WotWentWrong

Not being remotely religious, one of the ten commandments may seem like a strange place to extract dating advice, however, the issue of idolatry has to be one of the most plaguing factors in our dating dilemmas. Some worship idols, some find themselves being worshipped, and there are some who simple can’t cope without their pedestal.

Charlie had a pattern that was driving her crazy.  Throughout her life, she had poured blood, sweat, tears and toil into the pursuit of unattainable men.  Whether they be attached men, ambiguous men, addicts, tortured souls unable to sustain a relationship if their lives depended on it, or even celebrities, these were the guys that drove her to distraction.  The men she fruitlessly pursued, though flattered at her idolatry, and pleased to have been put on a pedestal, at the end of the day, couldn’t see her unless they looked down.  She desperately wanted to meet the guy that would sweep her off her feet, yet she would nonchalantly stroll on past the line of interested men at her doorstep, in favour of chasing rainbows. A self defeating prophecy by any standards, and one that was driving her self confidence to the ground she was failing to kept her feet on.

It took Charlie a string of heartbreaks (along with a teenage realisation that it wasn’t going to happen with Johnny Depp) to face the fact that she had developed a mentality that dictated, if you have to bust a gut to attain it, it must be highly valuable.  You got the impression that if any of these men actually became available to her, these idols would soon lose their glittering gold shimmer (OK, maybe not Johnny Depp) and look like base metal. Her epiphany relationship came when she met Josh.  Clearly interested in her, but not forthright enough to have her clasping for her running shoes, and highly forgiving of her initial signs of disinterest, slowly but surely, with him, Charlie decided to face what actually turned out be her fear, her fear of actual real intimacy with an available guy. And this was the turning point that led to Charlie’s relocation to reality.

When we adopt the Indiana Jones dating strategy of making an adventure out of pursuing hard won goals, do we choose the chase over the relationship?  Are we in essence choosing to run towards something, because it hides the fact that we are running away from something else?  That something else being a real, mutually fulfilling, risk taking, vulnerability exposing relationship.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more virginal citizen of the 21^st Century than Penny.  During college, she stated that she would keep her V plates firmly intact, and save herself for ‘The One’. Her friends admired her rock solid boundaries. Would be lovers, depending on their bitterness levels, either placed her on a sanctified pedestal, or compared her to a certain food cooling kitchen unit. Whatever people’s stance, Penny stuck to her guns. She was adamant that only upon meeting ‘The One’ would she hand over the keys to her most preserved possession: her chastity.

At the tender age of 22, in walked Michael, a deep thinking Phd student. Over picnics, opera viewings, and riverside walks, Penny declared her quest for her male version of the holy grail at an end.  Michael was ‘The One’.  Their love was consummated one evening under the stars, and that was that.  Juliet had found her Romeo.

Years later I caught up with Penny over coffee.  She was still with Michael, and wishing to escape wistfully into someone else’s paradisical world, I asked about their lives. After a long pause, her face fell.  She told me that Michael had been unfaithful twice, and they were working hard to put their relationship back on track. Penny was doing this by organising couples counselling, having long chats, making quality time, and Michael was doing this by agreeing not to move out. Nice. While aching to implore her to cut her losses, and shake her into seeing this guy had transformed into the ultimate douchebag, I could see that Penny was too attached to the notion of ‘The One’ to draw the line. Despite the fact that Michael’s idea of ‘The One’ meant, one for Saturday, one for late work nights, and one to clean and cook, this did not prise her away from placing all her eggs in one pretty shoddy basket, and though there were many better baskets available, her eggs were staying put.

It begged me to question whether this age old notion of ‘The One’ is actually less self preserving and more self sabotaging.  Does it lead us to discard our boundaries and make allowances for deal breaking behaviour? According to Debra Berndt, healthy love comes with boundaries fully installed:

When we afford someone ‘The One’ status, are we affording someone unconditional love at the expense of loving ourselves unconditionally? Should ‘The One’ status actually be preserved for the one person we know will be on our side through thick and thin? Ourselves?

My friend, Ivy, is now in a a healthy, loving relationship with Justin.   But that wasn’t always the  case.  In fact, there was a time that their relationship was in a rather precarious position.  I’ve known Ivy for a while now and I can tell you that she is a perfectly sane, rational person that doesn’t get too swept away in her relationships; in fact, if anything she is quite cautious with her heart.

She has certain rules that she follows when in a new relationship.  A faithful disciple of Patti Stanger of The Millionaire Matchmaker, Ivy will hold off on sex until she is sure of being in a monogamous relationship, for fear of the oxytocin effect.  She will never plan further ahead with a guy than the period of time that she has been seeing him.  And she would never introduce him to her parents until she was first introduced to his.  All quite cautious behaviour.

But one day, in a moment of overwhelming emotion, Ivy threw all caution out the door when she took this gamble on her relationship.  She called up her boyfriend, who was at work, sitting in an open-plan office and gushed her true feelings to him for the first time.  You guessed it, the three little words were now out there.  Actually, it was multiple sets of 3 little words as she explained her feelings to Justin in several different ways.  You can guess what happened next (or did not happen, for that matter).  Justin’s response might have happened in a similar way to Penny’s in this video here.

Of course, even if Justin was ready to reciprocate at this stage in their relationship, there was no way he would have done so in an open plan office!  So Ivy waited, and waited and waited a little more.  But after a number of weeks, she was wondering whether he would ever reciprocate her feelings.  She had placed herself and her relationship in jeopardy by admitting her feelings too soon.

Mimi Tanner, author of “Man Mistake Eraser” has a viewpoint on this:

“As we all know, saying “I love you” is a major milestone in any romantic relationship. To a woman, it is a time for rejoicing. However, if a man is not ready for this, all he will be feeling is pressure when he hears you say those words, EVEN IF HE IS FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU.

“Unfortunately, even if he IS in that delicious “falling in love” process, your saying “I love you” first can be like a huge “wake up call” for him. It may cause him to suddenly realize that things are getting VERY serious.”

Interesting theory.  So according to Mimi, if my friend Ivy had held off and waited for Justin to admit his love, free of obligation, they would have bypassed this road-bump that they experienced.

It’s clear that the early stages of relationships are fraught with all sorts of obstacles and detours that can cause friction, and if not, can cause one or both parties to question the seriousness of the other party.  Sometimes, and in the case of my friend, Ivy, they were able to successfully navigate this obstacle and get back on track.  Other times, we might need to find out where we faltered and use wotwentwrong.com!