Step One: Accept that A man is better than NO man?

Speaking with a friend about Outdoorsman, I was called to task for judging the man so harshly. According to new information, men do not mature by any means other than force. So Outdoorsman, having never been married or sired children, doesn't have any reason to have matured. I guess it would be up to me to force ANOTHER man to grow up. But it didn't work last time, why would I expect it to work on this one?

Brother's opinion is that as long as Outdoorsman isn't a felon and doesn't have to pay over $1,000 per month in child support, I better sharpen those hooks because apparently time runs short for me. Plus he doesn't want to help move stuff around in my garage this summer.

Outdoorsman IS a nice guy in many ways.

I have personally witnessed him conjure quiet tears three times in the past month(I suspected that he was fishing for physical contact so now I am always sure to keep tissues handy).

When not bragging about his 15 year-old adventures, he showers me with compliments (This immediately puts me on my guard since I've rarely met a man who wants to spend every waking minute with a woman, and never dated any who had anything nice to say).

I can't stand the smileyface texts he sends, but then again does that mean I can be goofy without getting shot down? Hmmmm.

He HAS paid for 4 out of our five dates, and made dinner once. I had to pay for gas to drive cleeeear over to his side of town but that didn't matter to me since I don't like men knowing where I live until I'm good and ready to tell them. Of course, the date that I DID offer to pay for, do you think he considered my ailing bank account at ALL? Nah! He ordered TWO beers and let me tell you, this wasn't Chili's we were at. Think Vegas pricing and you'll understand my resentment. No matter, I'm not paying again because I have a mortgage to pay for and I don't have a freaking roommate.

Outdoorsman and I also share a few common character traits:
We can't stand people who litter and we are obnoxious in our complaining.
We can't stand people who park too close to our POS cars and we are obnoxious in our complaining.
We can't stand people whose noise bothers their neighbors and we are obnoxious in our complaing. Maybe be both have a death wish, expressing our ArchieBunker sides while living in this city.
We LOVE our dogs. He may be more of a dog lover than me. When not showering me with compliments after he gets tired of bragging about his non-lazy days of yore, he talks about how CUTE his dog is. And the dog is a happy dog.

On Marriage.. my marriage

I am beginning to realize that single life is pretty well satisfying. I have a great job wherein I have the least amount of misery in exchange for the most amount of compensation. I have a wonderful family and a small network of loyal, entertaining, law-abiding friends. Wow, I'm only 33 and I'm finally happy! Who would have thought I'd be happy and not even married?

It is becoming clear that what I was looking for years ago may not be what I need. Do I need a man? Why did I want to get married so badly when I was in my late twenties?

Probably because everyone I knew was married, and I was beginning to feel defective on some levels. But I am not compatible with marriage. I see the struggle for stability and survival which ensues as soon as a child takes his first breath. Such a responsibility. I know that if I had found myself with a suitable partner, and we were both committed to raising a family, blah blah blah, life would have been just as great, maybe better. But that is not what has happened, and I can't say that continuing to see myself as the world may see me is healthy.

I may be single. I'm not desperate for a man. I may not have any kids. It's not a tragedy, believe me. I am no Carrie Bradshaw type with money to spend and beautiful dresses to wear to swanky parties, at which I always know someone. Just not me, and it doesn't even sound appealing.

I am not compatible with marriage. I like to live in my own way. When I was married, I hated the way my husband would wake up every morning crabby, for no reason at all. He reasoned that all men are crabby, and they just need "a few hours" to wake up. Well, it always ruined my mornings. Now, I get to wake up and be just as gleeful as I fucking want to be.

I like to live my own way. Truth: I hated sex. I really did. Here's how sex in our household went. He would take a shower. That was his signal. So I'd take a shower. We would have sex. That would mean that I was all gross and icky, with his gunk sloshing around my vagina. So, while he slumbered in blissful content, I was taking my THIRD shower of the day. Whooppee, I just loved taking three showers a day for no good reason at all. What, just because SOMEBODY had an URGE?

I never got anything out of it. After a year or so, I told him that I just don't get anything out of penetration, so we might need to add a few exercises to our routine. No can do, said my X. He was already tired by the end of the day, and wanted to relax, not do more work.

That's another thing I don't like about men. Well, the men I've always picked anyway. Yeah, it's my own fault, whatever.... they only want sex when they have been titillated by someone OTHER than their partners. X used to watch football, and I know why they always furnish us with cheerleaders gyrating and showing their asses to the cameras. Sure enough, he'd take a shower that night. I understand the whole idea that men are "visual creatures." I think they have been socialized to be that way, but I still get that this is reality.

But Charles Ingalls never showed interest in anybody except Caroline. They were happy. We weren't. Well, sometimes I think X is in the closet and he liked the cheerleaders because he was gay, and the players gave him the real excitement. Who the hell knows. X has made it clear that if he likes women at all, he likes women who are anorexic-looking and who have short hair or even shaved heads. WTF? I have long hair, and I'm definitely not anorexic.

I wondered for the longest time why he asked me to marry him. Maybe because he knew what a prude I was, so he would not be expected to show affection for me?

Because....

So. Am I ready to start dating again? Is it worth the bother? Honestly, I never even enjoyed sex in the first place.

I have always been extremely prudish, and that's no lie. I'm probably just ashamed to be a woman. Anyhow, when I met the X, I told him this big story about how sex is what men want and marriage is what women want, so I figure I was going to get what I wanted from WHO I wanted before I gave ANYBODY what he wanted. He said that was fair. Frankly, I was TIRED of wondering what all the fuss was about. I was in my late twenties, completely over the novelty of being a suspected lesbian, and oh my biological clock was practically ding-donging every day.

So when we finally got married, I couldn't hold out any longer. X was a virgin too. He's probably gay, but won't admit it. See how fucked up people are out there? And you thought your NEIGHBORS were weird. Funny thing is, we are both normal looking people. Nobody would ever suspect. I can't speak for X, because he's his own little being on this earth, and only he knows WHY he never had sex. He SAYS it was because he is painfully shy. He has always been shy. It always WAS a pain in the ass that he was so shy.

As for me, I'm just a feminist, but I ended up believing everything the feminist writers always said women are thought of as. I find it impossible sometimes to imagine that I could ever have sex with someone who doesn't think of me as anything but a "fuck hole." I have to laugh just thinking about it. It's not easy to "just relax" when you think, "OMG, I'm nothing but a fuck hole, and he probably isn't even thinking about me anyway. Look at him. He's imagining some porno he watched fifty times on Betamax when he was in the 7th grade before his mom finally found it and threw it away." That's honestly what always went through my mind. Or, "Oh fuck! I forgot to shave section 3, Area B of my left thigh. I'm sure he can tell, and any second now, he's going to lose his erection, roll over, and tell me to get in there and finish shaving. I can FEEL his leg RIGHT THERE, and he thinks I'm DISGUSTING." Hm. Wonder why I waited until close to 30 to finally have sex.

But now that I'm in my sexual prime, I'm starting to not really care what anybody thinks. For example, this guy in my office told me that my hair is way too long, and once a woman turns 30, she needs to get it cut. I said, "Hey, fuck you DALE, that's only if you have kids! I don't have any kids, so I'll keep my long, wild hair, thank you. Unless you want to pay for a cut at the most expensive place I can find." Then I said to another guy in my office, "Hey Mike, I'm going to cut my hair. What do you think, shoulder length?" And he BEGGED me not to. Truth is, I don't care what either one of them think. That's empowering. I just don't care. I think.