Peteca toma seu banho by elbragon

Then Brother Matt mentioned during his recent Florida visit that my current and persistent lack of a girlfriend was causing mom to openly worry whether I’ve changed my gender preferences. Thanks mom. The truth is I’m beginning to wonder: have I become lazy, too cautious or too picky when it comes to dating?

This is hardly a new phenomenon. I went through a pretty long dry spell after breaking up with a live-in girlfriend in the early 90s. One friend spoke up at the time and said that he and my other friends were worried that I’d given up on having someone in my life. I was just beginning my teaching career and pretty much every waking hour and ounce of emotional energy was being poured into surviving those first few years. I thought I was, for the first time, being smart and acting like an adult. Apparently not. Damn.

past girlfriends by joe bustillos

Another friend, who knew that I’d been very fortunate with the level of attractiveness of my former girlfriends and female friends, said that I needed to expand my preferences beyond curvy playboy playmates. Out of frustration she quipped that at our age all the good ones were already taken anyway.That one left a scar. I mean, if all the good ones are taken and I’m not taken then does this mean that I’m not one of the “good ones?” Shit. That didn’t leave me with a particularly hopeful sense of having a future with someone I found attractive.

So at least one part of moving across the continent over a year ago was to get a new start on social things. And as much as I’d been warned to not have high expectations by two very good friends who have lived in the area (I mean, after all I’ve spent a lifetime spoiled by all the pretty people in Southern California), my dateless-state is not for a lack of attractive women where ever one goes. So, again, am I being lazy, overly cautious or just too picky? Sitting here staring at these words reminds me that the fact that I reflect and try to think through all of this is just not normal for guys, so my well-meaning friends say. Ack.

When I was in the process of moving here one friend suggested a couple websites, like meetup.com, where one could easily meet like-minded individuals centered on common interests. I signed up but never got off my butt. Another avenue to meet new people would have been to join a church. I used to inwardly chuckle when someone suggested that I should check in to see the size of the singles group before getting involved. But I couldn’t see making my choice of church based on some babe-meter. I had other issues about churches, so I never really even considered this as a meaningful option. In fact, being as busy as I’ve been over the past year, getting involved with anything for the purpose of meeting women hasn’t been enough. Put another way, there has to be a value to the thing beyond just meeting women. I am the complete inverse of several of my good buddies who’s main reason for doing anything is to meet women. That’s just not me. Don’t get me wrong, I love meeting new people and I generally find the people I encounter fascinating, but given how busy I am there are scant few hours dedicated to meeting these fascinating people.

One of the take-aways of my last relationship was how much better things seemed to come together for me when I’m in a relationship just in terms of energy and a sense of purpose. It’s not that I need someone for these things as much as having the benefit of someone to share the journey with, just in terms of bouncing ideas off of and getting outside of my own head on a regular ongoing basis. At the same time I do have a very full life with my career and writing and just the stuff that fills each day that I’m not entirely convinced that having as much freedom as I have isn’t much better than the complications of letting another voice into my life. Part of the problem is that I am very good at adapting to living all on my own and convincing myself that I really don’t need anyone. Too lazy, overly cautious or just too picky? I think I need to work the “friends” angle and just get out more to be with other people and find the joy there. No pretenses, no props, no re-inventions, nothing that’s not really a part of my life and passions. I’ll dare to go to the park without the borrowed dog and see what happens. jbb

Jessica at Laguna Lake by TravOC

Sources:
Image: Peteca toma seu banho by elbragon, http://www.flickr.com/photos/elbragon/3183246877/ retrieved on 10/15/2009, Creative commons/attribution license.
Image: Past Girlfriends by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/mygirls-1.gif retrieved 10/15/2009. Creative Commons/attribution license.
image: Jessica at Laguna Lake by TravOC, http://www.flickr.com/photos/travoc/89394031/ retrieved on 10/15/2009, Creative Commons/attribution license.

image by joe bustillos

In the time that I’ve had my one dating experience most relationships have gone through whole life-cycles from discovery to death. Truth be told, the vast majority of my time with e-harmony I haven’t been actively pursuing anything as much as kept the service in my emotional back-pocket as a “Plan B.” I had a lot of fun the first few months when I was convinced that my former relationship was over and loved the possibility of meeting someone who was specially selected for me. Then that former relationship came back… kind’a. Well, it didn’t quite come back as much as it just took an extended period to expire. In the meantime, some of the air was let out of my e-Harmony expectations to the point where I just kept the subscription so that I could feel like there was a possibility of something for me in the future. Then when that former relationship really expired (for real this time!), it took almost all of my ability to trust myself and relationships with it. At that point I kept the e-Harmony account because I wasn’t ready to kill it too. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change a few things.

