If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN! (7 page)

A big part of what drives many of us is women would love to be someone’s muse. We want to be the person who stirs creativity in the person she’s with. I don’t know if guys have that as much as women do, but the idea of trying to find that person you can inspire, whose creativity you spark so that he can create amazing things, and you’re just hip and wonderful and you’re living in this great bubble of happiness… well, I can tell you it just doesn’t happen all that often.

Once I realized that being someone’s muse and inspiring him to greatness probably wasn’t going to be my life, I took a good hard look at what I was getting out of relationships and came to understand three things about myself:

Now, if I had been paying closer attention in my youth, I would have known that I don’t enjoy being with anybody hour to hour. I don’t want somebody with me all the time.

When I first got married, I was young—too young—and I thought that getting married was what “normal” people did. I also had big dreams, even though it may have seemed ridiculous to other people at the time. I did pull it together, though, didn’t I?

Everyone else wanted me to be something smaller than what I was. They didn’t know how powerful my dreams were. I was supposed to be a good wife and mother, and go to work and make money doing the most boring job imaginable (at least to me). The marriage was doomed from the start because I was never that person. I didn’t want somebody laughing at my dreams and hopes, or taking the liberty to tell me what I should be instead of asking me what I wanted to be.

But back then, I didn’t know that it would have been okay to say, “You know what? I don’t want the kind of
relationship where you get to tell me what I’m supposed to be and I have to listen to you and put my own desires on the back burner. The way I see it, we’re equals. I want this and this. What do you want? Okay, now let’s see if we can work it out so we are both happy.”

No, I just went from zero to one hundred. Got married, had a baby—and I loved her as soon as I met her, as soon as she emerged from me. I liked being pregnant, but the part between being pregnant and holding the baby was pretty horrible. I guess it’s a shock to most women. And back in those days, when your water broke, they put you in a room by yourself, and then sometimes a nurse would come in and yell at you to stop making so much noise, because all you were doing was pushing a basketball through the eye of a needle.

Back then, nurses were quite nasty. Nowadays, you have a party in the delivery room, but not when I became a mom. That’s why I never wanted to have another kid. No, thank you. That whole process was not a pleasant experience.

Where were we?

Finally, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I kept coming back to the truth, what my gut was telling me: I didn’t really want to be married. I liked the idea of what it promised. Who wouldn’t? When you get married, people are so incredibly supportive, and they have the best expectations for you. Not just the family and friends who all idealize marriage as the be-all and end-all, but also the
person you’re marrying. It’s a time when things are fresh and everyone is optimistic. That optimism and hope kind of drove me to make some of the choices I made in my life. But my choices should not reflect badly on the people I chose to be with. It really was, and is, all me—which is why I just don’t get married anymore.

The only way I would want to be in a relationship at this point is if I could find someone who was willing to live in another state. Then I would see him when I wanted, and that would be perfect. That person is not out there for me right now, though.

I’m good with that, even if it freaks a lot of people out.

Relationships are by definition not just about you. There’s another person involved, and he or she has 50 percent of that relationship, and you’ve got to be able to transcend all the bullshit and work at it. This is something I’ve never been able to master, which is why I suck at relationships.

I’m just being honest.

I don’t suck so much now, because I
am
so honest with myself. I draw a line in the sand, which is basically, “If you come to me and who you are or who I’ve seen you to be isn’t comfortable for me, I am going to cut it off. Right now.” I am not going to wait three, four, five, six years. I am not going to try and pretend that I’m happy when I’m not or think I’m going to change or fix someone.

When I was growing up, things were different. Women
were raised to have their highest purpose in life be to get married, and that there was a cultural expectation that the man would work and pay for things while the woman had the babies and took care of the man and the house.

Today, things have changed. But we haven’t caught up with all the changes. Look at the way things are now: Despite the fact that women make their own money, have their independence, and are exposed to so many ideas, you would think we’d think twice about this marriage thing and not still look at it as the ultimate goal. So many women still do, though, and we go into these marriages with expectations that don’t make sense, and that we don’t even articulate to one another. Both men and women do this.

As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same

So when I say, “You’ve got to be up front,” I mean be up front with
yourself
. Also be up front with the other person. Don’t even think for a second, “Well, I can change him,” because you really can’t change people unless they are determined to change, or if they are already in the midst of changing. Otherwise, you are going to be disappointed, and then you’re mad, and the relationship is going south, and you’re still walking down the aisle.

That’s not good. That’s a combustible situation.

Before one of my weddings—I’m not saying which one—my mother pulled me aside and said, “Here are the
car keys. You know you don’t want to get married. Get in the car and leave.”

