a versus b, 9 versus 10 and a conclusion in my brain

my friend Lizka commented on something that rings fairly true the other day: men never marry or stay with their A, or their 10. They always choose option b, or someone they rank a 9 after having a 10.

Our theory on this is that men don't like having to deal with a woman who is their equal in intelligence, good in bed, etc. They don't. They prefer the one who looks up to them, instead of the one who looks them in the eye.

There are exceptions to this (my friends Kevin and Katherine, for example, are equals, see themselves as equals and always have). But most men have the courage of a rabbit when faced with a woman who can stand up to them or demand a straight answer.

My own personal conclusion in my brain for this week: worrying about someone who is as communicative as my computer (even my computer tells me at times it's been updated, or has memory issues... my computer at least has the functionality to tell me when something is wrong and it's a windows machine for fuck's sake) is a waste of my time. or so it feels. I'm better off filing love affairs off in the 'it was nice while it lasted, my memories of you are fond, i'm glad we are friends" category. That's the way men treat relationships with me, and if that's what they want, then they can have what they get. They don't get room for regrets, and I don't give second chances... the only time I did, it was a nightmare. I don't come with a reverse gear. I don't need to relive anything. Forward or no way at all. That is, unfortunately or fortunately, the way I am wired. I'm full steam, stupid/blind or not, ahead to where I am going and what I am about to do.

I saw a really old friend tonight (and I mean, old... we've known each other since we were 11, so now it's been 18 years), and she said she couldn't ever see me settling down. That in a lot of ways, other than I'm reasonably happy as an adult, I'm not so different than my teenage self, when I said I never wanted to marry or be saddled with a man forever. I've been saying that since I was a very young child, and it's never really deviated. During my time with Ryan, future time was amorphous, and I guess I assumed that we would always be together, or at least for the following two years (I don't plan as long as Chairman Mao... I seem to go on the two-year plan) at any point. Breaking up was a shock, but also a rather amazing blessed sense of freedom. After I met the cellist, the thoughts of 'long-term' once again entered my head. It wasn't meant to be with him, as our lives just collided in the short term, but it reminded me there were people I was more compatible with in the world than the usual retard male I meet.

The most recent affair spoke about how he was beginning to think that, at almost 40, he should perhaps settle down. Perhaps he should. I hope he does meet a nice girl and have a baby. I'll send a present and wish them well. I'll probably end up living in the same city as them, so I can even baby-sit and hopefully he would have a non-jealous partner that wouldn't care that I once fucked her baby's father.

Ok, now after the long run of evidence, I will come to the conclusion (I didn't write this as cleanly as a proof.. my written proofs were usually far more elegant than this long winded commentary). I'm probably an A or a 10. Too high for most men, if not all men, to shoot for. I don't think that I am, but they seem to think so. That's what seems to result in the pedestal placing (as with my darling old music-lover) or fear, or an annoyance that I'll stand up to them. A man wants someone they are comfortable with and who will worship them. I won't worship anyone. I'd adore and admire, but never kiss the ground they walk on. Too many men aren't comfortable with me and think I'm some goddess, which results in me being rejected for the former reason. I don't mind, I suppose, this relegation to spending my life single. It was, after all, a most likely conclusion, and maybe it isn't the conclusion, and life can change and who knows what can happen (I'm only saying this so my friends won't condemn me for being a fatalist; I, for my own part, remain a skeptic).

what men say and what men do

a new recollection:

when a man asks you to come back to see him before you journey off to do something, does he mean it? (especially when you show up and actually follow through?)

when a man poses the odd (non?)-rhetorical question one night of why it feels so right to be next to you (on a night when you aren't having sex and haven't even made out)? that's the dumbest damn thing to say to a woman who cares about you if you aren't intending to follow through.

that's what i feel right now. that's why i'm pissed off, that's why i can't get that one particular male out of my mind? what the fuck does he want? why do i even care?

that's the perpetual cry of almost every damned woman. how many friends have i watched cry because of some insincere male? why do i do so as well?

i am not so brilliant, nor so beautiful...

last night, i had a conversation (it's really conversations that for me provide my mental fuel)...
about facts of what men say and what men do.

men, ahem, men in my life say, usually repeatedly: 'you are brilliant' or 'you are beautiful'. i am neither, really. i am not brilliant. i am of above-average intelligence, perhaps, and well-educated. that gives me the appearance of brilliance. i am not beautiful. decent-looking, but not beautiful.

