In which, for the first time, I openly blog about the horrors of dating

When I started this blog, the tag line was slightly different. I described it as "The adventures of a single girl and her house." Recently, with no fanfare, I took out the "single." Not because I wasn't single. But because I felt like I needed to stop claiming that as part of my identity. I don't want to be single, so I shouldn't use it as a descriptor.

This has not made me less single.

Truth be told I wasn't even trying to date. After another one of my Divorced-Guy-Not-Ready-and-Not-Right-for-Me-Anyway mishaps (sometime I'll tell you about the other two, and why I bought a house, which are the same thing), after losing my job, my Jerk Detector was broken and I needed to get a few things straightened out.

>Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Katherine on Pinterest

I wish everyone did that.

I'm trying to get back out there, but I have no idea how except the same old strategies that have led to meeting Divorced Guys who are Not Ready and Can't Communicate to Save Their Lives. No one has any useful suggestions for me, so I just keep going on first dates.

The good news is the last couple first dates have not been horrible. Last summer I was going on dates with rude, arrogant people who told me how they told off their boss or who didn't even wait for me before leaving a room in an art exhibit. These have been better. Conversation and laughter have flowed. What there is not is second dates.

Source: via Katherine on Pinterest

Unfortunately, there are lies. I am wondering when I'm going to meet someone who doesn't lie. These lies are probably well-intentioned, because no one wants to feel like someone did not enjoy meeting them. But there is a difference between "Thank you for meeting me" and "Let's do this again." There is a difference between a handshake and a hug. To me, saying "Let's do this again" and then dropping off the face of the Earth is a lie. This is pretty much the standard farewell phrase now, and I'm not sure what the phrase is that actually indicates a person really does want to do this again. Similarly, a hug says "Meeting you was important and I feel positively about engaging in physical contact with you." That's what I mean about can't communicate to save their lives. If you want to communicate "Thanks but no thanks," don't hug me. Don't talk about meeting up again. Just say farewell.

But then I go to yoga. And K says, this too shall pass. Nothing lasts forever. Not even holding one arm in the air for three minutes. And the other side. And now both arms out to the sides, opening your heart, vulnerable and strong. This is the hardest pose for me

Source: ashappyaskings.tumblr.com via Katherine on Pinterest

A box I don't fit into

I drive a truck. I've driven this truck for eleven years. This is the first vehicle I chose on my own.

I think I wanted a truck because I almost got one when I was a teenager. We were going to buy the neighbor's pickup, but then they realized the pickup was more reliable than the other car they had, and kept that one.

People's reactions to a city girl driving a truck are varied.

Female reactions include

• I like it when women drive trucks.
• You are the best parallel parker! That was awesome when you pulled into that space, after that tiny little car gave up.
• Can you help me move some bookshelves?

Some boxes are too big.

Male reactions include

• You're going to have trouble driving that in the snow.
• I'd expect you to drive something compact and smart. (!!!)
  
• I always think, "Katherine's here" when I see that truck. (Well, duh, that's the point!)
• Can you help me move 30 bags of rocks? 

Some boxes are too small.

After eleven years, I'm still not over having a truck.

I don't fit some guys' idea of a demure, feminine woman with a practical if bland vehicle. I drive a truck, I own power tools and a shovel, and these days I probably can hold side plank longer than they can, too. That's just the kind of girl I am. The best guy, the guy I'm looking for, will appreciate me for all that, rather than question my choices and expect me to be someone who fits a mold.

Some boxes are just right, but that doesn't mean we belong in boxes.

Monday I was driving home and found a set of chairs by the side of the road. Free chairs! I couldn't have freed those chairs with a clown car. I can't wait to see what I end up doing to them.

They will probably end up purple.

I keep secrets

It's interesting, the things I don't mention or can't find the time to mention. It's nearly always good things, like starting yoga teacher training and teaching my first yoga class. I decided I was being stupid about not saying anything, and needed to announce all of this to the world (which, these days, means Facebook).

The thing is, I hate narcissists. You know who I mean. The people who have to have everything be about them. Think of someone making a speech that steals the spotlight from the guest of honor, the person who shows off on the dance floor, or butts into every conversation with their opinion or personal experience, no matter how irrelevant. The person who just has to tell you a story that seems designed to impress or convey the teller's importance.

