The Many Tiny Mr. Wrongs in My Life

Last night when Alesia and I were in the car going home after therapy, I told her I have made many mistakes in my life. Everyone has. That's how life is - you make mistakes, you fix them as best you can. She is starting to see some of her past behavior as mistakes and starting to analyze it a bit, which is real progress. Learning to be introspective and contemplative is a tough thing for a former orphan. The survival mode is to simply live in the moment.

Michael was upset last night about his difficulty in learning the multiplication tables. I was able to tell him, truthfully, that it took me about 2 years to really learn them. I have little facility with numbers. I ordered an interesting workbook for him which is supposed to teach the multiplication tables with pictures. It was recommended to me by a friend who homeschools her kids. Mother didn't really understand it, so I am hoping Alesia can teach it to Michael this afternoon.

I said to him last night, though, that failure at something simply means you have to find another way to succeed. Failure is how we learn. That's something he is learning now, at 11, and Alesia is trying to understand at 17.

Michael is able to talk more openly about what upsets him, and so I have a tiny hope that we will have an easier time with him. Then again, the practical side of me says "Well, his challenges won't be the same as Alesia's, perhaps, but they will be there. Teenhood looms large." Yikes.

This morning in the car Alesia told me she had taken her new MP3 player to SCHOOL! I was aghast. "You need to be concentrating on BIOLOGY, not listening to music!" I fussed at her. Plus, it's likely to be stolen. Just when I think she's starting to get some sense, she comes out with something like that. She was genuinely puzzled at my dismay. 

However, back to last night. We had a good bonding time in the car last night because after I told her I made a lot of big mistakes in my life she asked me to name one. I had to think, oh, about 3 seconds.

"Well, every guy I was ever involved with was a mistake," I said casually. Her eyes got huge.

"Really? Why?" she asked.

"Well, I just always was too emotionally needy, was the biggest problem. I tried to make them my everythnig, and they ran in the other direction." [This echoed what we had been discussing in therapy, to a certain extent. It was true, though.]

I felt like I should tell her the truth. We talked a little about the last guy I dated seriously, who broke up with me just a few months before I came home with her from Russia.

I wound up the discussion by telling her, "Look, I am telling you this, because each and every guy I ever fell in love with hurt me. Hurt me bad. I never, ever want you to be hurt like that. I want you to choose wisely."

I got to thinking today, that makes it sound like all gloom and doom. The truth is, while the relationships were all dismal failures, I had some pretty funny dates.

I went through a period of time in my 30's when I was doing internet dating. I have friends who have found their spouses using internet dating sites. So I would "meet" a guy online, and if we clicked I would meet him in a public place, using no last names, and see if he was a possibility. None of them really worked out. I have often thought I could write a pretty humorous book about those crazy days.

** One guy, who I met at a very nice restaurant, had sent me a photo that was old. He was no taller than me, and he was as wide as he was tall. I could deal with that. The dealbreakers were that he did phone sales and he lived with his mother and didn't own a car. Those 3 attributes just made me back slowly out of the restaurant and speed walk to my car. I didn't even give him a ride to the train.

** One guy was a research scientist from Sweden who admitted to me rather early in the evening that no, he wasn't actually divorced yet. We spent the evening wandering around the mall looking for a fondue set for him to use in his new apartment. I had a feeling I didn't measure up to the blonde goddess he pictured himself with, but he was actually rather pleasant and we had a nice evening. I never saw him again but I didn't care. He and his fondue pot are probably very happy together somewhere and I hope he's divorced, if he's still on the net. I think of him as Mr. Fondue Pot Scientist.

** One of the first guys I met was a lawyer, and I vaguely recalled him being on the other side of a case from me when I worked for a woman I will call Josephine, a completely crazy attorney who drove me nuts for 6 years.  [She's the subject of a whole other book.] I think he was just curious to see what I looked like, because Josephine regularly caused secretaries and paralegals to have nervous breakdowns and quit, or just tell her off and then quit. I stuck it out for a long time, but only because I couldn't find another job. This attorney I went out with, although handsome and smart, was an ego maniac whose carefully coiffed hair and casual knocking back of several mixed drinks in a half hour ruled him right out of the picture, for me.