Something a match wrote in her profile reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, American Beauty, when the main character, played by Kevin Spacey, is accused of being a bastard, to which he says, “Nope; I’m just an ordinary guy who has nothing left to lose.” In my case, with 1,251 rejections to my name, I’m clearly doing something wrong and I most definitely have nothing to lose. It should also go without saying that I’m counting on my results turning out way better than how things turned out for Lester Burnham, the American Beauty character by Kevin Spacey.

So, I started to think about putting some effort into opening up the social circle using Meet-Up.com to get out and hang out with folks with similar interests. I’ve also been hearing good things about the Plenty of Fish dating site. But none of that is all that different from what I’ve been doing for ages. So, the “got nothing to lose” twist is that I’m thinking that, given how much I post online, I should include a link to my Facebook profile (or this blog) in my e-harmony profile or whatever website I sign up for.

This definitely isn’t a plan that Dr. Warren from e-Harmony would recommend and there is a definite danger of giving away too much information too quickly, which is a bit like insisting on telling one’s whole life story when someone just asks “how ya doin’?” And there’s the risk that being this open makes it more difficult to walk away from an unwanted match if the match is persistent. Of course, once someone that I meet online knows my name all of this information is just a Google-search away anyway. So, what do I gain from this level of exposure? It counteracts the possibility that someone is going to close a match because nothing popped out at them in my initial profile or in my answers to their five questions. If they click the links they’ll get to know the things that are important enough to me for me to write about (assuming that they’d bother with the links… which is a big assumption).

Another thing that I’m thinking about here is that I’ve always seemed to do best in my relationships that were more based on friendship first, where the level of communication is left as open as possible, where there’s no real fear that saying the wrong thing might chase the other person away. This idea does run a risk that has been a running theme of my relationships with females, of always being seen as the buddy and never as the lover. But I’d much rather do the work needed to be the lover with the foundation of a kick-ass friendship than be someone’s lost weekend with nothing to talk about in between (not that I’m having to turn anyone away… [sigh]). I do have to work on a lot of bad habits, beginning with putting almost no effort into meeting or spending time with new people. I love having a lot of control of how I spend my time, but Life is passing me by while I ponder the words of this blog entry. Onward and upward: “I’m just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose.”

Sources:
image: Emotional Cut-Out by Joe Bustillos, © 2009 · Some Rights Reserved ·

video: American Beauty: Trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q3ltyPJJMQ Retrieved 7/10/2009

image: mouseguy, microsoft clip-art

Originally uploaded by fensterbme

It was Valentine’s weekend for some. For me it was just another weekend spent grading student blogs. But after reading an article in the UK’s Telegraph online newspaper titled, “Valentine’s Day: Technology is killing romance,” one of my students wrote a blog entry weighing the article’s premise that, because of technology, people don’t write love poems or letters to each other anymore. She said that a survey of over two-thousand people revealed that 62% had never sent a love letter (via the postal service). At the same time most everyone said that they had sent a text-message love note. My student shrugged that even though a text message isn’t anywhere as good as a real love letter, a text message is better than nothing. I’ve heard this one before: if it’s not on paper, written by hand, it’s just not as real. I don’t mean to be cruel or even crude, but I think that’s just bullshit.

Well, I was a little gentler when I began my response:

I’m curious, what is it in an electronic Valentine’s message that make is not “expressing yourself with your own thoughts”? I’ve been known to use every communication means at my disposal to let my beloved know that I was thinking of her. From 140 character text messages, to “Hello” IMs, to overly long voice-messages, to rambling emails, I found the “electronic” experience to have a certain level of “presence” that I didn’t experience before. Granted I might have over-used said technologies.. a bit… resulting in … let’s just say that my options are very flexible these days. But that’s not because of technology, that’s because some folks just don’t know how to put one word after another in a coherent (and passionate) manner. What’s that old saying about a good painter never blaming his tools…

long-haired writer

On a completely different note I was just told by a potential “match” that my e-Harmony profile photo was “a little scary.” WTF? It makes one second guess. The photo is dark and pencil-sketchy. Does that translate into dangerous and scary? I haven’t taken an official teacher-photo in several years so I’ve been using Photo-booth pix. Good thing I didn’t use any of the fun-house effects. I really shouldn’t let these things bother me, but I do wonder at how often I’ve been bumped off because of some misperception beginning with my profile photo. Then again, someone unable to appreciate something a little artsy probably isn’t going to work well with my continual self-assessment and re-interpretations of my self. Damn. Of course, having posted this photo of myself for the millionth time, I probably come off as totally self-obsessed and self-absorbed. I switched my profile photo to a “I voted” shot, which will probably piss off someone because it’s “political.” sigh.

