What makes us want to change something or in some cases everything about ourselves? We can go through life happily living one way, looking a certain way, liking specific things, disliking other things and then all of a sudden, we change. After years of hating baseball, suddenly we’re super fans. After spending our entire lives saying we would never move somewhere, one day we consider it? Is the cause of our life altering changes some divine epiphany? Or is it just the introduction of some romantic interest into our lives? The longer I’ve lived, the more I realized, it is more often the latter. And that makes me sad in many ways. Why is it that intelligent women, suddenly become silly, giggly air heads who change so much about themselves for the privilege of saying “Hey look, I’m part of a couple now?”
Now mind you I have done the same. When I was in High School, I pretended to like football games because my boyfriend was a running back. (Before dating him, I had no idea what a running back was). In college, I pretended to again like football because, well, when you go to St. Mary’s ( the all girls school across the street from Notre Dame), dated ND guys and football weekends were THE social scene, well, what’s a girl to do? I will say in my defense, that my roommate Ann and I often went just to hear the band and ducked out after the halftime show, but still….we went….and it was freezing in South Bend Indiana!! I also had a moment of near change when I dated a much younger man after my divorce. He was the bad boy to my life long goodie two shoes. He was rough around the edges, worked for a security firm that provided body guards for royals from other countries and celebrities and let’s be honest….he was totally hot! He had lots of tattoos, carried a gun and well, he was the excitement I needed at that moment. To have someone hot, younger and totally different from me find me attractive after my divorce was both a salve as well as a right of passage. I did things I never dreamed I would do, many of which I can’t detail here for fear of getting him fired and losing all credibility with my kids, but suffice it to say, for a brief period of time, I changed. I joined a gym because he was a fitness nut. I got up earlier in the morning so I could do my hair and makeup. I paid attention to what I wore and tried to look, if not hot, then at least a tad above lukewarm. I went to a shooting range and learned how to shoot. I even bought a gun, which I don’t regret, but still, it was odd for me back then. I even considered getting a tattoo on my hip, because he thought it would be “cool”. I went as far as getting my tetanus shot and searching for artists. Thankfully, my common sense finally kicked in. I realized I was not a tat girl, nor was I a “bad” girl and I reverted back to myself. Well, at least for a little while.
After my bad boy stage, I got briefly involved with a guy from Connecticut who was retired and played trumpet in a jazz band. He was all about Jazz. I was and am more of a rock girl, but with this guy I was downloading jazz music, talking about jazz and learning all I could about a music genre that basically put me to sleep. Fortunately that didn’t last long either. Not because of the music, but because it was all about him. If I was into his interests he was happy. If I tried to interject my interests, he gave me little more than cursory conversation. At least he was my age, but again, common sense kicked in and I realized I preferred my own company to his, even if it meant I was no longer “normal”…no longer part of a couple. No harm, no foul. I got it out of my system and I realized that I worked too hard to achieve financial and emotional independence to ever change myself for anyone. That doesn’t mean I don’t make changes, but when I do so, it is because I want the change and it is for the better for ME. Not so with many of my post-divorce friends.
I have watched some friends and acquaintances go down this slippery path. I understand it, but with a little distance and experience it makes me very worried for them. Suppose their common sense doesn’t kick in?? And sadly, it often doesn’t. One of my post-divorce friends got involved with a man almost 20 years her senior who was no doubt attracted to her big boobs and even bigger divorce settlement. Within a month, he was telling her what to spend her money on, who to hang out with, where to get her hair cut and what to wear. Her mother who was a bold, outspoken, completely lovable Aussie described her daughter’s relationship this way ” Well, it’s obvious he’s looking for a nurse with a purse.” Very insightful woman!!! When I questioned her, she got angry and said ” Why must you be so negative? I have a man”. That man told her she spent too much money on her hair and insisted she go to a cheaper place (reminder…she is the one with the money). He told her she should have solar panels installed rather than go on the vacation she had been looking forward to since the divorce. He also told her he didn’t want her going out with her friends unless he was out of town. Sadly, she went along with him because A) he was a man and B) he claimed to be a financial guru. I lost touch with her as I was put on the list of friends who were a bad influence, for apparently trying to talk some sense into her. Since then, I have learned to keep my mouth shut….well most of the time. I still feel that if a good friend is making a mistake, I need to caution her. Not doing so would make me a lousy friend, even if it ultimately costs me that friendship.
