Thursday, June 01, 2006
Those We Can't Have (Pt.3)
My friend N in Los Angeles is looking to find a woman friend, and I figured I would keep my eyes open for her. I spend lots of time on dating sites for women, and I see lots of profiles. Why would I want to help her find someone when I feel like I want to run around the court with her myself, so to speak? Well, it feels like less of a sting to me if I could manage to hook her up with someone appropriate.
Who is appropriate? Recently N wrote to me describing some visualization work she is doing with her yoga instructor. N is big into yoga as well as tennis, and in fact visited an ashram in southern India to take a yoga course earlier this year. They are working on calling up images of whom N would like as a partner.
She writes to me that she is not especially interested in dating a tennis player type, or a jock for that matter. Why, I wonder? Are they too big and bubbly? You know, the softball types of girls. That's usually about as far as the gay women get with sports. On the other hand, I thought I would always love to hook up with a woman who shared my athletic interests especially.
But maybe N is on to something. Maybe jocky girls just don't work out, after all. N writes, "I am interested in someone who has a creative profession, makes enough money to buy a house with me, is femme, can have a political and cultural conversation on the level of someone who reads the New Yorker and the New York Times, and is stylish and interested in sex. If you find one of those, send her my way."
Hell, if I find one of those rare birds I'll keep her, sorry N. Can't you hear the humor in her words, and realize why it's there? Women like this, straight or gay, just don't grow on trees. Especially in the dyke world. I feel for N. She has herself a chore. Being late fifties and a woman as well-travelled and educated as N is, she is going to have problems finding a lover. But I think N is quite a catch. Can't we even be fuck buddies? But that's not even possible, I no longer live in L.A.
In my Magic Wand World, I would like to go there, at least once with N. To see what that experience with her is like. It reminds me of moments earlier in my life, when I would arrive at a certain point with a number of my women friends. We were compatible in many respects, but quite often they were not interested in going further. Why can't be just be friends, they would say. I didn't understand either why we just couldn't be friends. But something else was pushing me to move further up the mountain, as it were.
Carl Jung wrote once about a dream where he was in a vast house, and he could explore all the rooms, except one. That was off limits. I feel this way often with women. Our friendship is like a vast house, I want to go inside all the rooms. I don't want to hear, "This door is closed."
N and I talk pretty intensely about this over the phone one night. "We have discovered so much," I find myself saying. We have many interests in common, and it has been so interesting discovering them that I ask myself, what else could we discover together? It feels unique to me to find a woman like N, and I certainly want to go into every room in the house. She's an explorer, and so am I. And yet this door stays closed.
Suck it up, I tell myself. You are a big girl. Indeed I am. And I have done a lot of work on myself, psychologically speaking. Fifteen years ago or so, this situation would have felt overwhelming and highly unpleasant. Now it is annoying. It sits far more comfortably on my shoulders than before.
After N and I have fully expressed ourselves to one another, we feel we can continue our friendship at least. It has become a very rich and mentally stimulating one. Usually I am not interested in hanging around if a woman is not inclined to go a sexual route with me. But N is compelling enough that I find our time together rewarding. I write to her that this may in fact turn out to be one of the richest female experiences I ever have in my life.
And sex will not rear its Medusa-like head at all.
- - - - - -
Who is appropriate? Recently N wrote to me describing some visualization work she is doing with her yoga instructor. N is big into yoga as well as tennis, and in fact visited an ashram in southern India to take a yoga course earlier this year. They are working on calling up images of whom N would like as a partner.
She writes to me that she is not especially interested in dating a tennis player type, or a jock for that matter. Why, I wonder? Are they too big and bubbly? You know, the softball types of girls. That's usually about as far as the gay women get with sports. On the other hand, I thought I would always love to hook up with a woman who shared my athletic interests especially.
But maybe N is on to something. Maybe jocky girls just don't work out, after all. N writes, "I am interested in someone who has a creative profession, makes enough money to buy a house with me, is femme, can have a political and cultural conversation on the level of someone who reads the New Yorker and the New York Times, and is stylish and interested in sex. If you find one of those, send her my way."
