Women often complain to me that when it comes to men, their picker is broken. They know I can relate; my first husband, after all, was my coke dealer, an abusive psychopath so secretive that to this day I do not know his real name. What can I say? He was charismatic enough to be handsome, and I was young enough to be immortal. Besides, cocaine wasn't officially addictive in the '70s.
If you want one key piece of life wisdom to live by, use this: Never marry your coke dealer.
My choices have improved over the years, thank God, but I still find myself slipping back into "you look like a heartache waiting for a place to happen; come sit here by me" mode more often than I should. Why is my dating navigator set to Do Not Enter? Why am I attracted to bad men who are going to hurt me?
This is what two decades of researching sex and love addiction have shown me: The problem isn't so much that I'm inexplicably drawn to men with big red flags waving over their heads. The problem isn't the men at all. The problem is that, when I am attracted to someone, I become unstuck in time.
Romance, I have discovered, is all about longing for the might-have-been or craving the what-will-be. The old joke about him thinking, "I wonder what she looks like naked?" while she's already thinking, "I wonder what he looks like pushing a lawnmower?" are not far off the mark. If I'm not replaying the past, trying to force a broken love affair to somehow, some way, this time work out right... I am anticipating a future one that will.
My love watch is broken.
Popular culture makes it worse, of course, with its insistence on "love at first sight." I'll give you lust at first sight, but love? A buddy of mine once sighed, watching the swaying bottom of a sweet young thing leave the room, "I'm going to marry that girl." I replied, "Dude, you not only don't know what her insides are like, you don't even know what her front side is like." Sadly, that knowledge rarely stops me from making the same mistake. If I am attracted to a man, I immediately imbue him with the appropriate attractive qualities. Surely, someone with cheekbones that sharp must have an equally sharp wit! I want this vessel, so I justify my desire by filling it with a bounty of imagined wonderfulness: loyalty, sensitivity, humor, good taste, honesty, ambition... if the vessel is good in bed, it earns extra IQ points and loves its mother.
If the vessel -- I mean man -- sticks around long enough for me to get to know him, I will slowly find out that he does not precisely match the elaborate pencil drawing I made of him. He can be a perfectly nice person, but still he will disappoint my expectations again and again. And you know what men hate more than almost anything? Seeing that look of disappointment on a woman's face. After a passive-aggressive tug-of-war over who resents whom more, he usually hits the road and I am left wondering how I could have chosen another jerk who abandoned me.
It's a complex problem with, as it turns out, a simple solution: Reset your clock. The correct time is Now. Be here Now. Fantasy, romance and infatuation may take place in the past and the future, but relationships can only take place in the present.
Follow Ethlie Ann Vare on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LoveAddict_Book
Realized the second paragraph ended with "Don't marry your coke dealer."
Shouldn't you know this already? Inter-office relationships/ professional and client relationships all no go bro.
This is not just a broken picker, I'm afraid, but something else.
Doesn't sound like you've learned much about men at all.
Katherine Heigl Hates Balls
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b63f436ac2/katherine-heigl-hates-balls?rel=player
But, many women continue, ad nauseum, to assert that there just are not enough good men.
"I am left wondering how I could have chosen another jerk who abandoned me."
Because, at the present, this is really whom you desired.
Second, he is NOT the one to abandon YOU. It's the other way around. Seventy percent of marriages are terminated by the woman. I am willing to be a large sum of $$$ the same happens in dating relationships. You merely ran him off. Then you convinced yourself he abandoned you.
People simply date other people for the wrong reasons. People date other people -- not for who they actually are right now as a person -- but for some need or desire they think the other person can fill in themselves.
When that need has been fulfilled (or when they realize there is no hope of that need ever being fulfilled), they leave. That's it.
Sure, all the natural feelings of abandonment, betrayal and disappointment may ensue, especially for those who aren't self-aware -- but it's not strictly a woman's issue. Men enter relationships for the wrong reasons too.
Are you divorced?
Yes, much of dating is about the other person meeting some real need (or perceived need). A woman's needs, real or perceived, are always changing. I just think women are the ones who tend to "leave" the relationship when their needs are met or unmet. I really does not matter.
Yes, I have been divorced now for a little over two years.
The halo effect.
And what is the dumb blonde stereotype if not a halo effect? And imagining the pretty girl next door, on whom you have a crush, to be a perfect angel? And on, and on.
Thank goodness no halos for the ever-rational -- and apparently non-human -- men.