Another friend got involved with some guy who wanted to open up a hot yoga studio. My friend who was a teacher pulled out her pension and any divorce settlement, gave it to him and they opened up a studio that quickly went out of business. Not sure if the relationship is still in business, but well, you get my drift. I have another friend who is afraid to drive on the infamous DC Beltway, yet after getting involved with someone, she was driving over an hour on it to get to Baltimore for a booty call, despite the fact that she was petrified and needed to take anti-anxiety medication. Of course, her boyfriend expected her to make the trip because he was “tired from work” and couldn’t deal with the traffic or whatever the excuse was. And then there is my friend who upon even entertaining the notion of retiring to Florida in the past, would all but induce gagging at the mere thought. Her ex lived there. It was too hot. There were too many old people. Now, suddenly she’s telling me the real estate is cheap there. Did I mention this is where the boyfriend lives??? Coincidence?? I report, you decide. There’s more but you get where I am going. I worry for her but I know she will not see my fear. She is in the middle of the “change”. These women were all intelligent people. What happened? Why? It is a scary thought.
Sometimes I’m not surprised when a divorced friend goes through the “change”. But other times, I get the hell shocked out of me. That recently happened with a very good friend of mine. We divorced at similar times and helped each other through some rough patches, mostly by taking road trips to places our exes would never want to go to in a million years. She would constantly say things like “My married friends are jealous of me, because I have the freedom to pick up and go whenever I want” We used to shake our heads and feel sorry for those women who went from man to man because they wanted so desperately to be part of a couple. And then…it happened to her. She is a loving, caring woman who would give you the proverbial shirt off her back, if she was your friend. For years we grew together, searched for and found ourselves, encouraged each other and rejoiced in our independence, and now she has become one of them. She became involved with an old “friend”. Somehow my intelligent friend is now spending money she doesn’t have on airfare to fly down to see him and stay in hotels. She is very frugal, has bare bones cable despite being a TV junkie, only shops at Trader Joe’s and is always hunting for a bargain. Not that she is cheap. She is very generous, but her focus has always been saving money for retirement and yet now, she is spending money on airfare and hotels for the privilege of seeing this guy. Interestingly, he has yet to find the time or money to fly up to see her. I relayed one of my favorite quotes given to me years ago “Don’t swim across oceans for someone who won’t step in a puddle for you”, but she failed to see the connection. In all fairness, we don’t see that connection when we’re in the middle of this “change”. Aside from spending money she doesn’t have, she is doing things so out of character for her. She is very OCD. When we would go to the beach she never removed her shoes! I think she even had water shoes for the ocean. She told me she hated walking barefoot, went on about plantar’s warts etc. I wear shoes as little as possible and always tried to talk her into the joy of feeling the sand beneath your feet. When she came back from one of her jaunts she said “You’d be proud of me, I walked on the beach barefoot” After I stopped choking, she laughed and said “I really just didn’t want to have sand in my shoes”. So apparently she only gets sand in her shoes when she walks with this guy, but not when she goes to the beach with friends?? Interesting phenomenon!
She also is trying to convince me that veggie burgers are as good as hamburgers?? The woman who used to mock vegans?? Is she becoming one? Is it because her new boyfriend is? I know it’s not because of her love of animals. Animals are messy. They leave fur on your clothes, she has no love for animals…so what gives? Granted, these last two items are not ground breaking, but if you knew my friend you would want to check under her bed to see if there was a pod from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”! But while some of these changes are silly, what really convinced me that she was “gone” was when a deadly hurricane (category 4 when the first warnings were issued) was predicted for Florida, on the same coast where her new love interest lived. She was scheduled to go down there over the long weekend. Now, this woman always prefaced any discussion of retiring to the coasts of North and South Carolina with “But what about the hurricanes? Do they give you enough time to evacuate?” She also has every storm warning on her phone and will text with emergencies such as “flash flood warning in effect tonight, I am leaving work early. Don’t want to take a chance”. But back to the hurricane weekend. I called her and said, have you rescheduled your visit? To my horror and shock, she said “No, I’m going…his neighbors are evacuating, but it will be an adventure!” Huh??? When she reserved her seats,Southwest told her she’ll have her choice on seat assignment because everyone is leaving FLA…NO ONE is heading to Florida. When the storm hit the Bahamas, it was a Cat 5 and the eye was 20 miles long….She insisted they were fine, despite the fact that they were right in its path. I not only worried for sanity, but what about this guy? If he cared at all about her, wouldn’t he have discouraged her from coming in the first place? If he really needed a booty call that badly, he could have flown up to see her, but I guess that would cost time and money, so he had his girlfriend fly down there! And then wouldn’t evacuate. And my normally intelligent friend acted like an immature 15 year old and said “sure…sound like fun”. What happens to women when they get involved with a man and why??? While the hurricane made me fear for safety, I did wonder when she had a lobotomy performed….In all seriousness, another very real worry comes from what I see as a change in focus. Instead of keeping her eye on her future, the one she meticulously planned for, and worked so hard for, she is all about this guy. But again, when in the middle of the “change”, we sadly have blinders on and can see none of that.
