I Know What I'm Doing (20 page)

December 31—8:35 p.m.

I am stressed out about the amount of people that are on planet Earth—just mobs and mobs of people. What if we get
so
populated at some point that we’re always shoulder to shoulder with someone? I go to Google and start checking in on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex. This is NOT my fault but I am vowing to use Amazon Prime less.

December 31—8:40 p.m.

Some newswoman is interviewing two young men from Texas who are in Times Square. For people who spent an entire day in the cold to get the prime spot of leaning up against the partition you would think they would have a prepared statement in case they got asked to speak. Instead the two guys just wave into the camera as if they’re searching for their own reflection. One of them shouts, “Awesome!” I hope that nobody in India is watching.

December 31—8:59 p.m.

I start to get sleepy again. How many times have I wanted to go to bed at nine o’clock and then didn’t? It’s also okay to sleep on the couch because I’m too lazy to get up. I shut off the TV and let the glow of my Christmas tree light the room. I smile wondering how many angry homophobes are out there tonight watching Anderson Cooper giggle and talk about his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, with Kathy Griffin. God bless America. It’s 2:00 p.m. the next day in Sydney. I decide that I’m on Australia time and free myself of this stupid holiday.

(Note:
I never went on that New Year’s Day hike. In fact—the first exercise I did in the New Year wasn’t until February.)

16

THE RELATIONSHIP REMODELER

There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is
“Where am I going?” and the second is “Who will go with me?” If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.

—SAM KEEN

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

—OSCAR WILDE

I
n year two of being single again—and not having had an official boyfriend—I met someone. Well, I didn’t
meet
someone. I saw someone I already sort of knew in a new light. That’s usually how I find men. They have to already exist in my orbit. I like my potential mate and I to have at least one mutual friend so that I can launch a full-scale investigative background check. Does he have a criminal record? (I’ll make an exception for a guy who was wrongly accused of a crime and spent his time in jail writing poetry or something deep like that.) What do his ex-girlfriends say about him? (An unacceptable answer: “His ex-girlfriends say that he’s great but he would call his mom during sex.”) With the exception of my near-dalliance with a British guy I met on a message board, I’ve never done online dating, never filled out a
Match.com
questionnaire. Did you know that the Internet is full of
strangers
? I was taught never to talk to strangers and now in order to find love I’m told that it’s okay to send them a flattering picture and to arrange to meet them alone in person.

It causes me some worry because I assume that it means that these men are full-on traditionalists and that they want to find a woman who cooks, cleans, wants kids, and loves knitting Christmas sweaters. On the flip side I’m suspicious that if the men
aren’t
traditionalists they are perverts who prey on a woman who wants a boyfriend and may be willing to have sex right away if the guy presents himself as trustworthy and nice and wanting to knit Christmas sweaters—but after one hump, she’s dumped. The man who I’m really looking to avoid the most is the man who hasn’t figured out who he is yet and desperately wants a relationship in order to feel useful and whole—while he continues to halfheartedly follow his career dreams and procrastinates registering his car because he’s consumed with finding love. Normally women are stereotyped as being this way—but there are some men like this too. We have to recognize that they’re out there or else we will get caught up with these guys because of some myth that tells us we’re lucky that someone wants us so much.

So, as a public service to all of you women reading this, here is my cautionary tale of my three-month relationship with the Ab-Master. I call him this because he had six-pack abs plus two visible oblique muscles
and
, much like any exercise equipment designed for home use, our relationship arrived slightly defective but I ignored it at first, in an effort to make it work (out).

I’d known the Ab-Master for a couple of years. He worked as a carpenter. We would run into each other at mutual friends’ gatherings. A lot of people dismissed him as gay because he dressed fashionably, had a haircut that took some styling, and occasionally wore a deep V-neck tee. I knew that he was just “artsy” and I like a guy who’s in touch with his feminine side. Besides, I’ve known plenty of closeted alpha males.