Source: Adams, J. (2009, February 9). Valentine’s Day: Technology ‘is killing romance’. Telegraph. Retrieved http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4568243/Valentines-Day-Technology-is-killing-romance.html

love tattoo by Jenn_Jenn (cc)

The ideal of love is it’s unconditional nature. The closest we usually come to that kind of love is the love between a parent and her child. But even that love has it’s limits, it’s conditions. I know that I’ve come up against my own limitations with a love that I thought was permanent and eternal. I thought I saw the face of God with this love and poured all that I had into it. But I was wrong. Time and trust were broken and I had to walk away. So much for the face of God.

I’m looking for a hard headed woman,
One who’ll take me for myself
And if I find my hard headed woman
I won’t need nobody else, no no no.
- “Hard Headed Woman” by Cat Stevens

I found a level of intimacy that I had never dreamed existed. The face of God. I was inspired to be my best self, not wanting to hide any part of myself but to bring all of it into full expression and creativity. Wherever I thought I lacked I set about to push through to be better, to be the best me because I was renewed by this powerful connection and boundless intimacy. Fearless, complete, committed, doubt-free, a self that I hadn’t seen in over a decade came into existence. A love of my music that had lain silent and had been a forgotten memory rose in me. I saw, I felt, I touched, I tasted, I couldn’t get enough. I became part of something much bigger than myself. The face of God. My world changed. I changed. Then I waited. And waited some more. I waited longer than I ever imagined I was capable of waiting.

He came from somewhere in her long ago,
the sentimental fool don’t see,
tryin’ hard to re-create what had yet to be created
once in her life.
She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale,
never coming near what he wanted to say,
only to realize it never really was.
- “What a Fool Believes” by Michael McDonald

Yeah, I knew better. I understood the circumstances. It all made sense. Clearly it wasn’t what I thought it was. It had been our special secret for so long but in the light of day it was something she’d rather no one else ever knew about. I wanted to shout about it from the mountain tops and she was pained to even acknowledge that i had been a college friend. How could something so powerful be so much the creation of my own head, a delusion that I never asked for? And if that were true, then did I really see the face of God or was that all wishful thinking too?

Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright, through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights
That’s what I’d say. I’d tell you everything
If you’d pick up that telephone yeah
Hey. How you feelin?
Are you still the same?
Don’t you realize the things we did, we did, were all for real, not a dream?
I just can’t believe
They’ve all faded out of view yeah yeah
- “Telephone Line” by ELO

I wonder. I never expected for it to happen when it did. Does this mean that if some lovely with a dainty cross necklace smiles at me that I can go back to believing in the Man behind the curtain? Somehow that seems twisted. But there I was a few mornings ago, looking through the profile of one lovely e-harmonette, and the thought struck me that if this were “the one” than would I again become best friends with the Man behind the curtain? I mean, we stopped talking because for all of those years that I spent waiting I was hearing that He knows what I want before I do and wants to give that to me and the fact that it wasn’t happening must mean that A) I’m doing something wrong, B) she’s not “the one, C) Not now, or D) Any combination of A, B, or C. Eventually I began to wonder that it might be: E) there is no Man behind the Curtain.

The best proof of love is trust by dopesmuglar

And as much as I’ve spent the past year living like it’s option E, there is this part of me that needs for there to be someone there to talk to in the darkness of my own soul. At the same time, even if I were to be blessed with the mate of my dreams, how do I trust someone who stood by while my heart was slowly broken and brought to this place of doubt? I’m willing to acknowledge that I got it all wrong but where do I find the place of trust again? Needless to say, none of this is going to be attractive to anyone looking for a Christ-led home and looking for someone to love them like Christ loved the Church. Yeah. I understand the analogy but I’m not even going to pretend to live up to that expectation. I have the hair and the beard, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Funny thing is, someone who hasn’t gone through this “intimate faith” experience or doesn’t believe in anything doesn’t seem particularly attractive to me either. Alas, I seem to have conditions piled on conditions piled on conditions in my pursuit of unconditional love. Lord help us.

