Serial Dating Disaster

A rather shocking development has occurred. This morning, without any time for rational - it crossed my mind that I had developed a tad of empathy for the Serial Dater.

I feel quite rocked. In fact, there have been a couple of times recently when I have behaved in a similar way. One was last month when the man I have been seeing admitted his utter terror of the fact that I have 4 children and that I was the absolute opposite of the woman he was going to marry. It was a meaningful conversation and we both went to bed happy, until I woke up.

This is when I sent the text that said 'Can't do this. It was nice, you are lovely but not for me. The hidden message was 'Oh God, you are going to hurt me and I need to get out of this fast, before you do' What was really disturbing is that it was uncannily similar to the text I received from the serial dater in response to my 'We need to talk' text.

So this week things took another turn and I find myself in another 'relationship' that is not as easy as it should be, and it was then that I realised that shutting your emotions down and backing out before things get complicated is very much easier. People can cause huge heartache and when they do, the pain can be unbearable. Shutting the door to protect yourself is self protection but in doing so, you shut the door on so many things and only open yourself to a self full filling phropechy of non attachment. Frankly, it all sounded quite appealing this morning.

So I mull over the many ironies in life. The first is that I realise that I do not want to be in a relationship that involves any form of commitment other than monogomy for the period that it lasts. I want no promise or thought of the future, I want no expectations for responsibility of another and at this particular time I want dinner and sleep overs with someone I like.

That is great, except the man I am dating has never been married and seems to fear that every single woman has an expectation of commitment. I really don't, which as the the word commitment appears to make his heart race for all of the wrong reasons, is quite a good thing. Or would be if it were not for the fact that his past experience has taught him otherwise and he is a bolter. The more we have to talk about it, the more my eye is on the door and the more I am thinking 'How fast can I run'

Do not get me wrong, he is so very lovely and I enjoy the time I spend with him. But I also dread the prospect that we could be immersed in deep conversations at any moment. He doesn't want meaningless anything but the minute it has meaning he sweats. If it becomes meaningless then it is not what he wants. Yet again I find myself in a no win situation.

It's really simple. I want to meet up, have fun, conversation, laughing and intimacy. I want to be excited that your text and not fearful of where your head is at. I want you to cook me dinner and then I want to go home feeling good. I want to be happy that you are too busy to call for a couple of days, not worried that you are freaking out about the meaning of it all. I want to feel like a goddess when I see you and go home to my domestic hell in peace. Do I want marriage or commitment? No because the minute you see someone every day, all of those things will evaporate.

I think I may be a man and all the men I meet are in fact, big girls. I also realised this week that men say the total opposite of what they mean. Serial Dater used to say 'I am really worried that you are going to hurt me. Roughly translated this meant "I shall screw with your head and once I am there I shall rip your soul to shreds'

This man keeps saying "I am worried I am going to hurt you" What that really means is "I am really worried that you are going to hurt me" Which I might. I wouldn't do it on purpose, nor with malice but since I have no idea what the future holds, I have no ability to make promises.

So I am now pondering the reality that I am attracted to emotionally unavailable men. So I googled and discovered that one of the reasons you can be attracted to such men is that in fact, you are an emotionally unavailable women. Woman that do not believe that love is all that it is cracked up to be, that expect disappointment and rubbish cannot be committed to a worthwhile deep and loving relationship since they do not believe they exist. In dating unemotionally available men, they prove it. I can be committed, and frankly after sticking with an emotionally disconnected man for all of my adult life, I think I should have been.

So I almost bolted again today. Perhaps I am attracted to emotionally damaged men because I am in fact as emotionally damaged myself. Perhaps the reason I understand them is because I relate to the feeling of things that seem good will never work because they 'never do'.

I don't want completely meaningless, I do want emotion and tenderness but commitment, marriage and children? When I say that I have no expectations or demands I really don't but mainly because I do not want any placed on me.

I was on the verge of a full scale bolt today but the sheer horror that I could replicate the behaviour of someone that chose to cause pain made me stop. So I may get hurt and so may he - but we may have fun and we may still like each other tomorrow.

Today, my inner man grew some balls.