My Dating "Inner Knowing" Makes an Appearance (And Not a Cameo!)

Earlier this week, I found myself on another in a series of coffee-dates, attempting to make new friends--even, perhaps, find a special person to connect to. This fellow and I had corresponded on my favorite dating site for folks in my age-range: don'tbedesperate.com.

He was a fascinating man; there was a draw to him that is difficult to explain. You just know it when you feel it. But, as we talked on, I had "an ah-hah moment." I felt, a strong feeling, deep within myself, that this man was simply not available. I felt a sense that either he could not connect to another in an intimate relationship or he was still unfinished about a relationship that he thought was over. Another thing, I found interesting: I had the feeling he and I were talking in some strange kind of code. I've never had this sense before with anyone, so I found it pretty odd. And it wasn't only that he was speaking in this code; I was speaking it too.

So, then, instead of doing what I most often do--which is to dismiss my "inner knowing" and just forge ahead, telling myself that "once we really get to know one another--this will all change"--I stopped. I breathed. I listened. And, instead of brushing off the quiet, calm sense I had about this, the sense I felt deep within; I told him what I was thinking. He listened, but didn't really listen. Instead, he asked if we could continue the afternoon, by taking a walk; then, perhaps going dancing. I told him: "I am looking for a person who is available for a relationship, though even if you were available, I can't know that this person is you....But, I'm getting a strong feeling you're really not available."

He then assured me that he was. And instead of believing his words, above my intuition (which is something I most often did as a younger woman), I stayed with my intuition. I had seen a subtle look come across his face, when talking about someone he had recently dated. We talked about our childhoods and his was one with unavailable parents. I told him about mine too--and about my father who was always working, but when he was there was charming and loving.

I said: I am looking for a friend, and possibly a partner. And I told him that I had an experience about a year or more ago, with a man who I saw for a couple of months--He told me he was "addicted to romance"; but he said he thought he had that beat now. I should have taken his words for the warning they were, and ended things; but I didn't. Ultimately, this man was not available. He had actually warned me he wasn't. But, I thought: "Oh, I can fix that! He just hasn't really met the right woman yet!" (Of course, I was thinking that I was the right woman.)

In a short while my coffee-date said: "I have been a player." And I knew that his playing was not a temporary condition, like a cold. It was who he was. I couldn't do much about that. My job was not to fix him, but rather to look at myself: What in me has been attracted to such a person? More than once? Why have I silenced my own "inner voice" in the past, to do the dance that always disappoints?

It's nice to know though, that after something difficult happens--a pain, a disappointment--that I really can do things differently. It is the surprise gift inside every painful lesson, I think---That within every painful moment is a lesson to help us grow. Will it help me find the right mate? Beats me! But, even if it doesn't find me a mate, this gift inside the pain comes with an undeniable joy--the feeling that my pain is not meaningless. It has a purpose. On my coffee-date with this unavailable man, I made a choice: to go with my "inner knowing," above this man's assurances that he was cured--(or that I was cured!) I wasn't putting a man's assurances above my own "inner knowing." And, goshdarnit, I really like myself this way!

The Best: Always Yet to Come!

This summer, I took a vacation to Normandy for three weeks. I have set myself on a mission: To take the longest vacation I have ever taken (three weeks); To get better at speaking French; and to do some writing while I am in France. 

I have other goals as well. I want to enjoy the moment and all of my surroundings here. I want to spend some quality time with my son and his fiance who live here. And I want to see how I do in a different culture--one without the comforts I have grown used to.

Before I left, I got this card from my friend that said: "And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin.

It's terrifying to try new things, isn't it? Things we aren't sure we'll be good at? Things that test us in new ways. Things whose outcome we don't know. But the truth is, we don't know anything. We only think we do. 

Don't you find that sometimes in the middle of your life, where you feel as if you could predict exactly how that day and that week and the next will go, something unexpected or shocking happens--it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It might be that you are going through your day-to-day life and suddenly you decide to quit your job or decide you absolutely must go somewhere you don't ordinarily go---and because of this seemingly sudden decision, you meet someone who is now your best friend or partner or someone who gives you just the tip you need to take the next step in your life.

You take a class, hoping to learn something that will advance you in your career. Instead you meet your 

best friend there. You stop for a bagel--and you don't even know why--and you meet someone who will become a part of your life, even change your destiny, altogether.

I believe that like the Marsha Linehan "Behavior Chain Analysis," tool of her Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Often known as DBT), one seemingly unrelated thing may oddly lead to something important that happens to us down the road. 

An example of this, for me, was that because I was a stay-at-home mom for a bit, I was reading a lot of Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel Laureate for Literature in that year. On an impulse, I took out my little Sears Manual typewriter and typed him a letter. On another impulse, I scribbled my phone number at the end. At the time, I lived in the suburbs of New York. But, I didn't know where to send my letter, so I sent it to his publisher.

And because I was filled with creative ennui and doing a lot of reading when my children were small, I wrote the letter. And because I wrote the letter, Mr. Singer called me and invited me over. And because I went to meet him, I was invited to a Chanukah party at his home. And because I went to the party and wrote down some notes about what had happened there, I wrote about my meeting, seven years after it had happened. And because I sent it to The New York Times' "Speaking Personally" Section, it got published there. And because it got published in the New York Times, I thought of myself, more officially, as a writer. 

So you see what I mean? It's the Butterfly Effect or The Chaos Theory, that one tiny shift in the world, causes something else to shift ever so slightly, so that over time, big changes can happen. 

That's why we have to stretch and grow and try new things, even if we don't (and we never really do) know the outcome. And we certainly can't know the ramifications of some small thing we do over time.

But, there is a kind of domino effect. We topple over one domino--and the whole domino world reconfigures. 

I have to keep telling myself: It doesn't matter how old I am or what has happened before. I am--we all are recreating ourselves every moment throughout our lives, a teeny-tiny bit at a time. So, that is why we must, we absolutely must, follow our instincts and try something new. It's especially important to us Sixties kids. We need to keep the aliveness in our lives. And nobody else can do it for us!