I'm an attractive 30-year-old woman with many opportunities for dating, as men are often asking me to dinner or drinks, yet I turn down 99% of them because I cannot stand the artificiality of dates and the pressure that they bring for having to make somewhat quick decisions about whether or not to continue pursuing the other person. On a first date (or any early date) I feel a "trapped," metaphorically speaking, because it takes me some time to realize that I like the guy enough to want to enter an intimate relationship with him.
To me, the ideal situation would involve getting to know someone under the pretext of friendship or acquaintanceship wherein neither person enters the situation with a mind for dating. Over a course of time, I could then feel "free" about making a decision to pursue the guy romantically without feeling stalked like prey. When does a situation like this ever arise, though?--rarely (if ever) because the friendship has to develop naturally: at work or through other friends, for example. To "agree" to become friends (like through an online dating site or a supposedly "platonic" page) doesn't work because the man always wants more--if not right away--then eventually. In thus eliminating the possibility that a romance might not develop, then, I feel pressured. It's the pressure that I can't stand and that makes me typically last only one or two dates before fleeing the situation and having to make polite excuses to the men who always want to see me again.
My problem is that I go for unavailable men, knowing that I have an easy escape if I need it. My last boyfriend, for example, was doing research here on a student visa and--when I met him--had three more months in the States before having to fly back to France. Of course, I knew in advance that we only had three months, but I dated him, thinking that "falling" for him was unlikely, since it rarely happens to me. Because I knew that he was leaving, I didn't worry about my future with him, and I didn't hold ridiculous social expectations about dating that most people hold whether realizing it or not (Most people date with the idea in mind that the other person could become a possible future spouse, so they use heightened date-scrutiny and even show a bit of self-consciousness about their own potentially passing or failing behavior). With the elimination of such nonsense, though, my boyfriend and I were completely uninhibited with each other, and I felt pure joy for the first time in my life. When he left, I was devastated with my first real heartbreak, my having previously always been the person to leave my past relationships. Now, two years later, he and I are still in touch and see each other twice a year, but I am unfulfilled because I want more than 20 days a year with my boyfriend. I want a long-term, committed relationship with someone within a 20-mile radius of my home, but I am getting nervous because the longest "local" relationship that I've ever held lasted 13 months, and it was over 10 years ago. Since then, I've had a ten-month relationship, an 8-month relationship, several one-to-four-month relationships, and many isolated dates. I am afraid that I will grow old alone, and it scares me.
It is true that my parents are divorced and that my father was an unloving spouse and parent. I rarely saw the two of them exchanging sweet words or holding hands--or providing any such displays of intimacy, as my father was a drunkard with some unfair, sexist views toward women. He even controlled and verbally abused my mom. As I am ridiculously analytical and introspective, though, I cannot see how this would plague me, now. As a metacognitive person who has dealt with my past, I feel like I am beyond such childhood influences, but maybe they are more powerful than I think? I harbor no resentment toward my estranged father, and I clearly see what healthy relationships are and how wonderful they can be.
It is possible that (I am not conceited, but I have to include this point so as to "check" everything) because I really do get a great deal of attention from men--so much that it makes me feel like I can be selective--I am selective. Since I am well educated (with a Ph.D.) and intelligent, I like to date men who are compatible on these terms while I am also able to find them attractive (to me), ethical, fun, and socially skilled. This is an very difficult combination to find. Maybe my criteria are too rigid? I have tried dating guys without college degrees; I have even tried dating gym-going "dudes" with big muscles because I otherwise tend to date men who have Ph.D.'s in fields like physics and mathematics. Nothing is working, as I cannot feel the urge to pursue any of them past a date or two.
I am upset that I am getting older and will eventually lose my looks and be shuffled into the undesirable dating pile. What is wrong with me? What can I do to get passed this problem and begin a fulfilling relationship? I'm not feeling crazed about the need to get married (since that seems entrapping too, for people change over time and may not want to be together in 10 or 20 years from the early phase of excitement). I just want to be in a happy, committed relationship. I want to love and be loved. I have friends and family but feel very lonely for something deeper. What do you think that I should do? I would be so appreciative of your help and suggestions. If you think that I should make new male friends, I should tell you that nearly every close male friend that I've ever had abandoned me because he couldn't handle that I didn't like him romantically. They always give me ultimatums, and it is very upsetting. Thanks in advance for reading this long, self-absorbed story.
