. It’s understandable, as I’m on month 12 of this tour, which has just been extended. Last week, she confessed she’s become “attracted” to another man. She says she still loves me and wants to be with me, but if she were alone with him and he made moves, she doesn't know how she’d respond. I’m confused, can you love someone and become attracted to someone else?
--Heartbroken in Tikrit
It’s rough back there in the suburbs. I can just see your wife, gingerly making her way across the parking lot, crouching low and ducking behind cars in case there are Iraqi snipers behind the Rite Aid sign. Who knows what perils lurk on her way home…an I.E.D. on Elm Street, or maybe a poorly marked speed bump to send her latte flying? Oh, the horror…the horror…(You ever try to get coffee stains out of white pants?)
We’ve all got issues. The thing is, it’s not like you’re taking inventory up the road at World ‘O Widgets, where distracting you from your work could cause you to suffer a nasty paper cut. Yet, here she is, going all confessional on you like you’re hashing this out over coffee at Applebee’s: “Sweetie…I should tell you, I’m tempted to have sex with somebody else, and I guess there’s nothing you can do from thousands of miles away…but, whaddya think?” What are you supposed to say, “Gee, thanks, honey, really appreciate you keeping me in the loop”?
Making this even harder for you is your belief that love should be a cure for attraction -- that when somebody loves you enough to say “I do,” they won’t start thinking, “I’d sure love to do him, too.” The truth is, somewhere in each of us there’s a list, “Things that make us go hubba hubba,” formed largely by genes, and also by life experience. And, sorry, there’s no editing this list, or sending in an announcement, “Ahem, we’re married now.” But, don’t despair. According to economist Robert H. Frank, author of “Passions Within Reason,” love may be just the weapon to ward off infidelity. There’s a human tendency to go for small, immediate rewards -- an affair, for example -- over bigger, more distant ones. But, Frank points out, feelings of love for a romantic partner can function as an immediate reward, and if they’re felt strongly enough, can negate the pull of the (more conveniently located) competition.
As much as this must feel like being away at camp and getting a letter informing you that your parents are splitsville (“But, have a great summer, kiddo!”), you can’t mope your wife into keeping her legs crossed. Your best defense is weapons-grade mush: Tell her you love her, tell her why you love her, tell her why you married her, and keep telling her. And keep her talking about her love for you. In case there is slippage, consider whether you agree with the idea that without sexual fidelity you have nothing, or whether you see value in trying to forgive her and rebuild. Ultimately, as frustrating as it is that you can’t be there now to protect her from an ambush on Elm (or a bush on Elm blocking the stop sign), you’ve got to keep your focus on bringing yourself and your buddies back alive -- not playing Oprah from the foxhole.