So long, I’ve been looking too hard, I’ve been waiting too long
Sometimes I don’t know what I will find, I only know it’s a matter of time
When you love someone, when you love someone
It feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too

Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m coming on too strong
This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure

I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I’ve been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I’ve been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
- “Waiting for a Girl like You” by Foreigner

Closed before I started

Yeah, I know, get over it. But there’s something really cruel about going to one’s e-Harmony account, find a few cuties in one’s “matches” folder only to see that said cuties have “closed” the match before you even get a chance to say, “Hello.” Argh. It’s no doubt a sign of my own shallowness that I’m irritated enough by being “rejected” by attractive women to write about it. Nah, it never feels good to get the “closed” message, but after getting and giving the “closed” message over a thousand times I can feel myself teetering toward giving up on the whole process. Just like everyone else, I want to be attracted to my potential mate, but these two examples really add insult to injury. Thanks, e-Harmony. I wonder how I might do on plentyoffish.com? jbb

For example, one young lady asked: In your Must Haves/Can’t Stands profile, you state that you “can’t stand someone who is overweight.” Hopefully, you can see from my photos that I am in no way “Skinny.” I’m a “Healthy size” girl! :- ) Where does that leave us?”

My answer: Excellent question. I love the spirit with which your question is presented. Funny thing is that I’ve known many a “skinny girl” who would deem themselves over-weight to the extent that I wish the statement were framed in terms of my concerns. 1st a confession: I myself am currently overweight, so there is a little of the pot calling the kettle black here. “Healthy” is an excellent word because my biggest concern is that one’s weight is such that it doesn’t restrict ones physical activities or put at risk one’s longevity. “Healthy” also means to me having a good (and somewhat) realistic self-image. We can all improve, but is that drive enough for us to constructively do something about it? For me, overweight has been a sign of someone who has felt unloved to the extent that they are self-medicating with food. I’d rather someone love the food they eat versus eat because they feel unloved. I’ve been there, I know.

Her followup question was all the more intriguing: “Should you still wish to communicate after reading my first question, I would like to know why you chose to join eharmony. Are you looking for a committed relationship that could possibly lead to permanency or something else?”

Friendly Confines servers

I joined e-Harmony because I recognized that I wasn’t likely to meet the kind of person I want in my life without someone working full time to do that for me. As a college teacher, I love the people I work with. I love their passion for their work and the intellectual drive with which they pursue it. But trying to forge a personal relationship with coworkers presents too many potential conflicts to make that a very wise option. I have a younger married co-worker who has taken it upon himself to help me in this area. I’m honored by his efforts and find it very endearing, but I’m hoping to make a connection via e-Harmony first. I believe that my years of living as an unattached rogue have been a “make-do” because I was really made to be in a relationship with someone but I decided that as important as that was, being with someone was not the same as being with anyone. I would like to make a meaningful connection and see if that could become something more permanent.

Then there are the more direct questions: How do you feel about holding off on having sex until marriage?

Sex can be a powerful imprinting force within a relationship, and I believe it’s natural to want to begin to experiment with sexual compatibility before marriage. I don’t want to sound like a typical male, but having seen a few couples who have made the no-sex-before-marriage commitment I have often seen them rush into marriage because they want to feel okay about having sex. Having been married and had other relationships, I’d rather be more organic about my approach to sexuality in terms of balancing all the other components of a healthy relationship such as friendship, trust, discovery, intimacy and let ones sexually just be another component rather than driving force either from getting physical too soon or from abstinence.

The there are the more possibly controversial question: My sister is gay, and our relationship is very important to me. If you had children, how would you feel about having a gay person involved in their life?

My best-friend, whom I chat with pretty much every day, is gay. We met when I was in Pepperdine’s doctorate program and she has been a steadfast friend ever since. As much as I love the Bible, I have a hard time with the church’s censure of a whole class of people because of the writings of Paul. I believe that Paul only understood the gay-lifestyle in terms of lascivious behavior, in which case he cautions against giving oneself over to sexual pursuits regardless of ones sexual preference. So, if I were to pray for my friend I wouldn’t pray that God would “fix” her but that He’d give her the desires of her heart, just as I want for myself, to find someone to share her life with in every way that that means. My son is grown so there’s no issue there, but as a teacher I’m ashamed that parents continue to instill ignorant stereotype and don’t seen that we’re all just people.