men in my life often say they care for me. or love me. or they say nothing at all.

men in my life do...
often lack confidence in their actions. if they are behind a camera or in front of a computer, they are like achilles in warfare. they are bold and know what they do. if they are confronted with a human being with emotions, they falter like the barest fool.

can't commit to anything that takes away from their own selfish existence. they can't keep their word because it might mean they have to give up something of their own lives. they might have to lose control. it makes them insane that they might have to do so.

of course, the one exception to that is the one person who i dated who clearly lacked any confidence in his ability with regards to himself. he wasn't acceptable because of that. he could give, but he couldn't put up boundaries. he knew no such thing, such as a boundary with me he wasn't allowed to cross, or setting a boundary i wasn't allowed to cross. his love bordered on obsession, like i was a prize.

and to a few other men, i have been a prize.

i am not a prize. i am also not a toy you can enjoy for a little while and throw into the closet. i am a person. yes, i do want to be idolized and petted and adored at times, as i am a female, and think it is my natural right, but remember that women, myself included, nurture your wounded ego and admire you as well. that is a give and take. but i also want you not to forget that i am a person, a person who prefers friendship above all else, a companion whose beauty will fade, but whose mind will remain intact. if you want something to last, try treating me like your car in a few ways: you have to change the oil, right, and fill it with gas, and take it in? you have to take care of it for it to last. yes, a relationship with a woman is like that. you have to pay attention and listen, you have to make your own boundaries and expectations clear, and understand that the other person has them as well.

i should sleep

insomnia. gah.

we all have something wrong with us; i've been reading about autism and a possible window into understanding it (children with autism have a lessening of symptoms often during a high fever). maybe it's a clue, a real first clue into autism, instead of the grasping at straws that medical science has been doing for years (not a condemnation... sometimes even the smartest scientist can have no clue.. even the smartest person can't figure out a crossword puzzle if there aren't any clues).

i have two autistic nephews... thus the interest in autism.

but, then, really, i seem to have this real love for men who probably have some form of autism spectrum disorders. geeks are my dating pleasure for the most part. men who can't communicate to save their skins. fuck, when did i decide dating nice quiet men who found the computer to be a warm and fuzzy companion a good thing? and why on earth does a linguist, a person who's profession it is to study language, find men who don't know how to use it attractive?

yes, yes. i have many things wrong with me. insomnia, tonight, is one of them. at least ryan's sleeping.

considering gender, place in life, and such things

two conversations today:

one - with a male friend, concerned that he isn't where he should be in his life so as to properly attract the opposite sex. the friend in question is 38, not so young, but not so old, either. he's in college, after having decided to go back to learn how to do something new in life.

i always applaud people for going to get an education, since most people in our society are such lackluster idiots. but he realized that, while he doesn't care for the opinions of people in general, it bothers him that the regards of others in society with care to place in life, see him as not in the proper and fitting role of a male of his age.

i agree that it is bullshit. but, on the other hand, i have this serious requirement that someone have a job/career. preferably career, as i have something akin to that as well. settled in their life, as i have begun to settle in my own. i don't want someone growing in a way that i grew years ago, because i've been there and done that and would find it unchallenging to date someone going through a process i went through years ago. there is a serious need for compatibility in a relationship, and place in life is one of those. of course, that rules me out for anyone at the moment.

the second was with my old boss/friend in berlin, who is 37, divorcing, mother of two, former war correspondent. she is thrilled that i am going to darkest africa to do something i've dreamed of doing for about five or six years, and gave me great insight into the importance of not only doing something that is so important to you (she also wanted to be a war correspondent), but in going to a place where the little bullshit in life, such as if your coffee is burnt or not, is quite fucking irrelevant. she was in kosovo in the middle of a war, and i'll be in a former war zone that is not recovering very quickly. i think they are comparable, if not quite the same, experiences. this friend is something of a hero to me, i admit, since she is not so dissimilar from myself in many ways. i see her as someone to emulate, even though her life is not the one i will have (she has two gorgeous kids, who i will say are very much adored by me, as i participated in their upbringing for over a year).

ah, but she is divorcing, since her husband (fifteen years older, feckless financially, and refusing to join her in the city she is living in with their children) has turned out to be ultimately hopeless. she, too, is another woman i know who has not had wedded bliss, or good luck with the men folk of the world, but she does at least have her beautiful children. i don't dislike her version of motherhood (as she still has her career), but she is a single mother, with all of its accompanying stresses and difficulties, even if she can afford to pay for a nanny to help with the kids. i've seen her life, up close, and don't think i could do it, or even want to try. perhaps it has turned out for the best that kids aren't an option.