Sincerely,
Christine
Dear Christine--
I am sorry to have been so long in getting to your question. This ask the psychologist page has become very popular lately, receiving hundreds of hits every day, and I am quite overwhelmed by the amount of mail I have been getting. For those who also are waiting for my reply to a question, I will do my best to respond in a timely manner, but I cannot promise even to answer all of the letters I get, much less to reply quickly. I do understand that your questions are important, but my first responsibility must be to my private psychotherapy practice, so I can answer questions only in my spare time. I hope this will be understood. If your question is urgent, and if I do not reply soon enough, please seek help locally.
Christine, I do understand from your letter that you would like to love and be loved but that something seems to be getting in the way of your filfilling that desire.
There is a lot in your letter, and I cannot address all of it, but I will try to hit a couple of points which may provoke a deeper kind of "metacognition," as you put it.
To begin with, I do not understand the idea of a committed relationship which sees marriage as a "trap." A committed relationship is a marriage--perhaps not always a legal one, but certainly an emotional and spiritual one. If you avoid marriage because you fear that you may feel differently in 10 or 20 years, then what is "committed" about the relationship? If what you mean by "commitment" is commitment to serial monogamy for as long as it feels good, OK, but in my view that is just a kind of playing at commitment which would be more accurately called "I'll stay with you until something better comes along, or until you lose whatever it is that now attracts me to you."
If that is the sort of intimate life you desire, so be it, but at least understand that there is absolutely nothing "committed" about such a procedure. Commitment, as I understand it, accepts (of course) that everything changes over time, but the couple is committed to going through all those changes--mental, emotional, physical, spiritual--together. I call this "drink the cup--right to the dregs." If that kind of commitment is not present, all that really exists is a kind of business deal: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Personally speaking, I think that being alone and solitary in life is far less lonely than that kind of conditional so-called "commitment" in which ones lover might walk out as soon as one fell upon hard times, or became somehow disfigured, or ill, or unpopular, or poor. How can that kind of "take care of number one" approach ever really be called "commitment?"
Let me speak bluntly: judging from your letter, you seem to be one of those bright, educated people who imagines that being able to think and to understand others' ideas means somehow that one is in control of thoughts and behavior (metacognition). I disagree totally with that view. I do not believe that we choose our thoughts; in my experience thoughts simply arise spontaneously from some unknown source, and afterwards we say "I think such and such. But how am "I" different from my thoughts? "I" am my thoughts; there is no thinker separate from them. Once this is seen, one begins to understand that there is nobody in control of anything: all of this "life" is simply unfolding as it does, and "myself" is the witness of it--he or she who is aware of this constant arising--not the doer of any of it. Certainly, as a linguistic convention one speaks of making choices, but does anyone really choose anything, or do we instead do what we must--the only thing we could have done--after perhaps agonizing over the idea of having to choose? In other words, perhaps ones "choices" really are much more an expression of ones character--ones destiny if you like that word better than character--and not really subject to conscious manipulation.
I have little doubt that you are still under the influence of your childhood experiences, and that you always will be. Such experiences cannot be rationalized away, for they are quite beyond the intellect. With some effective psychotherapy, I feel quite sure that you would soon be able to connect your reluctance truly to give yourself to another with the suffering you witnessed in your childhood home. It is precisely when one stops denying that connection that loving becomes possible, for then we begin to understand that all of us humans are limited and wounded by our experiences with parents and other early caregivers, as well as by all our other experiences, and even by genetics. That is the basis for loving another person--one stops trying to make the best possible deal, and instead understands that the shortcomings of one's particular partner are the shortcomings of all of us. We all are deeply injured, and profoundly limited. The child, born in innocence, is not properly received, and the adult pays the price. We all need love, both to give and receive it. This is a human need--not a personal one of yours.
As I said, there is a lot here, and I cannot address it all, but I will leave you with one other point. You, Christine, seem to be suffering from what I call "the beauty curse."
Because you are "attractive," and have been able to capture the fleeting attention of men, you imagine that you can just pick through suitors until you find one who seems like a keeper--as if you were in a market picking through the vegetables. In other words, your pretty face is keeping you on the surface of life. And it is not just that men see you only superficially (your face, your body, but not your heart), you see the world in the very same way. Judging from your letter, you feel no particular urgency in loving anyone now, but you just want to pick the right apple before you lose your looks and are "shuffled into the undesirable dating pile," from which you no longer will be able to pick and choose, but will have to take whatever comes along. Forgive me, but I consider that you are in the undesirable dating pile right now--regardless of how you look. What good-hearted man would want to date a woman who will be evaluating him as if he were an eggplant? If you wake up and see that in this very moment, while the sands of life are running through the glass, while the blood still courses through our veins, while the bell tolls, is the one and only time when love can be given and received, then you will be desirable regardless of age.
I have been hard on you, but you seem to need a wakeup call. I hope this is it.
Be well.
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