DATING IS JUST LIKE TAKING THE S.A.T.’S. Everyone asks how you did, and you’re either too humiliated to say or you want to scream it from the rooftops. The S.A.T.’s don’t really measure much of what you’ve learned or accurately reflect your intellect. They expose how well you can take a test. You drive to Princeton Review and listen to a coach.
I reviewed my recent string of “as-of-lates” with my “life coach,” Mrs. Phone Therapist, listening to her rules, but “play it cool” was right up there with “eliminate as many wrong answers as possible.” I wasn’t good at either. I craved the wrong ones, and I was anything but cool about it.
Gerassimos was a chiseled Adonis with a strong jaw and cleft chin. We on-again-off-again’d for a while because he wasn’t the kind of guy I should be dating, yet our attraction to each other was so intense, I couldn’t help myself. When speaking with the girls, I referred to him as “The Bad Greek Boy,” to distinguish him from Andreas, “The Good Greek Boy,” who’d send me panting emails about his Utopian hopes for us while attaching David Grey MP3s.
When I say Gerassimos wasn’t the kind of guy I should be dating, I mean he was detached. Busy with plans. Not at all in hot pursuit. He usually only hankered to see me on Sunday nights when he was depressed and needed to “be around your lively self.” During the week, he was often aloof and preoccupied, most likely with other women. He was a Greek Don Juan, and my heart should have known better than to go there, especially after what I’d learned about myself when dealing with the Eurosexual.
Because he didn’t exactly do sensitive, Gerassimos surprised me when he suggested “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” for our Sunday evening “let’s pretend it’s a date even though it’s just physical” entertainment. Upon further probing I learned he was in celebralove with Kate Hudson.
“Riiiiight,” I told Phone Therapist, “like I really need to see a movie on how to do that!” Then she why’d me to death, followed by a reminder that a savvy woman knows not to smother a man, knows how to play it coy. Part of the problem was, feigning dismissive about a guy I really liked made me feel like a caged mandrill, gripping the bars and shuffling from side to side fervently. The other part of the problem was the boy I liked was very much funnel cake and not at all celery….
…Gerassimos was my funnel cake, but we didn’t hide behind closed doors. We did it in public. I thought if we spent enough time together, he’d come around and flash me a bit of his underbelly. He’d stop with the others and just want me because I was the one worth changing for. It’s as if I wanted to convince him of something. Why are women even tempted by insensitive men? We all know you can’t change people, yet we stay thinking he’ll “grow up,” and suddenly become caring. We’ll be the one. Suddenly he’ll be sensitive. And then we’ll be left to determine if we even want him, for him, not for the way he made us feel. It’s a challenge.
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"I would be the one worth changing for" is a hope I cherished too many times. I wonder if I'll ever stop doing that though.
All this reminds me of the Cardigan's 'My Favourite Game':
" I only know what I`ve been working for
another you so I could love you more
I really thought that I could take you there
but my experiment is not getting us anywhere"
I have been in an on-again-off-again relationship with my first real boyfriend for the past 4 years. It is tough to let go of someone so close at any point, but especially when he's all you've ever known. I'm reaching that point of really cutting it off with him, and my friend said, "I think it's a positive sign that you want to end things and move on." And I responded, "I don't really WANT to end things. I WANT him to grow up, to become more mature, sensitive, understanding, reliable." And I realized that it is this wanting, this waiting, that has kept me with him for so long. I believe so strongly that he has it in him that I've stuck around waiting for him to blossom into the man I really want to be with.
Realizing that he may never become that person, in fact most likely will not, is one of the toughest things I've had to come to terms with. It feels like I'm admitting defeat, walking away before the encore or the 9th inning that could turn the game around. Like it's my fault for not being okay with him the way he is. I can't spend my life waiting. It's just not right, and it's not fair to either of us. Of course, knowing that doesn't make it any easier.