** I met one guy at a movie theater. This one, like so many guys I met, was short. I can deal with short, as long as a guy is not less than 5'4 [my height]. I cannot deal with men who have stubby little hands with long fingernails like an animal. YUCKO! I think of him as Animal Man. I wouldn't even share a popcorn with him. Him riding a kangaroo is my worst nightmare. [shudder]

** I met one guy at a Mexican restaurant near my job, for lunch, and I insisted we sit outside, where I nearly sweated to death. However, I didn't want to be indoors with him. He was probably less than 5'4 but he had on high heeled cowboy boots and a cowboy hat which made him almost eye level with me. I'm OK with costumes. Not a big deal. The dealbreaker was, he told me in excruciating detail about the house he had built for himself, with his bare hands, waaaay up in the North Georgia mountains, and how it was surrounded by security cameras, and motion detectors, and he had a terrific collection of rifles, grenades, etc. I smiled and thought "I will see you on the news one of these days, my Tiny Wacko Cowboy..."

** I was delighted to meet a guy I'll call John. He was a technical writer, and so sweet. When we met, I was dumbstruck by his voice, however. He was, as Seinfeld put it, a "high talker." Alesia's voice is lower than his. My mother's voice is lower. He was like a tenor who had sucked way too much helium. I am very sensitive to voices. I couldn't deal with his. I was hoping we could sustain a friendship, though. We did remain friends, for a while. It ended when he emailed me several of his "short stories." The "stories" were only a few sentences long. He got ticked when I told him honey you are writing poetry, not stories. So much for you, Mr. High Talker.

** The best of the internet dates was a guy I never actually met in person, an airline pilot who lived in Las Vegas. We had a number of intense phone conversations. He was funny. He said he had always dreamed of flying and had worked hard to get his commercial pilot's license, only to realize one night that he spent most of his time ferrying hookers from LA to Vegas, on a flight called "the dolly trolley." He broke up with me by telling me that our planned rendezvous was not going to happen because he had found a woman who LOVED golf, as much as he did. I didn't point out that wives #1 and #2 also liked golf, and that sort of obsession didn't exactly guarantee happiness, but he was too nice to diss. I still regret that he didn't work out, although I will never live in Las Vegas. I've no desire to even visit. I'm a southern girl and will be for life.

** I met one guy for lunch at his very expensive townhouse in midtown, near an area called Virginia Highlands. When we met, he looked at me like an auctioneer appraising a painting. I was frozen and didn't want to turn around and let him see my butt, even though I was a totally normal size then. I just felt like there was a lot of criticism behind his icy blue-eyed stare. I started to get mad and tell him off then I thought nope, I want a free lunch. So I joked and jollied him along, and got a nice lunch out of the deal. We ate lunch at a little Thai place and that had delicious food.

I have to confess, I have dated for food before.

Years ago, when I was in Knoxville and struggling to get through grad school and work, my parents' next door neighbor fixed me up on a blind date with a guy from her office. He had sounded very nice on the phone. I dressed carefully in a little black dress, put my hair up, wore high heels - I was going for the Audrey Hepburn look. I answered the door and nearly fainted.

This guy was standing there in a grey business suit -which was fine - but it didn't go with the bright orange [think road cone orange] parka, with a fur edged hood. He looked like Alfred E. Neumann, the little dude on Mad Magazine covers [see below]. I exclaimed about how cold it was that night, and went back to my room and changed into a denim jumper and a heavy turtleneck, with tights and loafers. He went out with me anyway, which was his mistake.

I insisted we go to an expensive Italian restaurant. I was living on like $30 a week for food and eating a lot of canned tuna and ramen noodles. I had a fine meal that night - lobster, I think. He proceeded to interrogate me like the KGB with a double agent. "How often do you work out? What's your religion? Can you cook?" etc. etc. At first, I was amused, because I knew I never wanted to see that goofball again. Then I started getting irritated. I decided to have some fun.

"You know, I have a confession to make," I said, taking off my lobster bib and leaning in close so he could smell my perfume and gaze into my big bluegreen eyes. "I really really want to get married, as soon as possible. I want a big wedding. I want to start a family right away. I'm thinking four kids would be awesome. What do you think? You're awfully cute when you smile..."

He froze, like a deer in the headlights.

He pulled out his calculator and paid the check.

I never heard from him again. My 4 little Alfred E. Neumann lookalike kids had to remain a mere fantasy. Darn. Here's a very close match to what Mr. Goofball looked like:

Comments

[E]

oh man I am rolling on the floor reading this!!!!

[Patti]

Dee, you crack me up. I have been a long time lurker, but this one speaks to me! Your dating life sounds a lot like mine, but I had much less patience for it. After the last guy I dated came out of the closet (I think he was waiting for his Dad to die before he admitted it - maybe even to himself!) that was when I decided to adopt some kids by myself.

So in a way, it has worked out great NOT to have had any good dates, look at the great kids we would have probably missed out on!

[Laura]

FYI~ ALL of my students bring their mp3 players to school, even thought they're not allowed at school, even though they might get stolen (and do), even though their parents tell them not to. : )

Laura