In the many many months I’ve invested in my e-Harmony… thing, perhaps, I should be comforted that it’s pushed me to really examine what it is that I’m looking for and the things that really matter to me, and that it is a moving target often dictated by my most previous experiences. Add to that the recent pleasure of telling friends “this is what I want.” Good times. jbb

Music: “Break Up the Concrete” by The Pretenders

… and I will agree with the damn computers and get on with a life well lived. jbb

Music: “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra from the “All Over the World: The Very Best of ELO” CD

I’ve been here for over three-months and it’s actually been over a year since I did anything with the e-Harmony account. Yeah, it’s time. I guess part of me was hoping that maybe something would “happen” socially given all of the great people I work with. Alas, like everywhere else in the world there’s a real taboo about dating co-workers. Damn. So it looks like I need to turn it over to the ol’ stand-by. I mean, I’ve been giving them my money for … probably about two-years, with two separate “campaigns” that lasted four to six months.

It was an incredible experience the first time that abruptly ended when I reconnected with you-know-who. The second time wasn’t so great, mostly because I wasn’t entirely sure that this was what I was supposed to be doing. Hopefully the third time will be the charm. I don’t have the blind conviction of the first time (that was fun, but didn’t end particularly well), nor the ambivalence of the second go ’round. It’s that saying about the insanity of doing the same thing everyday but expecting things to change. So beginning today, I’m taking another step toward that change that I’m looking for. Let’s see if we can’t take advantage of the previous experiences without getting confused about what’s “supposed to” happen. “Supposed to happen,” that’s funny. jbb

Music: Wheel by John Mayer from the “Heavier Things” CD

When Kim and I divorced twenty years ago I was tired of feeling like shit for being a flawed imperfect human. Clearly I was doing something wrong in that my non-Christian friends seemed so much more comfortable with themselves (or maybe they were just much better at hiding their own self loathing… ). I was tired of not measuring up. So I stepped away from my faith and tried to learn to appreciate myself, the good and not-so-good, living one day at a time. Sex and relationships weren’t the problems they’d been before, but I was haunted by the thought that all we have is this life and after that there is nothingness.
I spent fifteen years in that place and might have stayed there had I not fallen in love with Whats-here-name. Before her, each day was important but I can’t tell you what I accomplished in all that time because all of my connections were tenuous and transitory. In actuality I accomplished a lot but there was no one in my life to share it with. I was a living example of the fruitlessness of being a tree falling in an empty forest. Then I fell in love and found the one I wanted to pour my life into. Even if all I would ever have was this life and nothing else, I felt like that would be enough if I spent it with her.

Thus, I rendered the question of life after death moot by identifying something that made living this life meaningful. Alas, my timing was tragically off and you-know-who was not in a position to reciprocate what I wanted with her, in the beginning because she was married, and then in the last three years because she couldn’t navigate a difficult divorce while having a relationship with moi. So then I was left to wonder, again, what was the point? I waiver between belief and doubt, and it didn’t help that I couldn’t seem to move on from my relation with her. It seems insane that the two, my faith and my relationship with her, are linked, but they were.

I was drawn back to what I’d lost because I found an all-encompassing love and I made the connection between that and the Author of Love. Sadly I was never able to enter into a real daily relationship with you-know-who. So I went to church alone or the movies, aware of the empty seat beside me, and it felt like waiting for the Rapture. But in this case when the rapture came (i.e., her divorce) I was left behind while she created a life for herself without her ex- and only marginally included me. So, one year after her divorce I’m a little frustrated with things. I mean, over the course of that relationship I’d learn that it was a mistake for me to be alone and that God knows the desires of my heart and wants to give me that right relationship. So, why the hell am I still alone?! It may seem trivial or petty in the larger scheme of things, but I’m getting back to the point of frustration that led to my spending fifteen years in “the wilderness.” I have been patient and I have participated in “my salvation” (i.e., e-harmony, or not just sitting on my ass expecting a knock on my door by some amazing woman), but if something doesn’t nudge soon I’ll be forced to doubt the promise that He wants to give good things to His Children.

I know that all of this seems assinine, especially in view of real suffering in the world, but I’m getting ridiculously tired of waiting.I feel like that vulture in the cartoon who says, “screw this waiting, I’m going to swoop down and kill something.” I mean, like the Simon and Garfunkle song (with a 2007 twist) I’m finding myself spending way too much time fighting my loneliness with mindless “entertainment” on the Internets, which just adds to the feeling of shittiness. It’s a vicious circle.

I must be doing something wrong. He wants to give to His children, I recognize that I was never meant to be alone, and I think I could make someone happy… Either I’m doing something wrong, or He really doesn’t care about my pathetic little life. Surely I cannot and do not blame Him for the state of my non-social life, but it’d be nice if He could lend a brother a hand, or something. jbb

Music: Take My Lifefrom the album “Take My Life – Vineyard Voices” by Scott Underwood