Seeking John Galt

By a lot.  Taller, too.  By about 8″.
Had surgery a couple weeks ago - healing up nicely, but bruised and moving stiffly.  Not surprising for someone born in 1943 - also a Taurus.

I’m obviously not the milkman’s kid - height, hair, eyes, and nose come from his mother’s side of the family.  Put a picture of me now, next to her wedding photo, and it’s like I went to a costume party.

He finishes the NY Times Saturday crossword every week - usually in under ninety minutes.  He’s an engineer with an MBA.

I inherited his conflict-avoidant nature, and would probably also whistle “Danny Boy” when I sensed tension around me - if I had also inherited his ability to whistle.

We both love “The American President” - “If you were a dork, you should apologize.  Girls like that.”

If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.  This extends to applying butter to pretty much everything consumed - evenly spread to just the right thickness.

Does not need a ladder to drywall a ceiling, provided one of my cousins can hold the sheet in place while he walks around them, reaching up with the screw gun at regular intervals.  Brobdingnagian home repair, indeed.

Drinks Moosehead beer if it’s available.  I’ll have one with him this Sunday, standing in the warm sun on a mostly green lawn while he makes note of bare spots and contemplates the best fix.

Miss you, Pop, and I’ll see you Sunday.  Happy Father’s Day.

In the meantime, take care of you.

Love,

Kid #2

DT:  All right.  Where are you?  Come out, show yourself.

K:  Right here, as usual.  Looking over your shoulder.

DT:  Karma, I know you’re some sort of divine force, but must you look so smug all the time?  It’s really annoying.

K:  I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean.

DT:  Riiight.  So anyway, about this situation I’ve got going on…

K:  Something… vexes thee? 

DT:  Okay.  First of all, the movie quotes are my thing, and it’s not nearly as cute when you do it.  Second, I just don’t get it.  What are you trying to tell me here?

K:  Maybe this is what happens when you don’t stand up for yourself enough?  Maybe, just maybe, when you let people get away with too much for too long, you forget how to insist on what’s important to you.  And then, because you didn’t insist, you have no one but yourself to blame when it doesn’t happen.  Remember that smart friend of yours?  She’s the one who pointed out that you never get more than you ask for in a negotiation.

DT:  Gotcha.  So… maybe I should try on that fabulous, confident, doesn’t-take-crap thing for a while, and see how that works?

K:  (dryly) It’s an idea.

DT:  As annoying as you are when you’re right (and smug!), I *might* owe you a thank you for this one.  Will a very recently opened jar of Nutella work?

K:  Hand it over.  I’ll be back, you know.

DT:  You know?  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Vivian Ward:  People put you down enough, you start to believe it.
Edward Lewis:  I think you are a very bright, very special woman. 
Vivian Ward:  The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?

Melvin Udall:  You make me want to be a better man.

I’ve had some pretty absurdly awful things said to me over the years - not just in dysfunctional romantic relationships, but by people whom one would normally think would never say such things (family, co-workers, and someone I thought was a friend, to name a few).  And for a long time, Vivian was right - the bad stuff WAS easier to believe.  And a phrase like the one above?  Coming from someone I cared about?  That’ll take some time for recovery - that’s just how I’m put together, I guess.  People I care about can get to me.  I just kind of have to trust that they’ll be careful with that power.  You don’t get to speak to me that way and expect to speak to me thereafter - I don’t care what it is you think I’ve done.

But today, ”Mr. Nobody” and I were talking.  This person is (1) very much in love with someone else, (2) a guy, therefore not prone to the usual meaningless female ego-boosting mantras, and (3) possessed of a tendency to be overly honest, if there is such a thing.  Basically, the perfect person from which to hear the following:

“Of all the girls I’ve ever met, you are probably the single best combination of looks, personality, and financial success I’ve known.  You are successfull in your career, you are very smart, you are kind, caring person, and you are pretty damn self aware.”

The compliment wins, for two reasons.  First?  I know that I’m not a horrible person.   Second?  His words have the ring of truth.  They aren’t sugary, there’s no expectation that the sentence will segue into a request for a favor.  It’s a matter-of-fact statement.

And THAT, gentlemen, is how you pay a lady a compliment. 

I don’t believe in soulmates, at least not in the way that many people seem to.  I think that for every person on this planet, there is more than one person to live with, happily, long-term.  I think that it’s also true that for every person on this planet, most people could not fill that position.  So we’ve got more than one, but a heck of a lot less than every member of the opposite (in my case) gender.