Nicolas Bernard Lépicié [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I am someone who routinely fails to be impressed. You know the owner of this coffee shop? Sure, but you still pay full price. You once sold T-shirts at that performer's show? How does that make you closer to him?

So when I have something to brag about, I fail to do so. I get so tired of social media being a brag-fest: look at my cute significant other, baby, degree, new job... So tired of it that I fail to see it as a tool for sharing information. So tired of comparing my struggles, about which I know every detail, to everyone else's highlights.

So I'm quiet. I don't ask for attention. And, not surprisingly, I don't get it.

But look what happens when I do.

To reframe bragging as sharing good news, I have to accept that people genuinely do want to hear good news and consider the idea that people succeed in groups. I'm not entirely sure that this is true, or what it looks like.

It also requires seeing things I do as success, which is perhaps the biggest challenge for me. It just feels like the things I do are the things I do. I don't generally attach any particular value to them.

I do, however, attach value to the things other people do, that I have not done.

It does make me wonder about how I am seen by others, and if what they see is more or less accurate (or differently accurate) than what I see.

Not coincidentally:

Thanks so much for volunteering your time last Thursday, I know we all really enjoyed the class! After you left Mr. S--- said it was the best class so far, because it was more challenging!

The Stones had it right

I have this theory I'm working on, about the things we need versus the things we want.

It started with yoga, something that's supposed to balance us. L told us her savasana story -- basically, that she used to skip out on final relaxation because she didn't see the point. She'd go to her car and feel agitated, flighty, scatterbrained. Finally her teacher asked if she had somewhere to be after class, and when L said no, the teacher replied, "Good, you can stay for savasana."

L didn't realize that savasana, something so counter to her natural go-go-go tendency, was exactly what she needed to ground her.

In the same way, we often seek practices, jobs, partners, companions, who are the exact opposite of what we need.

We choose to stick with what's comfortable, easy, and familiar, instead of the things that will push us toward change.

We choose to do instead of be.

So I'm moving on from those times that I didn't get what I wanted, because it turns out that what I wanted wasn't the right thing for me.

Maybe I didn't get what I wanted, but not getting it was probably what I needed.

Armor

I have this new coworker. He's a misery.

He doesn't know he's a misery, though. He's one of those very old-school types who thinks that mild insults are a way of showing affection - and that showing this kind of affection is appropriate in an office setting. He reminds me of a newspaperman from the 30s in shirtsleeves, with a cigar burning on the desk and a glass of whisky within reach.

He swears far more than is necessary, talks angrily to his computer, sings, whistles, coughs, comments on everything even if it is just to repeat what someone else said, and just generally seems to need a great deal of attention.

It's very hard to not be annoyed by this guy, and certainly even harder to try to muster up some compassion for him.

At first I thought, perhaps it's just me; I didn't like my other coworker very much when he started and I've come to be able to see that he means well, even though he tries too hard. When this coworker started talking about the new coworker to me, though, I was able to let go of thinking it was just me, and that I had to resist this overly negative person, and try to gain some perspective and some compassion for this person who I find myself offended by daily.

My affable coworker referred to the other guy's mannerisms as armor that he carries around with him. And it is; it's armor that keeps people from liking him, armor that keeps people at a distance. Armor that he probably doesn't even know he's carrying.

Cyndi Lee reminds us that the warrior's weapons are "precision, gentleness, opening, and natural intelligence." One look at any of the warrior poses (Virabhadrasana) shows this to be true.

There's nothing in that stance about fighting, closing off, sending others away. The warrior is open to the challenges. She welcomes others in, "seeing with precision what is happening here and now in any given situation, and then having the courage to open [her] beating heart to that" (Yoga Body, Buddha Mind; 89).

Anytime someone comes into our life they are either a blessing or a lesson. Encountering this person, trying to find some compassion and a way to keep his habits from negatively affecting me, is certainly a lesson. It's reminder to think about my own armor, the ways that I keep people from getting to know me, from knowing when they've made it into my heart.  A reminder to look at myself and ask, what is it I do that keeps people away? Which habits should I shed, to make being around me a more pleasant and beneficial experience for others?