Did I listen to her? The answer is no.

I said, “We invited all these people to the wedding. I can’t just leave.”

So I got married anyway, which makes me kind of an asshole, because I knew the truth, and I went around it.

So I’m trying to help people not do that.

Tell yourself what you want. Check your list. It may be that right now you just want to spend some time with yourself. Well, that’s okay, in spite of what your friends and family will tell you.

It’s okay to be single.

It’s okay to feel like you want to be by yourself for a while.

Because the truth of the matter is—and don’t tell anybody I told you this—not everyone is meant to be married.

Take me, for example. I am with other people most of my day, and I have a lot of stimulation from day to day. When I come home I want to relax, not interact with someone else or deal with his problems. I want some “me” time.

Once I realized that my needs could be met by me, life got a lot easier. Then other people didn’t have to help me figure out what my life was. I already knew it.

Now, every now and then, I get a little urge—you know what I’m talking about—and I can make a phone call and have a friend come over.

But we’re not talking about that right now.

Before I arrived at that place, though, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was all right.

There is nothing wrong with me for wanting to be alone or for being comfortable being alone. There is nothing wrong with having three or four cats if I decide to—but because I’m very vain and don’t want people calling me a cat lady, I have only one. There’s a lot of ego going around here, and it’s all mine and I understand that.

I hope you see the foolishness of not being true to yourself. Believe me, I know it’s very hard to do, when people are pushing you into getting married. Gay folks are having it the worst now, because everybody is “You can get married now. When are you going to get married?” But the question is: Why do you want to do that? Yes, you get some security from your other half, you share the finances, and if something happens to you and you get sick or can’t work, you can fall back on what your spouse has, and blah, blah, blah.

But, fundamentally, what is the purpose of getting married?

Let’s say some couple has been together for twenty-six years. Now, I don’t think they need to go to a church and make it formal. Pretty much, they’re married. As soon as those people who were together for twenty-six years get married, don’t be surprised if they get a divorce.
Why? Because it feels like they have to live up to this list of what marriage is supposed to be, and they are not themselves anymore.

That’s the answer to the other question: why people get divorced. The message we’re getting doesn’t make it clear that it’s all right to be together for twenty-six years or thirty years or fifty years, gay or straight, and not be married. I’m telling you, it is okay. Then, if you decide, “You know what, this isn’t the life I want anymore, I’m living a lie,” then, as long as you’re up front, it’s all good. It won’t be easy, but it will be a hell of a lot easier than if you are legally bound.

What do you do if the person you meet who can fulfill what you need happens to wear stinky cologne or a terrible thong? Well, where do you draw your line in the sand? What are you willing to accept? Are you willing to accept the fact that there’s stinky cologne in your future? Or really bumpy-looking, bad-looking thongs? If you’re willing to accept that because there are five hundred thousand other things in that person that you adore, that’s your line in the sand. You can live with that, because you really think this person is terrific and maybe you can introduce him to some nice Armani or Tom Ford cologne, or buy her a nice smooth Wolford thong that actually works for her.

It’s all about who you really want to be—which brings us to the next chapter.

P
atience. Fortitude. Truth. Sometimes finding the right relationship can feel like searching for the Holy Grail. You have to be like a knight of the Round Table on his quest. You have to take your time, and you have to know your truth, and you can’t settle for tarnished treasure or cheap imitations.

People tend to rush into relationships because they are afraid they are not going to have anybody, like that’s a bad thing. Also, we’re not a society that understands how important it is to be self-aware. It’s fine to want to be with somebody, but you’ve got to figure out what you’re looking for, instead of finding out what you don’t want when you’re in the middle of it. Like I said, I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but it just seems to me that
you have to make a bargain with yourself and tell yourself the truth.

You get into a relationship and you want to make the other person feel good or feel better about themselves, and as women we put our own needs or contributions or achievements on the back burner to stroke the man’s ego. So you bullshit him at your own expense.

I started to see that trait in myself, but for a while I was too lazy to do anything about it. I would get into a relationship, and soon enough I would know it was bad. But I’d be so lazy that I wouldn’t break it off. So three, four years later, I’m still there. Then, one day, I’m like, “I’m taking my toys and I’m going. It’s been fun. See you! Bye.”

But doing that is too much. So now I just cut them loose as soon as I know it’s not going to work.

You need to say to yourself, “I’m going to wait and find the right person,” instead of “Oh, I’m so lonely, I’m going to jump into anything.” Look at this book as a brake. It’s just a long, long brake, like in the old Volkswagen Bug. Pull up that brake, slow down, and give yourself time to find the right person.

