Finally decided to not seek a relationship

plainoldme,

I don't read every thread so I don't know what other circumstance you're referring to. I don't think what you say about men labelling women as lesbians is true. A man might jokingly refer to such a woman as a lesbian as a way of shrugging off the refusal, but that is not the same.

I did not mean to imply that you have trouble attracting men, but that does not make you successful with men. It is still clear that your attempts to partner with a man were unsucessful, for whatever reason. But that's not meant as an insult.

Sincere question here POM, do you think it is because sex is taken out of the equation?
Not necessarily just the act of sex but all that goes with it, too.

Short story. As a teen and until about 21 I had not had a boyfriend. Not for lack of available men, but because I wanted nothing to do with it. Lots of reasons for that - the main one being I did not want to become a slave to sex.
That might sound funny and ridiculous now, but I saw in friends some real reasons to have this attitude.
So, anyways, I just went about my life and I had male friends.
Not male 'friends' that are secretly trying to get into your pants...though I guess I shouldn't write that off completely...but all in all the way I lived my life made it virtually impossible (and unpleasant) for men to pursue that route.

That time was very precious to me and I remember back on it as a time when I felt very strong as a person.
There was no wavering or worrying about how my opinion would come across, about if my plans would work with anothers (if it didn't, big deal, friendships aren't broke that easily, temper tantrums are a joke).

I guess I'm sharing this to say, well, that there can be a lot of expectations and pressures bound up in sex and romantic relationships.
They can seem like work without 'too much too lose' I guess.

Take sex out of the equation, and life gets a whole lot simpler.

That's not to say that sex isn't great! But sometimes it just doesn't have to be a big priority, and neither do romantic relationships, in order to be happy.

At least this is what I've concluded going through both sides - from absorbo lover to apathetic romantic-love wise.

Sidenote: Stuh, like going the woman road is any less work. Still end up with sex on the brain and 'what she wants' ....(Yes, I got the joke!)

flushd: well, not for the butch one

stuh -- I'm not certain what you mean by being successful with men. I did not date during high school (61-65) and as two of my male classmates later told me it was because I had a very good figure and it was more than a little inhibiting. At the same time, I spent a lot of time talking with the guys in my class, particularly the ones who were in the glee club and on the paper staff with me.

In college, I had tons of dates. I would sometimes have four dates on a weekend: Fri, Sat and Sun nights with an afternoon date on either Sat or Sun. What I thought was wonderful is that I had men friends, often married men and there wasn't an inkling of "fooling around." However, these same men would always ask me to go out with their brothers, ex-roomates, best friends, etc., who just moved to town or were there to visit. guys liked me because I knew lots about music -- from jazz to folk to acid rock -- which a great many girls did not.

Immediately after my divorce, I dated a great deal.

I had a 13 to 15 year marriage and a six year relationship afterwards.

However, both my ex husband and ex boyfriend were very controlling.

You may have dated a lot, but the man you chose to marry turned out to be "very controlling," and so was your last ex boyfriend. Therefore, can I not say that your experience with men has been unsuccessful, simply by making the common assumption that "success" be defined as meeting a man who makes you happy and you can spend the rest of your life with? That is what you were hoping for when you got married, isn't it?

Well, you are aware that people do put on what may be called courting behavior that could be the opposite of their real self, right? If a person refuses time and time again to compromise, then is the failure with the person who suggests an alternative to a customary pattern or with the person who will not alter a customary pattern? I suggest the failure is the latter and not the former.

Now, I wanted to hear from women about how their lives are better as single women and you hi-jacked the thread. Despite your statement that you meant no insult when you suggested I try lesbianism, that statement is the way men always insult women. It's one of those strange things, like the two word combo that can be translated as uses a rooster as a pacifier. (Joke!)

At every job I have had, my bosses have always complemented me on my work ethic. But I apply that work ethic to everything. I am also something of a Luke Skywalker ("There is good in you, Father!").

I've given some examples of why I do not want to repeat the sorts of relationships I have had. My former boyfriend insisted on reading the Sunday newspaper from cover to cover as soon as the paper was released for sale, at close to midnight Saturday night. I was used to people taking the Sunday paper to a coffee shop and reading it Sunday morning. I can't read until 2 or 3 in the morning and I like to get up early and my favorite meal out was brunch. So I asked could we just take the paper to a the bakery around the corner one Sunday a month. He said sure, and I waited for two years for that happen, asking again every third month or so. We never did. It wasn't the final straw, but, the failure here was his, not mine.