At one mutual friend’s party I was telling the Ab-Master that I had just moved into a new apartment. He asked if I needed any help unpacking. “Fuck no!” I told him with sass. “I did that all in one day. I can’t sleep one night in a new place unless everything is out of the boxes and put away.” He offered to help with painting or hanging up pictures, as that was one of his areas of expertise. I immediately dismissed his offer saying, “No. I hired people for that.” He asked me what my schedule was like coming up and I lamented, “Awful. I’m just about to go out on a book tour.” I had no idea that he was flirting with me or asking me out. But he told me later—after we started dating—that he was trying to ask me out at that party but I was throwing up some major self-defense blocks. I thought we were just two friends chatting. Honestly, I never thought he would be interested in me. I figured he had a bunch of artsy girlfriends. I definitely thought he was gorgeous but I’d never met a man whose idea of putting a move on me was offering to paint my bathroom.

One night while out with The Mutual Friend and friends, I mentioned that I was starting to feel a little bit lonely and when he suggested online dating I went into my speech. I hinted that I would actually like to meet a guy like Ab-Master; artsy-looking, creative, nice, asks lots of questions, seems interested, isn’t a gropey pig. The Mutual Friend told me that the Ab-Master was totally interested in me but had given up trying to ask me out because I wasn’t getting the cues. That was all I needed to hear. I took matters into my own hands. I sent the Ab-Master a text and said, “Want to meet for a drink? Tonight?” I said, “Peace out,” to The Mutual Friend. “No time to waste.” And I was out the door and headed down the street to meet my date. Even though I don’t know how to use a hammer, I’m a bit of an alpha female. Unlike the Ab-Master, when I ask you out—you know it.

Ab-Master and I had a great talk. He was charming, funny (it’s hard to make me laugh), a good listener, a good talker, sexy without being overtly sexual, and he was contemplative. He hit it off so well with the male and female bartenders that they closed the doors and let us stay for one more with the staff. Ab-Master had ease and charm. He knew how to make people feel comfortable. It was a great first non-date. He asked me out for the next night. I happily said yes. We hung out a bunch that week. It felt good to not spend every night going home and working more after I got home from work. It was summer and I had a few months to just work one job before I had to add a comedy tour to my normal forty-hour workweek. I figured that the Ab-Master and I were setting the scene for a great summer fling. On our third date, he told me a story of how his parents got divorced when he was twenty and he applied to a talk show (something like a local
Ricki Lake
in his home city) to try to get his parents on as guests for reconciliation. His family agreed to it but it didn’t work out, which left the Ab-Master devastated. He said that he went into a major depression, gained a hundred pounds, and didn’t leave his bedroom (at what was now just his mom’s house) for a year. Then he discovered the joy of working out, which he claims brought him back to life, and he concluded that exercise is the key to happiness. I’m all for some good-mood-inducing endorphins after a workout—nobody ever feels worse after going to the gym (unless all you do is get a thousand-calorie smoothie and then hide in the women’s locker room sucking it down in the dry sauna).

I’ve been in therapy for decades and I can break this story down. He never recovered in a real way from his parents’ divorce and squat thrusts did not cure his depression but he simply switched behaviors and now he’s into having control over his body as a way to control his world. He doesn’t have the ability to surrender to the fact that he can’t orchestrate how people are going to behave and he doesn’t want to feel the feelings.

I started to get a reflex in my stomach—that sense of someone planting a red flag firmly in my solar plexus. There’s something to be said for getting to the root of the melancholy. The Ab-Master seemed to gloss over his father leaving and the complete untangling of his family. I asked if maybe he needed to look at that because oddly he seemed to idealize having a girlfriend and getting someone to love him as the one thing that can make life perfect. I know it’s codependent of me to notice but he was a classic codependent.

During dessert, the Ab-Master asked me to be his girlfriend. He told me that he was not going to see anyone else and asked me if I felt the same way. I couldn’t really believe this was happening at my age. We had hung out three times and the third time wasn’t even done yet. I had the feeling that he was just rushing to be involved—and that this had nothing to do with his feeling a true connection with
me.
I told him that I wanted to keep seeing him but that if other people asked us out we should see those people too. If time goes by and no one else diverts us
then
we should become exclusive. I had no plans to meet anyone else but I was certainly not going to just become someone’s partner after three dates. That’s how relationships started when I was in my early twenties, and on the playground in middle school. It seemed a little childish to just declare someone my boyfriend and then jump in and wait for my emotions to catch up to my decision. I didn’t
feel
yet that he was my one true confidant.