At this point in my life I have three grandchildren, a daughter, a son-in-law, and now a great-grandchild. They take up a lot of my time. I have a terrific family, and I don’t need a new one or another one. I have my career, which keeps me pretty busy, and I have all the
other things I like to do with my time, the things that are bigger than me, like raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, education, homelessness. (You already know I also have a cat, an evil cat, and that that’s really all I can handle at home at this point.)

So I have a lot of things going on. I also have myself and my relationship with myself, which is pretty important and helps keep all those other things going. So I know that bringing somebody in would require that I stop and think about yet another person. And that would probably be too much for me. Although a relationship can be a lot of fun in the beginning, in the end, it becomes too much responsibility.

I got to this place of knowing over time, from my life experience. It’s because I have my family and my career set up. It’s because I’ve made a lot of mistakes and have tried to learn from them. It’s because I have learned to be honest with myself, have learned who I really am (normal), and I have accepted it. It’s also because I don’t buy into the media hype.

The thing I would say to everybody is “Stop letting the media tell you what you feel and what you think you need.” It’s just so stupid.

Like on
Gossip Girl
: they all have the best clothes and they have their cliques and they play games to get their man. “I’m going to do this, and then he will do that.” Media and advertising are all about manipulating people.
In some ways, self-esteem has become a media creation. Yes, people have self-esteem, but then we’re told, “Your self-esteem is not enough.” We need to have certain clothes and toys and friends and behavior.

If you’re lucky, you grow up like most kids. Some shit you know, some shit you don’t. Some stuff is hard, some stuff is easy. You learn a lot, but you get better, and the mere fact that you’re getting better lifts your self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem comes from learning new things and developing yourself. Not from having all the right stuff.

Now we’ve put it in people’s minds that it’s a
Gossip Girl
world. I don’t know if it is, but I do know that if people stopped trying to live the dream of a movie or a TV show, stopped allowing pop culture to tell them what makes them worthy or gives them value, they would be a lot happier. Figure that stuff out on your own. When you do, you will be a more authentic you, and that will reflect how solid you are in your sense of self and in how you react to and behave with other people.

They say that you have to love yourself first before you can love somebody else. It’s true. I have to love me, I have to have high self-esteem before I love somebody else. It’s really simple.

If you don’t love yourself, and you’re loving somebody else, you’re putting all the responsibility for yourself on him, which is not fair. Everybody has to come in 100 percent. I’m here 100 percent. You’re here 100 per
cent. We will work through whatever we find. But if you’re coming in as basically half a person, any relationship is not going to work. Nobody should be in charge of babysitting you, or vice versa. Once you are a grown-up, you no longer need a babysitter, and you should not be babysitting your friends or your lovers. You should both be self-sufficient people who know themselves and who can share that with each other. That is called maturity.

One of my favorite books is Rainer Maria Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet
. In it, he talks about the importance of two people in a relationship remaining separate individuals and being whole people before they get into anything. Here’s a quote from the book that captures some of it:

Again, the best kind of relationship is one where two whole people come together and support one another. Rilke does not say the best kind of relationship is one where you are going to try to fix the other person and mold him into what you think you want.

He has a lot of other interesting things to say, so when you’re done with this book, go out and get his. He said it a hundred years before I did.

How, you may ask, do you know if the person you are involved with is coming into the relationship as half a person? You will know when the person you’re with is not quiet—he (or she!) acts like a baby or is very needy, “Give me, give me, give me.” When it’s all about him (or her). Why is he so needy? He hasn’t yet learned how to fulfill himself, his own needs. This takes self-awareness and maturity.

But, again, the specter of being alone pops up, and we go, “No, no, no. I can work it out. I can teach him. I can make him better.”

I am here to tell you that you can’t. You can’t fix someone else. You’ve got to be honest and say, “No, I understand. You need a lot of stuff.”

And I ask you, why would you
want
to “fix” another person anyway?

Why would you want to fix your lover, your friend?

And why would you want to marry someone and attach yourself to him if he needs to be fixed?

The only reason is because you need to feel like a hero, you need to feel needed, and if that’s the case, you aren’t a complete person.

This is what gets us all into trouble.

Think about it. You have all sorts of other things going on in your life, and now you have to take care of this other person who doesn’t know how to take care of himself. It is a lot of pressure, and while it may be some sort of ego boost in the short run, in the long run it is going to drain you and take away whatever attraction or respect you had for him.

