Both sides - Well, at least now I know that it's not just me. I mean that it's not merely MY poor choices in men - it's men's poor choices in me as well. For a long while now I thought that it was just me - that if there were the worst possible choice of man for me to be attracted to for whatever reason (he plays into every insecurity I own, he's a drunk, he's an asshole, he's someone I have to work with on a daily basis, etc.), then THAT is the guy that I will convince myself that I cannot live without. And that convincing myself will go on for far longer than is necessary/good for my mental and physical health/is interesting for my friends to listen to, etc. But now I know it's not just me. Rather, it's that I am an unavailable-man magnet. Woo hoo! There's a strange kind of release in knowing that the delusional rationalizing is not just one-sided, that the men who are attracted to me are attracted only because they can't have me.
At least that is starting to make some sense. It's because I'm fully myself around these guys because I know (and they do too) that nothing can or will happen. And that's very freeing, and means that I can be myself, warts and all in a way that you don't do when you're first dating someone. And for someone who doesn't have to live with "Shelly on 11" all the time, that could be attractive. Smart, funny, moderately attractive, self-assured (when I'm not trying to be something for someone else), independent, well-rounded conversationalist - what's not to be attracted to? They don't ever have to see the needy, clingy, bitchy, overly-controlling person that I really am, because the only settings they'd see me in are social where those things don't come up, or they get quickly swept under the rug. And if they never get to play out the fantasy to find the flaws in it, then that's alluring. And it's alluring to me too - it's nice to be seen through someone else's eyes for the things that I forget to appreciate about myself (because it's immodest, or because I forget that those things are true). Maybe something else that's attractive (it's attractive to me) is that I finally know myself enough to know what I will do, and what I won't do, and where my boundaries (ok, at least this one) are, and that I will stand my ground. No matter who pushes me, for whatever their motivations, I know my heart, and I know what I can live with, and what I can't. And that for once in my life, I know that in advance, instead of figuring it out after my heart is broken.
Posted by cshell at October 4, 2003 01:33 AM