Archive for May, 2010
Red Flag #1: He Loves a Martyr.
!["You gotta a problem with my boyfriend? Then you gotta a problem with me. Prepare for battle." [My Joan D'Arc routine] [photo: Milla Jovovich,](http://funnyinthehead.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Joanofarc.jpeg "Milla Jovovich, \"The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc\", 1999")
My Joan D'Arc routine: "You gotta a problem with my boyfriend? Then you gotta a problem with me. Prepare for battle."
Jump ahead a month and we’re in a “Relationship.” On the surface it looks like I’m still the same me, but in fact me has gone on an extended vacation to one of those places far away with no cell coverage. That left me minus me and you know what that means, him. In other words, I had given up my hobbies, interests, dreams, my clumsy ways, and even my beloved foul habits and crazy friends, only to take on of all his, becoming him.
Like a sailor raising a finger to the wind every ten minutes, I followed his every emotional shift and tightened my sails accordingly. I plotted political revenge on his boss. I wrote polite but strategic emails to his ex-wife, hoping to keep her from hauling him back to court for more money. I pretended to find his coworker accountants fascinating. I even started shaving in the morning, giving him some extra snooze time.
It was my greatest disappearing act. In the course of two months, I had lost myself, developed a bad case of depression, and become the perfect female Jim. Which brings me to the Red Flag: he was the happiest man in the world. He loved me this way. For him, it was the perfect relationship: woman sheds her life to orbit around man; man continues orbiting around his life (buoyed by her extra centrifugal force); all is well in the world.
This perfectly horrible perfection became glaringly obvious at an Italian restaurant one evening. We were talking about moving to his corporate headquarters, located in some small town in the middle of some small nowhere. The real me flashed back for a quick guest appearance, laughed dismissively, and announced it was “San Francisco or bust.”
I got the “bust” part, alright–a busted relationship. He exploded, quickly remembered we were in public, contained his fury, and then said hissing, “The topic is closed.”
As Me had already bolted from the scene again (no doubt to returning to her favorite beach in Goa, figuratively speaking), I started salting the lasagna with my tears.
Why I didn’t read the writing on the wall and break up then and there is beyond me, though it no doubt was connected to the fact that my head was lodged up my vagina. But more than that, it was a testament to the powerful effect of female conditioning. Nobody seems to notice if you’ve given up everything you are for a guy. In fact, they glorify it and call it romantic love. Well, I say, no thank you! Any guy who doesn’t notice your Joan D’Arc martyrdom routine because that’s what normal looks like to him is sending up one giant Red Flag. Take the sex and run.
I was dating a guy. Let’s call him Jim. The sexual chemistry was so strong that we jumped into be on the second date. He didn’t care that I had a weepy cold sore blister on my upper lip; I didn’t care that I couldn’t remember his last name.
Jump ahead a month and we’re in a “Relationship.” On the surface it looks like I’m still the same me but in fact me has gone on an extended vacation somewhere far, with no cell coverage. That leaves me minus me and you know what that means, him. I had given up my hobbies, interests, dreams, clumsy ways, even my beloved foul habits and crazy friends, only to take on of all his. In short, his life had become mine.
Like a sailor raising a finger to the wind every ten minutes, I followed his every emotional shift. I plotted political revenge on his boss. I wrote polite emails to his ex-wife, hoping to keep her from hauling him back to court. I pretended to like his accountant coworkers. I even started shaving in the morning so he could sleep in an extra ten minutes.
It was my greatest disappearing act. In the course of two months, I had lost myself, developed a bad case of depression, and become the perfect female version of him. Which brings me to the Red Flag: he was the happiest man in the world. For him, this the perfect relationship: woman sheds her life to orbit around man; man orbits around his life; and all is well in the world.
It all became glaringly obvious at an Italian restaurant one evening. We were talking about moving to his coporate headquarters, some small town in the middle of some small nowhere. I laughed dismissively saying I wanted to go to San Francisco. Unbeknownst to me, real me decided to show up for a guest appearance.
He exploded, quickly contained his fury, and then said, “The topic is closed.”
Me bolted from the scene again and I started crying, big tears salting my lasgna.
Why I didn’t read the writing on the wall and break up then and there is beyond me (though no doubt it was connected to the fact that my head was lodged up my vagina). Any guy who doesn’t notice your Joan D’Arc martyrdom routine because that’s what normal looks like to him is sending up one giant red flag. Take the sex and run.
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Loading ...How to Find True Love Over Forty
I took some time off from the blog. Maybe you noticed. Anyway, it wasn’t by choice. I was having a little content crisis stemming from the following all too frequent response to my blog’s subject matter:
“You blog about sex!? Sex and the older woman? Who the hell am I having sex with? Because it ain’t my husband. [sarcastic snicker]”
What I took from that was “limited readership.”
After that, the emails from guys in their twenties started. Young cubs asking my advice about how to meet a hot cougar (older woman fond of younger men).
Example: “Dear Pink Wrangler, I work with a married woman who gave me a photocopy of her giant boobies. What should I do?”
I wrote back something to the effect of, ‘You must be gay if you’re asking,’ and sighed deeply. Maybe this whole blog thing was a bad idea.
Eventually my mood perked up and it occurred to me, ‘Why throw the baby out with the bathwater when you can just rename it?’
So that’s what I did. Seasonedsex.com is now Funnyinthehead.com, a blog about how sometimes you gotta go crazy to figure stuff out. It happens over forty, when nothing seems to make sense anymore.
Like dating for instance, something I’ve been doing a lot of lately since I broke up with my cub almost a year ago.
Few things make me crazier than having to go on a date. If you ask me, dating ranks right up there with water boarding as a form of torture. We do it because we’re looking for love and it’s one of the injustices of life that dating is a means to that end. There you are putting yourself through an at-home extreme makeover that costs too much and never comes off quite right. Then you sit through an interminable dinner getting all bloaty from the dinner rolls and counting down the minutes before the Spanx can come off and you can fart freely.
Now since I hate dating and since I’m tired of my friends telling me to do something useful for a change, I’ve decided to put my writing into the service of single women over forty. I’m launching a series aimed at minimizing or hopefully eliminating dating agony. It’s called The Red Flags of Dating Over Forty.
The Red Flags document the warning signs that should cause you (a woman with everything to offer) to run fast and far from him (a man doing all he can to hide his fatal flaw). Thanks to the Red Flags, you’ll see through a guy’s performance to the real man. Knowledge is power. Need I say more?
Few side notes about the Red Flags. First, they don’t deal with the obvious stuff that I’m sure you’ve figured out by now. Second, they’re based on actual events. Also, some of the Red Flags may ruffle feathers but, hey, no one said saving true love would be easy.
The path to True Love is studded with Red Flags. (photo by Improv 7, flickr.com)
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