You need to realize that this is not the person for you, because instead of adding to your life, he is subtracting. Getting to this point isn’t easy because it means telling yourself the truth, and that takes some practice. It’s all about the truth that you have to tell to yourself. It’s the hardest thing to do, because usually people just want things to work out. They don’t want to be disappointed. They are willing to settle. You only get one life, though, so I ask, why?

Be honest with yourself and be patient.

While it may seem that it takes a lifetime to figure this stuff out, that it’s an “ongoing process,” that you learn through experience and mistakes—I say that’s bullshit.

People know what they need. When somebody says something and it kinds of hurts you, you know this might not be the person for you. Even a child knows when she doesn’t feel right, when she isn’t being respected or loved the way she wants to be. But we all want to be accepted, to be loved, sometimes so badly that we let things slide. But you let things slide for too long and soon enough you are living a lie.

We’ve been talking about living your truth, which you know at the core of your being.

We’ve been talking about how you have to speak honestly to yourself. If you can’t tell yourself the truth, who can you tell the truth to? Why should I believe you if you’re lying to yourself?

Is this getting too deep for you?

Are you still not sure about what I’m saying?

Are you asking, “But how do you know?”

The most important thing is that you have to listen to your truths, desires, and wants. And you have to believe you deserve all of it.

Or you need to just be honest with yourself about your own choices and say, “Yes, I’m going to settle and just go with any Jane, Dick, or Harry.”

Or “You know what? I’m going to wait. I’m going to see how this goes. I’m going to find somebody that really makes me say, ‘Hey, now,’ who captures my attention
and keeps me interested and stimulated for more than a minute.”

One of the things I hear all the time on
The View
is that women think they either don’t have time or can’t spend time working on themselves or deepening their relationship with themselves. I’m writing this book in part as a response to a lot of that kind of nonsense.

What are you talking about? If you’re not together as a human being, you’re not good for anybody. So you’ve got to take care of yourself. Take the time to get to know yourself. Who are you? What do you want? You have to commit yourself to answering these questions, even if it takes a while.

Sometimes I just cannot believe my ears. The same issues keep coming up again and again in our discussions on
The View
, and the things coming out of people’s mouths are so weird.

Like the reasons that some people get into relationships—which to me often seem like all the wrong reasons. Maybe these people were trying to be funny, but what I have heard is so consistent that it really started to bother me.

I thought, “How can so many people have such wrong ideas about what is going to make them happy?”

I kept seeing people behaving in ways that I knew
was not going to help them be happy in their relationships, acting in ways and holding on to ideas that weren’t helping them.

By now I hope it’s clear that you’d better take time for yourself, you’d better have a strong relationship with yourself, and you’d better take care of yourself. Take care of your life. It’s the most important thing and it is from there, that core of your relationship with yourself, that all other relationships spring.

When I’ve been in relationships, most of the time I was trying to find that point of “normal,” which I’ve already talked about. Everybody tells you that this is what you’re supposed to do. But what if you’re not that person? What if you are independent and evolved and willing to commit to your own truth? This is who this book is for: someone who has a lot of responsibilities and lots of things going on in her life and in her mind and in her heart.

So, for me, I have my family, my work, my passions and causes, and I am committed to all of them. A relationship has to fit into and work
within that
.

And I have me. And you have you, your own self, and your own very full life.

I think that that is what you should be doing: leading your own fulfilling life, learning new things, working on your career, your friends and family, your causes and
passions. Instead of sitting around waiting for some guy to call, go develop yourself.

The craziest thing is—and I don’t know when women forgot, and it’s particular to women—women forgot that relationships don’t mean anything if you’re not solid. Another thing I hear on the show all the time that I don’t understand is when women say, “I can’t have it all.” But you
can
. Are you talking about some movie you saw that was about having it all? You can actually have your career, have your kid, have your passions. Yes, you’re going to be a little tired, you’re going to be stretched thin, you’re going to need some help once in a while, because it really does take a village. None of us is a machine. You’re going to have these issues, but that’s part of it.

Real life is much more complicated than any movie, and that’s as it should be. If you’re doing things that you believe in or that are making you happy or fulfilling you, as exhausted as you might be, you do it because this is your one life. You are doing what you want to do.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, but a full life isn’t supposed to be easy. If you want to just sit on the couch and waste your life, go right ahead, but don’t think that with some magic wand your life is going to fix itself without your involvement and energy, and don’t think a man is going to come knocking on your door and fix it all for you.

It must be very hard for people, because everybody
is scared for some reason. Scared especially that they are not going to find somebody to spend the rest of their life with. But the point of all this is: I don’t know if you’re
supposed
to. I don’t know if you
want
to spend the rest of your life just thinking about that. I would run from that.