I think you're being a bit of what was once called an MCP and that you are less than sincere in your posts.

Well, POM, lately I have been single a lot. I was in longish relationships from age 14-20, 20-22, 24-28, and in minor relationships between those stretches and after. But, for the last 8 years, or so, I've not been in a significant relationship with anyone. And for the last 5 years, I've dated only 2 guys. One has been off and on (mostly off) and one was for about a month. The last time I had a date was 2.5 years ago. Geez.

Anyway, as sad as all that sounds, I don't feel sad or even lonely. I do miss the sex though.

The way I would describe my life better as a single woman now is based on the whole hindsight thing. I loved my life as a married woman and mother. I loved the whole family atmosphere. But now I can finally see that my husband was truely superficial and didn't want the messiness of when life gets hard. He wanted things to be good and happy all of the time. I would like to be in a relationship because I feel that I deserve to be treated like a woman and I have the capability of offering true unconditional love. It's sometimes difficult to have that energy and no where to go with it.
As a single woman though, I have already discovered so many things about myself. I have found a love for the outdoors and I've found that I'm a lot more outgoing socially than I thought. I used to keep a bit to myself as generally I can be a quiet person. But I want to experience life now and know more about the people around me.
I don't feel that I need a man to be happy, I just want a companion to share life experiences with.

As far as my ex husband is concerned, when I met him he was 32 and had never lived with a woman by choice (long irrelevant story) nor had he ever been married. He also never had a relationship that lasted longer than one year. His interpretation is that all the women he met were "fickle."

He was depressed but I assumed that was because he had been informed by the university where he taught that he would not be granted tenure and he was in the second year of a search not just for a new job but a new career.

I would later learn that his depression was not situational and that he may be either bi-polar (our youngest is) and/or on what is now called the Asberger's Continuum, but which was totally unknown to me when we met in 1974.

It has since occurred to me that he failed as a professor because he lacks the collegial spirit. His learning style is probably entrepreneurial. He also lacks social graces and he blamed it on his father's death when he was seven and on his long training in "the hard sciences," as he called them (he has a doctorate in chemistry) and how eager he was to be more social (he felt people in Michigan rejected him. They did.) and more intellectual and more refined.

The problem is while he might actually have believed that is what he wanted, he was very happy with who he was and never saw any blame that could be fixed to him. After we had been married for three or four months, he remarked that he had been trying to figure out which of us was more intelligent and he said that it had to have been him, because I wouldn't have married him. I said nothing but was profoundly embarrassed for him. He had already commented upon how well read I was.

I knew that he was less intelligent than me and less intelligent than many of the men I had dated semi-seriously (believe me, I already knew of their problems which ranged from womanizing to crippling dependence) but that he seemed eager to improve himself and eager to have what I would call a partnerate marriage. As Shakespeare wrote: words! words! words!

I will say that although I knew him to be less intelligent, that because he had a doctorate, I over-estimated his intelligence. You should talk to my kids if you think I am being harsh.

Anyway, that statement was the beginning of his campaign of control and outright cruelty. So, don't pontificate if you don't know all the details. The final straw was the discovery that by pretending to have power of attorney, he signed my name to loan agreements.

littlek -- I missed sex for a long time, although I elected to stop having sex with my ex boyfriend when I fell out of love with him. But, as I haven't wanted to go out on a third date with a man since that ex (we met in 1994), I've reached the point where the idea of sex is scary. That's not something I felt before.

marty -- I was truly happy with many aspects of having been a stay-at-home mother and I tried to draw my ex into family life. He looked like people think a Scots' Highlander looks and loved bagpipes. So, one Christmas, I gave him a chanter and found a piping instructor for him, in part because he wanted to learn and in part because the Scots are very family oriented, beyond their clans. While I participated in every interest the kids had, from weaving to puddling in ponds for wildlife to soccer, he never attended a single kid performance or event. I recognized that we had to find something he liked that we could participate in as well.

POM, it almost seems as if you've suffered from abuse. Maybe the controlling ex verged on emotional/verbal abuse? I dunno. But, I do kind of know what you're saying about scary sex. I don't think the idea of sex is scary. I feel the idea of opening my self up anew is .....um..... not exactly scary, but uncomfortable.