I’ve thought about it a lot. Do women get like this because they so desperately want to be part of a couple? So they have a “plus one” at their kids’ weddings and it can be captured in family photos? So they can smile when people say “Are you seeing anyone?” So they can double date with their married friends? So they can chime in when friends discuss their partners?? In some cases, maybe. I’m also sure there are some who want their kids to meet a boyfriend so they can go back to their exes and say “Mom has a new boyfriend”. I imagine it removes some of the sting, when your ex has someone new and you can say “In your face…I can do it too??”Do they do it because they really never wanted to be independent single women, but are more comfortable in relying on someone else to help make decisions and pay the bills? In other words, they miss being a couple? Or do they just do it, as I did for a brief time, because they want to feel desirable after a marriage in which you felt anything but? I honestly don’t know.
I do know that I and some of my friends who have come through this “change ” wiser and stronger, see it and they don’t. We see it because we acted like them to some degree too. We flipped our hair and caught our reflections in a window or mirror, thinking how cute we looked. We started acting differently, all flirty, as though our boyfriend was around (maybe it was to practice?). We laughed too loudly, seductively brushed our hair from our eyes and bought new lingerie. We started acting “cool” when the day before we weren’t. We would smile knowingly when others brought up their husbands or boyfriends. We would sneak peeks at our phones and smile at messages during dinners with friends. We started walking, moving and acting sexy (or what we thought was sexy) when in reality we looked exactly the same to everyone else as we looked before we were involved with a man. But they won’t see it. So all we can do is ride it out, hope they don’t rush into anything, allowing common sense a chance to kick in, and try to be a good friend if it doesn’t end well.
At some point I hope they realize that they worked hard to get where they are. They went through hell and emerged victorious and stronger! Having a man is great if that is what you want and if he accepts you without changing you. But honestly, I haven’t seen much of that, especially in later in life relationships. Growing old together is one thing, but already being old makes it more difficult. Men and women get more set in their ways as they age. Men are needy by nature and it generally is the woman who has to change, and sadly, they do. And women who are natural nurturers are the most at risk.
As for me? I love men. I had three brothers. I have two sons. I have many male friends. I have never chimed in when my friends would decry all men as worthless. I know some amazing men. I would never rule out getting involved with someone again. I probably will never marry again, but have a relationship? Maybe…but only because I want it, it feels right and it doesn’t change MY plans, MY future or me. If it does then fuhgeddaboutit. I have wonderful friends and a loving family. From as early as High School, I have learned that boyfriends and sadly even husbands come and go, but the constant in our lives is friendship. Friends were there when our boyfriends dumped us just before prom and when our husbands moved on just when the hard years were behind us. Everything you can do with a man, you can do with a good friend or family member. And for that one thing that only men can do?? Well, isn’t that why vibrators were invented? Seriously, the Keanu Reeves quote above says it all. Once you know how to take care of yourself, company becomes an option, not a necessity. Maybe that’s the key: We need to learn to and take the time to care for ourselves. How can we even know what we need and what we want from others, if we don’t bother to take time to learn about and care for ourselves? If I option for company, it will be because that person, can accept me as I am, brings me joy without having to jump through hoops, and gives as much as he takes, and that includes friends, family and lovers. And if I ever start changing and acting like I lost half of my brain over a man, A) I hope I realize sooner rather than later that he is not worth having and/or B) I hope I have a friend good enough to smack me upside the head and knock my brain back into place. I may not see it at that moment, when I’m in the middle of the “change”, but someday, I will love my friend for caring enough to be honest with me, for the rest of my life.
New Endings 