I think the reason we want the guy who needs to be changed is because they are safe. You can't really get your heart broken by someone you knew all along wasn't right for you. It is exciting and fun to try to manipulate them, but in the end you don't really love them. You just really, really want your way.
When I met my husband, after having tried to change many a bad boy. I was not at all sophisticated and aloof, I was very vulnerable and extremely honest in who I am and what I want. He wanted the same. I guess we are both very unsophisticated and for me that is a good thing. Good luck.
kim, love the cardigans.
klein, thanks for the deleted scene. SUAD was brilliant still without it, but thanks for sharing that piece. I enjoyed it.
I dont understand. This was written for the pilot but thrown out? Or a scene portraying this?
I think a lot of it is growing up. We like challenges and that never does change but insensitive begins to take a backseat to the intelligent and insightful men. Maybe having a kid helps, I dunno, I know it did for me. Now I'm completely turned off by men who are just wasting my time. If I want a fuck buddy I'll pursue a fuck buddy but dont waste my time getting to know me when you're not even going to invest any of yourself. Fuck that.
FROM SK: No, this has nothing to do with the show. This isn't a scene you could watch. It's just something I chose not to use when writing the book.
"He’d stop with the others and just want me because I was the one worth changing for."
I watched as he gallivanted with the others. I pretended to be engrossed with the newspaper I was reading while he was whispering sweet nothings to a 'friend' on his mobile. I said, "Hey don't worry about it" when he blew me off for the third time because I knew he was having dinner with her and not really watching football as he claimed.
Because despite all this, he knew how to make me feel like I was the only one who mattered in the room when we were together. And that made me think – hope – he'd see that I was The One for him and he would drop the 'others'.
Yesterday, I realised I couldn't pull a Jack Johnson anymore. Sitting, waiting, wishing isn't what my life – what any woman's life – should be about.
Jenny NYC – Know that somewhere across the globe, another woman is sitting in front of her monitor, thinking, "Wow. Exactly. Thank you."
Young women are hormone driven idiots with a tendency to self-defeat. Ask me how I know.
Thank God menopause is coming and I'll be free of the whole everloving mess.
"Thank God menopause is coming and I'll be free of the whole everloving mess." Yeah, maybe…I'm finding it's different hormones, different messes (those night sweats make for LOTS of laundry). Also,in looking to reinvent myself, I'm pondering a nose job for the first time since 1976. Fortunately, I'm clumsy as an ox and would definitely screw up the "be careful of your nose for 6 months." But really, Tracee, it never ends.
Jenny, lemme tell ya, the only way that is going to happen (him growing up) is you growing up first and walking away from a relationship you know isnt going anywhere. It's usually then that men wake up. It's such a catch 22. And it sucks ass but it's just how it works.
Walk away. End it. I guarantee you he will be back in your picture before the credits roll and by then you will have probably moved on, but the choice shall be yours.
Mark my words.
What happened to the scrapbook project? You got up to day 3, day 4?
It's now the 17th.
@Jenny NYC – this may sounds very silly, but it helped me when giving up on my first (uhm, and second) long term boyfriend: We may meet again someday when we're both older and wiser, and maybe we'll work things out then.
This mere possibility has been a comfort to me. You can never know what could happen in your life, anything is possible.
You all are a fantastic group of strong, insightful women. Thank you for your supportive words. I am bookmarking this entry – and the following one- so that I can re-read them whenever I question myself, when I doubt that I made the right decision and want to go back to the safe cocoon of indifference that I have created for myself. When I begin to think again that he is the best I can do. I deserve better, and it's about time I go for it.
Happy holidays to everyone – and here's to a sassy, saavy, and stimulating 2009 for us all.
I love this post. I too am stuck in this and every time I think I'm out, he pulls me back in. (like the scene in the Godfather).
Its sad to read about someone else's struggles and feel better. I'm not happy that you're sad… just happy that I'm not alone. Thank you.
Gerassimos sounds like a typical Scorpio boy.