Being single has its benefits. Being single with adult children has even greater benefits. One of those is that you make a lot of new single friends and your life becomes centered on you and all the things you’ve always wanted to do. All your married friends, or friends with small children, now have different responsibilities and lifestyles. That doesn’t mean you won’t still be friends, it just means that for a while you won’t have much in common and walk in different circles.
With these new single friends, you’ll find different levels of philosophies, values, and ideas of what a relationship is all about. However, if those of us who are single knew the secret to relationships would we be single? There’s a bunch of people who tell themselves their singlehood was their choice. While that is partially true, someone else was involved in that decision.
One of my single male friends once told me, “Romance and love have nothing to do with each other. Love is more important than romance. Romance messes up a relationship. You do stupid things, start having expectations of the other person and yourself, you both put each other in boxes, and people start thinking they own one another. Real love is something that is so much more valuable.” This single friend says that as soon as he starts to feel ‘possessed’ by a woman it makes him despise that relationship and he longs to be free. He admits that he doesn’t think he could ever be completely monogamous to one woman.
I truly think he believes this. It breaks my heart, because he looks at monogamy as enslavement, and can’t see the beauty of a woman giving him her heart, choosing him to share her life with – her ups, her downs, her body, her passions, her time, her talents, her hopes, and her dreams. Some of these will be fun and others will be heavy. She doesn’t share them to ‘possess’ him, but so they can share one another. She gives herself to him because she trusts him. A woman shouldn’t share those parts of herself with someone who won’t share those same parts back with her. Because that’s how he values her – by trusting her with himself. When my friend says he doesn’t think he could ever be monogamous, I don’t think it has anything to do with sex. He’s saying he’ll never trust a woman enough to give her his whole heart. I think it’s cruel to ask a woman to share any part of herself knowing he’ll never share his whole heart with her. It’s a disaster waiting to happen and selfish.
I have another single male friend who is looking for that special feeling with a woman without the complications. He says there has to be a balance, to never be in a relationship where her problems are bigger than yours – and to keep life simple. I don’t know if this is sadder than the example above, but it’s pretty sad. I’m still trying to figure out which one of us really believes in fairy tales. Who doesn’t have issues and problems? How unfair it is to put that kind of responsibility on the women he meets. Is he offering her a perfect man in return? That’s one of the things that make me shake my head on these dating sites - they ALL say they’re not looking for perfection, because they know they’re not perfect themselves – then ONLY hit on beautiful women or dismiss them on a single trait that doesn’t match their ‘perfect’ partner. (I know they do this – because I did.)
All of us are fucked up in one way or the other. NONE of us have our lives perfect and we sure as hell don’t ALWAYS make the right decisions. We all have pasts, we all have fears, we all have weaknesses. There is no perfect woman out there that’s just going to walk into his life . There’s perfect opportunities for him to invest his heart, his time, his life into loving a woman, giving her his heart, and finding perfect love between two imperfect people. Her problems would be his quest to solve, not a reason to hid. His happiness would become her quest.
Like I said earlier, I’m not sure which one of us believes in the fairy tales. I watch these men expect unrealistic expectations in the woman of their dreams, yet not realize the best one for them is the one they have to fight for and fight with. It’s the one that makes them laugh and pisses them off at the same time. It’s the one that makes them question themselves and pushes them to their limits, even though they see it as an irritation. It’s the one that loves them for who they are and isn’t trying to change them. It’s not the one that only evokes a fantasy in the bedroom, but the one when the bottom falls out that he reaches out to protect because he can’t imagine life without her – her smile, her laugh, her dumb jokes, her stupid ideas or any of her weird quirks.
Now I could go on and on about my single male friends and how I think they’re philosophies are a little warped, but I won’t. I love them dearly just as they are, degenerate minds and all. I actually feel bad for them mostly because I’ve met a LOT of single women lately and listened to THEIR relationship philosophies… and if I were a man – I’d run!!! I’d run and hide and never come out. The things I hear some women say they want, the things I see them do, and philosophies that come out of many of their lipsticked mouths, I understand why men think the way they do.
I’m beginning to agree with my friend above that says love between friends is much better than lovers… and my other friend’s idea to keep your life simple. While I’m no longer on the dating sites, I’m still dating - I’m dating the most exciting, interesting, and adventurous person I’ve ever come to know – ME. I’m living in the moment and doing what pleases me in that particular moment. I’m giving my heart to her, doing the things that please her, that makes her happy. I want to make her dreams come true, I want to fight her battles, I want to stand up to her enemies, I want to see her succeed, I want to make her laugh, I want her to know she’s beautiful and she’s worthy to be loved… and that her problems are worth battling. She’s worth the fight.
Till next time,
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