Hell, if I find one of those rare birds I'll keep her, sorry N. Can't you hear the humor in her words, and realize why it's there? Women like this, straight or gay, just don't grow on trees. Especially in the dyke world. I feel for N. She has herself a chore. Being late fifties and a woman as well-travelled and educated as N is, she is going to have problems finding a lover. But I think N is quite a catch. Can't we even be fuck buddies? But that's not even possible, I no longer live in L.A.
In my Magic Wand World, I would like to go there, at least once with N. To see what that experience with her is like. It reminds me of moments earlier in my life, when I would arrive at a certain point with a number of my women friends. We were compatible in many respects, but quite often they were not interested in going further. Why can't be just be friends, they would say. I didn't understand either why we just couldn't be friends. But something else was pushing me to move further up the mountain, as it were.
Carl Jung wrote once about a dream where he was in a vast house, and he could explore all the rooms, except one. That was off limits. I feel this way often with women. Our friendship is like a vast house, I want to go inside all the rooms. I don't want to hear, "This door is closed."
N and I talk pretty intensely about this over the phone one night. "We have discovered so much," I find myself saying. We have many interests in common, and it has been so interesting discovering them that I ask myself, what else could we discover together? It feels unique to me to find a woman like N, and I certainly want to go into every room in the house. She's an explorer, and so am I. And yet this door stays closed.
Suck it up, I tell myself. You are a big girl. Indeed I am. And I have done a lot of work on myself, psychologically speaking. Fifteen years ago or so, this situation would have felt overwhelming and highly unpleasant. Now it is annoying. It sits far more comfortably on my shoulders than before.
After N and I have fully expressed ourselves to one another, we feel we can continue our friendship at least. It has become a very rich and mentally stimulating one. Usually I am not interested in hanging around if a woman is not inclined to go a sexual route with me. But N is compelling enough that I find our time together rewarding. I write to her that this may in fact turn out to be one of the richest female experiences I ever have in my life.
And sex will not rear its Medusa-like head at all.
- - - - - -
Comments:
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Ummm, Legible here again and uhhh... you're describing a real friendship. Faulkner said it takes 40 years to have a real conversation.
Having read your blog from start to finish, I think I know something about you. You don't have unrealistic fantasies, and what must be so frustrating about N is that she wants the same woman everyone wants. I know these visualisation exercises, they're supposed to bring you the image you create and if the perfect beloved doesn't come, it's your fault for not imagining her in greater detail.
You, however, don't have fantasies that can't be realized, because you're less interested in a type than in an experience, and we can always invite someone to join us in an experience. You look for connection with people who share needs and then want those needs to come in an interesting package. I like the way you said that what she does to you now annoys you instead of destroying you with turmoil. The difference is that now what you experience with her is that you know this is how she makes others feel; it's not you. The older I get the more I understand that when someone makes me feel nervous or full of self-doubt, or weak, or small in comparison, I'm in the aura of someone whose strategy in life is to succeed by that kind of intimidation. It helps me to shrug it off.
It's late and I'm not sure why I went on that tangent.
Keep writing.
Yours,
Legible.
Having read your blog from start to finish, I think I know something about you. You don't have unrealistic fantasies, and what must be so frustrating about N is that she wants the same woman everyone wants. I know these visualisation exercises, they're supposed to bring you the image you create and if the perfect beloved doesn't come, it's your fault for not imagining her in greater detail.
You, however, don't have fantasies that can't be realized, because you're less interested in a type than in an experience, and we can always invite someone to join us in an experience. You look for connection with people who share needs and then want those needs to come in an interesting package. I like the way you said that what she does to you now annoys you instead of destroying you with turmoil. The difference is that now what you experience with her is that you know this is how she makes others feel; it's not you. The older I get the more I understand that when someone makes me feel nervous or full of self-doubt, or weak, or small in comparison, I'm in the aura of someone whose strategy in life is to succeed by that kind of intimidation. It helps me to shrug it off.
It's late and I'm not sure why I went on that tangent.
Keep writing.
Yours,
Legible.
# posted by 
: 10:49 PM
: 10:49 PM
I love the Faulkner quote. I read a fair amount of him in my lit classes. I would feel myself being rather harsh if I were to look at N that way. But you may have a point. I want to consider it and see more how I feel.
Thanks for your input, feel free in future,
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Thanks for your input, feel free in future,
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