and a conversation with the fig today... funny, i read all of these emails today, as i was sorting through it tonight, and found all of these old emails between us from before the kisses and such this summer. i think before we were involved in any way, or not involved, or whatever the fuck it is, he was easier and more carefree with talking to me. now, he seems to be more withdrawn, more afraid. i know that i am too, but i am making the effort. i am chatting with him, although it feels so odd and awkward to chat with him, because it is fucking chat, for fucks sake, not the living breathing person next to you on the pillow, or across from you at a dinner table or a cafe or bar. i miss him, very much, and, yes, admit to liking him very much... 'like' btw is a stupid stupid idiotic repulsive word that i am beginning to loathe as much as boyfriend. i hate fucking english and its refusal to describe anything well except emotional content of deep and human nature. we have no words to describe grief, none to describe feelings for others... the greeks were far far more awesome than we were back in the hey-day. no idea on the current language, but one pass through the iliad would yield far better words for love and loss than we currently hold in our own language.

on the fig, my day, my friends

one poor darling friend tonight... is suffering because of a man...

she can't sleep. she looks as though her life is washing through her fingers like sand. like she can't stop the tidal forces of whatever is controlling her, overwhelming her. a stupid man, a stupid, slovenly, morbidly embarrassing male met another woman behind her back..

the shock is worse this time than others i think. far worse. she had plans to be with this guy. to try and have kids with him. she's not twenty-five either. i think the shock of this is harder than others because she had so much invested in him, so many hopes and dreams tied to him and now it is gone. it is easy to say that he wasn't worthy of her (he wasn't, he's scum), but for a woman, at least, that kind of emotional investment getting blown is hard as hell in your twenties (i speak from personal experience), but in your thirties? fuck, fuck, fuck... this is like having everything you believed in and worked for knocked out from under you.

maybe this is why i have trouble promising anything i know for sure. i've had too many men play at love, and never really make an honest attempt at it. perhaps two of them did, but one was not ready, and not right besides, and the other did nothing but pet and love me all day and invest nothing in his own self worth as he should have. but it just feels like people would rather play house than make a house, would rather like the good things about having a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever else, rather than deal with the hard things that come to having another person with a stake in your life.

these are very serious questions for me to be considering right now. the almost 30 thing. the friends marrying and breeding. i don't want to be approaching 40, ruing things i should have done years earlier or crying at the realization i will spend the rest of my life alone.

random rant about the world

since this is pretty much hidden from the world, i can rant about whatever is bothering me most of all...

today: learning the new standards for HTML 4.0, since I have to rewrite the website for the Krim and Bom project. Dealing with the bureaucracy at Portland State so that they will reimburse me the rest of my money so that I don't die of some dreadful disease in Africa. Trying to relearn CSS, correctly this time. Thinking about writing, but Austin is about as inspiring as an old moldy sock, so writing is always really hard here.

Downloading Knoppix so as to access other files that I need to complete some work for LinguistList. Trying to stave off annoying illness I feel coming down upon my head. Wishing it were me, not Shanta, going back to the bay area tomorrow (or rather both of us were going, because I love it out there and would hope anyone in Austin would leave and start anew in some place with much more pizazz than this place).

Again, sorting out issues of the figs and the thistles. Figs are partially a matter of taste, after all. I've had good figs... but they were never the right taste. I woke up this morning with a feeling of impatience. Knowing that the fig I am currently examining will never put forth effort, due to his perpetual habit of not taking risks. And I am a risk. A high risk, with little possible return investment. I am apt to run off to different continents, take on a job that is somewhere else, and so forth. I am not the kind of woman who will settle down easily, and the man who is capable of settling with me better know how to control the daily hurricane. They can't want children, because I can't have any. There will be no pitter patter near me, no pregnancy, no glow. That bothers me for many reasons, for the simple fact I can't experience pregnancy (which I always thought I could), and in the end, it makes me less somehow. Maybe not less of a person, but it lessens the experiences I could have had, or thought I would have in this life.

I can be patient and just wait. I have other things on my mind now, and cluttering it with thoughts of what can't be won't help me in any way mentally or emotionally. My emotions have had a hold put on them, because I am no longer willing to take risks either, not after taking so many and had so many disappointments. It's not that I'm not willing to love again, I just want to make sure it is worth my time and effort before I do.