Ah, the women I have loved.

Last night I wrote about the “psycho-babes” that I dated. I gave a couple of examples of the psycho-babes that I had met over the past several years since my first divorce. The list was far from all inclusive; indeed several were left out. For a while I was convinced that I was a “psycho-babe” magnate; perhaps the only time in my life that I have ever been a babe-magnate of any stripe, I suppose.

But there have been those women that I will always remember with gratitude and kindness for having crossed my life at an important juncture and having given me something that helped me through that time to be a better person. It is those women that I wish to salute. I am limiting my list to those people that I have dated and have enjoyed a meaningful relationship with. There are three that stand out who deserve note and wishes for continued well-being.

• KJS was the first woman that I loved. We were both young, indeed I was only 20 and she was 18. What I recall most is that for the first time I did not merely have sex, but made love. She taught me that lovemaking is qualitatively different than fun-sex. She and I were together for a short period of time – my stubborn will meeting hers – made this an intense and short lived relationship. I think of her fondly now nearly thirty years hence I hope that whatever gods there are will bless her with peace and joy. She is married, has been for over 20 years, and has two daughters in college.


• DP the first relationship that I had after my first divorce. DP was in a position that required a woman with the patient endurance of Job. The girls and I were all wounded. We were distrustful and looking for reasons to be betrayed. That had been our reality. That became our expectation. R, in particular, hated her. A was too young, being only 2 years old. She was kind to us and gave us the lesson of hope in healing. We all learned that there could be life again because she lavished us with unrequited love.


• AW, a sweet woman whose quiet heart and loving manner always reminds me to seek peace. AW was a psychologist and a student of the soul. She was a non-confrontational woman who, following the dissolution of her marriage, became my friend and later my lover. She was in that infamous “transitional” phase of life where she was discovering life anew. I was learning that I could find peace in the maelstrom of my emotions. She lived quietly and by example gave me the gift of peace and the enjoyment of solitude.


• PC with whom I discovered passion for life. She was 13 years younger than I was when we met. She carried herself with grace befitting an older person; I still seemed callow. We loved with a love that was enduring, if not peaceful, and came to an end when she was offered her dream job working in the capital. I have passively followed her career and have seen her climb the party’s ladder. I am certain that she will run for office. I’d vote for her. She helped me to understand that I was indeed worthy of love, even if I could not understand loving.

MM, my enduring love, has come into a place that has been prepared by these women. Following both divorces and all of the pain that appertained to them, I had to learn that I could live again and trust again. MM loves deeply and with a depth of emotion and commitment that I would have run from in the past, but now humbly embrace. She sees a man worthy of love and care. I have hope of one day being what she sees.

There have been psycho-babes in my past, but the women that have loved me have had such a profound influence on my life, immensely more than the momentary freak-outs that the others caused. Love is its own reward. It brings us to see the potential of hope in life and makes possible dreams of a better world. Thank whatever gods or goddesses there are for all of these women…

And I am a fortunate fool.

Psycho-Babes

I was chatting with MM a couple of days ago and the subject of past relationships came up. I noted that my greatest dream was to love and to be loved, my criteria was that my lovers baggage be compatible with mine…

All of this began an inventory of memories, looking back at some of my past relationships. I’ve made reference to my two failed marriages. I’ve chatted about the significant relationships that I’ve had. I made reference to my prodigal daze when I indulged the flesh is a frenzy of fucking with no emotional content attached. The baggage issue: that is a pressing issue. It is the reason that I did not date for quite a long time. I had come to the conclusion that my baggage was unique and therefore not easily matched.

Let me say this now: I believe that at my age there are proportionately more psycho babes and dudes than there were before. That is because the options are fewer and the majority of “healthy” people are in healthy relationships. That leaves a greater preponderance of psycho-babes looking for their man. Here, then, is my proem to psycho-babes with no regard to chronology. Meet some of the psycho-babes from the past 12 or so years of my adult single-life:

• There was “L” who got a tattoo with my name on her ankle before our third date. Fortunately no sexual relations occurred with this individual. I told her that I would have preferred that she not tattoo my name on her body, ankle or elsewhere. I didn’t check to see if there were any other odes to what she imagined might have been. She did say that we were lovers in several former lives and that she knew that I was the one when we met because my soul told hers that it was content to have finally been reunited. I was the "dark-haired man" and she was certain that we were being brought together. Now, I have to say that I thought that this relationship might have had some potential. The tattoo was a bit more than I could deal with, as for the metyphysics... too wierd.


• There was “R” who divorced and lived with her ex-husband, sleeping – platonically – with him and their daughter there between them both in the same damn bed! She said that she preferred to live this way so her daughter could have both parents. He beat her physically, she beat him emotionally. Both claimed to be "highly evolved spiritually" and able to live in a "spiritual" way for the sake of their daughter. Apparently they both held some very idiosyncratic ideas about family life. We had been friends for nearly two years before dating. She was always private about her home-life and I chose not to pry; when we started dating I learned of the unique perimeters of her life.