I think this makes it harder.  For those who do believe in the notion of a soulmate, they’re disappointed when they realize that nobody fits 100% from the beginning, that you are going to have to do a fair amount work no matter what.  Maybe they cling to the notion that someone will be 100%, and they’ll spend too much time focusing on what’s wrong, instead of what’s right.  And that’s no fun for anyone.

For those who have the other view, that one looks for someone who’s close enough to 100% to make the work worthwhile, and mostly fun, someone who’s worth risking an “all-in” bet, the danger lies in the other direction – not settling, exactly, but in taking too much of a risk - in thinking that the person will become more of what he or she wants, or that they’ll want what the other doesn’t have, less.  The awareness that it’s not going to be perfect can have the unfortunate effect of lowering expectations a little too far.

If anything, the latter has probably been my biggest problem.  I’ve been in a couple of serious, long-term relationships where we were both convinced that the little differences wouldn’t really matter so much.  I’ve been the one wanting to try just a little harder, for just a little longer, to meet halfway, and I’ve been the one smacked in the face with the realization that I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone who will always want me to be a little bit different – and the one who had to convey that realization to someone I still cared about very much.

The great thing about the 98%, whether it works in the long run or not, is that it helps you learn more about yourself and what you really want, than anything else can – putting you both in a much better place to get that much closer to 100 next time.

A good friend of mine, who is (trying to be objective here) incredibly intelligent, witty, blunt, sarcastic, and didimentioncompletelyadorable, and kind of new to dating through no fault of her own, has been seeing someone for the past few months, and it’s been a little tumultuous.

Granted, she’s been through a lot, the sort of thing that can predispose one to act out of fear, and as a smart person said, that’s not conducive to healthy interaction.  At the same time, if you decide to date someone, you kind of implicitly agree to either respect what they need, or leave.  The unhealthiest situations arise (and I should know) where the expectation of togetherness overrides the needs of either party, especially the need to be who they are at their core, at all times.  I think in some circles, that’s called codependence, and it’s generally frowned upon.

Like I said, I should know. Ain’t nobody pretending that Dagny hasn’t screwed up at least her fair share of situations.

The problem, as I see it, is that they’re both asking each other to be just a little different.  And eventually what they’re asking each other for will become a direct conflict.  And when that happens, they’ll spend more time arguing over these points than they do having fun - and that’s when it’s time to leave, if not before. 

Ideally, people decide that something’s not going to work before they spend months arguing about when it’s appropriate to call each other “girlfriend” and “boyfriend”, whether it’s the right time to meet each other’s families, etc.  One recognizes that neither will ever see the dealbreaking issue the same way, and he or she will call it a day.  Ideally.  Sometimes, they’ll butt heads for a month or two because of an overdeveloped sense of obligation.  Sometimes, the realization that there is a fundamental flaw between the two people will hit one of them  like a ton of bricks.   However the realization happens, it nevertheless holds true that it doesn’t make sense to stay.

Because it doesn’t make sense to stay with someone who doesn’t accept you, and love you, just as you are.

I was engaged when I was in college.  Whirlwind romance, yadda yadda yadda.  Because we (stupidly) got engaged so shortly after we met, our friends were pretty much the same group of people, and a big part of our social life centered around his fraternity.

Our sophomore year, he cheated* on me.  Things went to hell in a handbasket, and I broke up with him.  We agreed to try to be friends, since we couldn’t really split up the group.  Obviously, the girls were more sympathetic to me, the guys to him.  Still, I attended parties, with the understanding that I wouldn’t blatantly flirt/hit on anyone while I was there, out of respect and sensitivity.  I didn’t. 

But someone said I had.  Someone told the ex that I had been flirting with another guy all night, that I had invited someone back to my room.  A few minutes later, the president of the fraternity (whose girlfriend I was friends with) and another brother (whose girlfriend I was living with) asked me to leave the house.  I did. Publicly and humiliated, stunned, a little drunk, not entirely sure what had just happened. 

My girls came with me, including the abovementioned girlfriends.  They walked out, helped me home, got me water, and sat with me, handing me tissues.  It was awful.  I drunk dialed my parents, for crying out loud.

But that was then.  I’m not that girl anymore.  I know who I am, and what I’m doing, and anyone who has questions about either of those can come to me.  Anyone who chooses to listen to rumor instead?  Has only themselves to blame when they wind up doing things of which they shouldn’t be proud.

*His version of events might be slightly different.  And no, we weren’t “on a break”.