We had a semi-annoying, mostly circular conversation and then the Ab-Master, acting like some Paul Rudd look-alike in a ABC Family drama said, “Don’t be so afraid to open up again. I know that divorce is traumatic and you’re just afraid to open up.”

I said, “It wasn’t traumatic. It was expensive. I’m very open. I’m opening up now and telling you how I would like to enter a relationship.”

He said, “Aw, babe! I see you as becoming set in your ways already.”

“Babe”?
On the third date? My
ways
? What were
my ways
? My peculiar little way of not wanting to call someone my boyfriend after hanging out with him for what amounted to a total of fifteen (waking) hours?

I wanted to take it slow—not because I was afraid but because I wanted to do things right. We would have to organically spend more time together, let the calendar pages turn. People are like trees. You have to see how they hold up in every season. Right now it was summer and we were both in full bloom, but how would his branches be able to handle the changing leaves of autumn? The heavy, crushing snow in winter? I had a sneaking suspicion that if he
were
a tree he would be a Christmas fir—all too happy to be cut down so that he could go inside and bond with a family, secretly hoping they’ll let him stay past the New Year and acting truly surprised when they put him out on the curb with the recycling, lying in a heap on the sidewalk, moaning, “If only that family would take a chance on me they would see that I am good for them year-round!”

I felt another red flag being implanted into my stomach. He was only five years younger than me but he seemed unseasoned in the way he wanted to debate instead of listen. He thought of himself as a problem solver, compassionate, and ready to help. I didn’t need help. I needed to be heard. If womanhood had a motto, “I Just Want To Be Heard” would be it—that and “You Have To Tell Me Well In Advance If A Party Is Going To Be Outside.”

Whenever I feel those red flags firmly poking into my gut, I have a terrible habit of talking myself out of them. I ask myself questions like,
What am I going to do? Walk away from this guy because I don’t have a good feeling about it?
Um, yes. How about that? That would be a good place to start. Maybe we were headed for the same freeway but approaching it from different on-ramps. Maybe referring to the Ab-Master as my boyfriend wasn’t that big of a deal. I wanted to hang out with him as much as I could and I was attracted to him so what was my problem? Boyfriend. Why couldn’t I just say, “Hey everybody, meet my boyfriend!” When I’d relay these stories to girlfriends it was hard to convey the red flag feeling. It’s sort of a you-had-to-be-there-in-my-stomach-when-the-flagpole-carrying-the-red-flag-punctured-my-liver kind of thing. Most of my female friends just heard the bullet points.

• A handsome man?

• A handsome man with visible abdominals?

• He wants a relationship and commitment?

• He tried to get his family back together? Aw!

• He offered to help you unpack during a move?

Jen, are you crazy? Why would you hesitate? Marry him! We’ll come to your second wedding. Jen, this guy offered to hang pictures! Stop thinking someone better will come along! This guy is a magical unicorn! Ride him through the sky and shit rainbows together! Your life is solved!

The Ab-Master loved my apartment and often complimented my décor. I found this to be high praise since he builds furniture for a living. I took him very seriously when he said that the wooden place mats on my dining room table didn’t fit the rest of my home accessories. I had never been to his place, but then again he had only been my “boyfriend” for a week. I asked, “Okay. What are your place mats like? Show me a picture of your place.” The Ab-Master pulled out his phone and proudly showed me a picture of his bed, which was covered in wood shavings because he was using a handsaw (inside) working on a piece. When I asked him why he worked on large wood projects in his bedroom he explained that that was the only room in his place. He lived in a smaller than small studio apartment. He oddly delighted in telling me, “It’s so crazy it’s more like a room than even a studio! The head of my bed is the kitchen sink and right now I’m trying to find a way to live in peace with these cockroaches!”