The guy I dated on and off for years laughed at me on our first date. He said I sounded like I was trying to talk him out of dating me. Maybe I was. We dated (more like had sex) for a few months and then summer came and he disappeared - right when I was opening up to him a little. The next round of dating ended when I asked him to come to a casual wedding with me. He said he'd try to meet me, he didn't. Even now he says that he messed up both times.

Sigh

People say that you should not seek relationships, that they come to you. I say that's bullshit. I understand the gist of the sentiment: if you are desperately seeking a crutch, you'll not find a true partner. What are you seeking? How does it feel? What is your motivation? All of those things bleed through into the presentation of yourself to the world.

I think that sex could be a bit scary at the prospect of opening up that way unless you truely trust your partner. Trust is my issue at the time being. I'm working on that.

I didn't hijack your thread. When you start a thread it becomes a public conversation to which all members are welcome to contribute to in their own way, and if you were hoping to exclude any male opinions, your expectations were simply unrealistic.

Perhaps you felt that my reference to your unsucessful marraige was somehow an assignment of blame to you for not making your marriage work.

It absolutely was not. I do not assign blame to either you or your ex husband. I used the word "unsuccessful" in reference to the fact that neither of you succeeded in your initial goal of having a happy and enduring relationship together, as evidenced by your divorce.

Although I cannot speak from experience when it comes to marriage I would certainly agree with you that compromise is a necessary part in playing the role of spouse.



I speak in a mix of sarcasm and seriousness. That's just how I am. I don't think it's too difficult to tell what parts I mean and what parts I don't but occassionally there are confusions.

If you interpret my posts under the preconcieved notion that I am basically a bad person then you could easily misconstrue what I say.

It seems that this is the attitude you've taken by when you say "that is exactly how most men insult women"..which makes me think that most of what you consider to be insults are actually intended as friendly remarks!

You might be wasting your breath, stuh505.

You're lucky to have found such a loving and trusting wife.

Try substituting the word 'average' for bad. Misconstrue? Despite the very small chorus of feminine objections here, most women are ticked off when men think its cute to suggest they try lesbianism, particularly since the most popular form of pornography supposedly is two women having sex before being joined by a man. You and Mame can talk until you are both the proverbial blue, but, were we to conduct a well constructed poll and take it to the street, most women would feel insulted, with the exception, perhaps of the young women who have sex with both men and women but who consider themselves lesbians because the only invest themselves emotionally in female-to-female relationships.

Yeah, no kidding.

POM said:


My daughter, who's l4, told me the other day she was asked out by a boy and she told him nicely (she says), that she was interested in nothing more than friendship with him. He called her a lesbian (not jokingly, or teasingly she said, but very cuttingly). I explained to her that his pride was probably hurt, that one day when he got over it, they'd probably be friends again, etc. etc. She said to me, "But it was so embarrassing. He said this to me in front of all these people, and I didn't know what to say."
I told her next time someone says this to her - because there probably will be a next time- she should laugh and say, "Yeah well, as far as you're concerned- I might as well be."

I do think Stuh was joking POM-or even trying to make a helpful suggestion in terms of you getting your needs met. Unfortunately, there are only two separate choices (as far as genders go- not combinations).

I say horseshit - Stuh knows, or at least should have known, that the casual suggestion of "maybe she should try lesbianism" to someone risking a little candor about her personal circumstance could be an insult.

POM -
I don't know what the 'score' is right now - between the things you and I see eye-to-eye on, and the things on which we disagree, but I have been alone in my life, and I have experienced similar doubts about women as you are about men.
I also don't know if you are predisposed to accept the empathy from someone on the other side, so to speak. It may not be comfortable to you to see that from a man's perspective, sometimes women can be just as unreasonable and difficult and hard to be partners with as vice-versa.

Whatever the case, I just wanted to offer this - I am now engaged to be married to someone who makes me happy. Our personalities seem to complement each other, and our bond has continued to grow for the couple years we've been together. I was not looking for anyone, and I had very little expectation at that time of anything good and real with a woman occuring. It was a total suprise, and continues to be a revelation.

There is nothing wrong with being doubtful and distrustful of the opposite sex, especially if you've been burned. All I would tell you is not to close yur mind or your heart to the tiny possibility that you may have no idea what may happen.