• There was “D” who, during a sexual encounter began yelling, at the top of her lungs and in anger, that I was not being attentive enough to her pleasure. I pride myself in attending to my partner’s needs; I may have several shortcomings, but being greedy in bed is not among them. I had just had one of those big orgasms that leaves you unable to move. If you are smiling as you read, you know the type to which I refer. Apparently, I did not recover from my ecstatic paralysis quickly enough to suite “D” and she stood up yelling that I was a “lousy, greedy fag who didn’t know how to fuck a woman…” Needless to say, there was no return engagement. She did send me an email a day or two later telling me that she was "wet, thinking of me, and touching herself..." All of which is fine, but on a semi-public server at work?


• There was “SE” who was going through a divorce, would come to my desk and eat the chocolates I had there while complaining that they were going to her all too generous ass. All the while she was narrating what a lousy lover her (soon to be?) ex-husband was, but since she needed “some” she would do him, even though he was – from her viewpoint – apparently less than suitably endowed and ineffectual at that. Generally, I would find some reason to excuse myself and direct her away from my workspace. She was a temp at our workplace and I was pleased to see her leave. If this was a fliration, she was going about it in the wrong way; if not, then I am not certain what to have made of it.


• There was “LL” who, after undergoing gastric-bypass surgery, decided that she would have more sex than was healthy and began to do whomever was walking. The problem was that cheap sex did not mean an engagement to marry, quite the contrary. There are women you fuck and women you make love with; the former are not marriage material. I became the object of her affections despite my protestations of disinterest. So, instead, I became – and against my better judgment – the friend to whom she would narrate her peccadilloes and then listen to her crying when she did not find Prince Charming: "Men are all pigs... you sleep with them and they leave you... I thought this one was the one... could you just hold me?" I suggested that her prince probably did not live in a sewer and that she shouldn't look for him there. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing, the same way and expecting different results. We haven't spoken since (to my great relief, I confess).
  
• There was “SY” who, following a couple of overnight visits, informed me that she had given notice to her landlord of her intention to leave her apartment and she was moving in with me as of the next month. This particular episode was difficult for me to understand. To this day I can think of no indication that I was extending an invitation to live together. She was a year older than I was (having just turned 40), and was anxious to settle down, have a family, and all the rest (as was “LL”). We met on-line, had sex the first night we met and continued playing. She was fun to play with, but there was no other connection. We never had a lot to say beyond compliments and expressions of thanks for the evening’s entertainments. The whole thing seemed to be completely mutual and fair. We were good fuck-buddies, nothing more. When I told her that I did not want a live-in lover, especially with my daughters in the house (whom she had never met), she seemed crushed and ran out crying.

Let me say here and now, that there are as many psycho-dudes as there are psycho-babes. I am not a misogynist; I love and adore women, though they remain to me a delightful mystery. I have simply come to the conclusion that dating is much more complex in my forties than it was in my twenties.

Now I know that it is possible to read my inventory and say, “Dancing Fool, you are not taking responsibility for your own behavior…” Not true. I am careful to be honest and clear with my intentions and to take care for the feelings of those about me. I came to realize that I am a man with whom women easily fall in love. This is qualitatively different than being in love or loving a person. It is the stuff that comes from being attended to, being treated well, being valued as a woman. There is a line in “Frida” about Diego Rivera. He was said to find beauty in the imperfections in a woman. The implication is that this is what made him beloved. I resonate with that. I am able to see beauty in almost any woman (heartless ice-queens notwithstanding). But seeing that beauty does not mean that there is a lifetime in the offing.

In looking at this text, I almost feel that I need to list how I might be a psycho-dude. I know that after a long period of being commitment minded that I became something of a pig. This has been discussed in previous postings. I make a great boy-friend and a lousy husband. I think that it is because I feel trapped by vows that seem to be more the creation of a culture of containment than the expression of love between two people. For me, I don’t believe in marriage. I do believe in commitment. I have no plans to leave my current relationship and am committed to MM for the long-haul. We may someday live together, but we will never be married in any legal sense. I love her too damn much to do that to her. That I consider marriage to be a cage says something about my psycho-dude tendencies, I suppose. Burnt twice leaves one with scars and painful associations.

I have my baggage. It is well packed and abounds with the life experience of 47 years of broken promises. It is true that I have been very reticent to commit to anybody. This brief tour of past encounters should give some idea why. My bags are packed, to be sure. But the truth remains: I do love MM . She is beauty incarnate; stong, loving and wise she is. Yes, I love her. With all that I am I adore and worship her. I want to grow old with her and be by her side as long as she will have me. I think that we have compatable luggage.

Surely, that has got to be worth something.

But I am just a fool…