From my dating perspective, there are three kinds of guys out there.  There’s the superconfident, self-assured guy, who can come across as cocky or arrogant, but doesn’t think that’s something he needs to change, because he wants the kind of girl who can handle that.  There’s a quieter, more thoughtful (not to be confused with considerate, necessarily) type, whose approach is very different - but who is equally confident in his own way.

And then, there’s the third type - the guy who thinks he’s Thoughtful Guy, wants to be Confident Guy, and is in fact neither.  I call this one, “Nice Guy”.  It’s not a good thing.

When I say that he’s a nice guy in the tone of voice that implies air quotes around the phrase, I mean I think he’s far more interested in being perceived as a great catch, than in actually being one.  This guy usually winds up being “Bitter, party of one?” when things don’t work out, and is generally best avoided.  He’s hard to spot at first, because the litmus test I’ve developed isn’t particularly effective until the second or third date, sometimes even later (hopefully, at this point, you’ve managed to weed out the overt jackassery - unless that’s your thing). 

When you go on your first date with someone, you kind of hope that the conversation progresses beyond the basics - previous residences, education, occupation, family, etc.  For it to do so, you’ve got to be talking for a while.

Second date, you’re getting a little more personal, if things are going well.  You’re finding out more about the person’s likes and dislikes, how they view the world, what role they hope to play in it.  You’re giving them a chance to talk, to put both their best and worst foot forward, so you can get a better sense of whether you’d like to spend more time with them.  If they’re genuinely interested in you, they’re doing the same thing.  It’s a fine balance, but it’s fine to stumble over your words as you find more things you have in common - to say, me too! and mean it.  To relate a funny story that exactly expresses the sentiment just shared by the other person.  All of these are the hallmark of a great connection.

The Nice Guy, however, might be so concerned with telling you how great he is, that he forgets to check in on you every so often.  So concerned is he with showing you that not only is he intelligent and deep-thinking, but works out, makes a lot of money, and saves puppies and kittens in his spare time, that he won’t know that you just had the worst day at work.  Or even worse, should you actually get a word in edgewise, he’ll be annoyed that your bad day is interfering with his ability to show you just how great a guy he really is.

The problem here, is that he’s saying all the “right” things, planning elaborate dates, putting in a lot of effort.  Except, he doesn’t know whether or not these efforts are right for both of you.  And blames you for being an ungrateful wretch when you explain, gently, that as much as you love flowers, sending you a dozen gladiolas, to which you’re violently allergic, might not have had the same impact as he’d hoped.

And when you realize that he genuinely thinks he’s being perfect, and you decide to break the news as gently as possible (by bringing a six-pack over to his place and leaving it there after you’ve had the talk), don’t be surprised to get a drunken voicemail a few weeks later, accusing you of being too stuck up to appreciate a good thing.

Because that’s how “Nice Guy” behaves when he takes off the sheep’s clothing.

It’s funny how things transform out of context.  I saw this quote, standing alone, and thought it was a lyric or verse.  Two people were conversing - one of them pleading with the other to stop self-destructing, promising to help make it all better, if the other could only stop doing the thing that was affecting them both, right then.

It’s hard, watching someone take a particular path you know will cause them harm.  When you want nothing more than to help them, but know they’re just one step away from crossing the Rubicon.  As you watch them move forward anyway, carelessly or defiantly, the few seconds required for that irreversible step stretch into a regret that lasts for years, if not a lifetime.

In movies - well, most of them, at least, those few seconds are a turning point for the main character.  The guy runs into his apartment building’s hallway, tells the girl that he doesn’t care how badly they screw it up so long as they can be together.  It’s beautiful, and romantic, and unrealistic. 

Another way to look at those few seconds, though - the only way that lets me stay sane, is to see them as an opportunity to go in a different direction.  To do something with my life that I wouldn’t have before.  I may have closed one door, locked it, boarded it up and cemented it shut - but that doesn’t mean that what’s behind door # 42278 won’t have its own, different sun.

K:  Hey there, Dags!
(slaps DT overexuberantly on the back)
K:  Been a while, no?

DT: Karma.  You’re looking well.

K:  Well, you know.  Just wanted to let you know I was still here, in case you had forgotten.

DT:  You know what would be great?  If I could actually get a chance to miss you.  I think we’d both like that.

K:  Darlin’, you know I don’t work that way.  Besides, who would keep your butt in line when I was away?

DT: (dryly) I suspect I’d manage.

K:  I really don’t think it’s wise to take that chance.

DT:  Well, I feel warm and fuzzy now.  I do cherish these little chats we have.

K:  A pleasure, as usual.

DT: (muttering under her breath) If you’re a sadist, maybe.