I know there are many schools of thought as it pertains to extracting meaning from life events and connecting dots. And many of us believe there is some kind of external scripting to what happens to us - that people come into and out of our lives for a reason - for us to be taught. Soon I'll be doing The Landmark Forum (was going to be in May but I postponed it until after the move of the office). I've heard one of their tenets is that things that happen are random and should not be infused with meaning - there is no one pulling strings - nothing has been preordained. Stuff happens and what we do with it is 100% within our control. That is what I've heard and part of me very much agrees (the part that likes to be in control).
And yet, I'm a person who looks for meaning everywhere: street signs, lyrics in the songs my IPad dishes up when I work out, a rainbow on the lakefront. Today I'm thinking about what I've learned from being with Mike. Thinking especially about last night. Dots are connecting all over the place - my mind whirls.
Last night he and I went to Petterino's to sing - table for two - met him there. It's a lovely venue in which to sing because the room is well appointed, the food great, there are usually 100+ people in the audience, the pianist is fabulous, the emcee hysterical and people actually listen to the singers. Often, performers from the shows performing around town will stop in to sing a tune or two and promote their show. Last night there were five pretty young things from a show that just opened (name is escaping me). So Mike. He came dressed from a meeting - dress shirt, tie, pants that fit just right, polished shoes. "Wow!" I said when I saw him. He looked like a model plucked from a page in Vanity Fair. Suddenly I felt under dressed. People stared. When it was his turn to sing, he made the emcee swoon and she was reduced to girlish giggles in his presence. Comments like, "And what do you do for a living? Oh, you're a chiropractor - you can adjust me any time, giggle, giggle. After he sang, she professed her attraction in front of everyone and then apologized to her husband laughingly (he was in the audience). She went on to say that every woman in the room wanted his number. Funny, right? Kind of but hmmmm..... He loved the attention - who wouldn't? Then over the course of the evening, people came to our table and hit on him right in front of me, without even a glance at me, gushing over his song which was good but not gush worthy - they just wanted to be near him. At one point a man came to our table and without saying anything, handed his business card to Mike. I guess he figured if he was that good looking and well dressed, he must be gay. Even the pianist who rarely says a word to the singers sat with him at the end of the evening and poured forth advice.
This morning I was out of sorts, not sure why I was so unnerved - we had, after all, committed to being non-exclusive - I had no illusions there would be an "us" in our future. So why so bothered by everyone hitting on my paramour? After I sorted out my uneasy feelings, I told him it was hard being out with him in public, feeling invisible, not having people realize we were more than friends, watching him soak up the female (and male) attention, seeing him survey the landscape of women, knowing he could snap his fingers and have any of them, even the married ones. Told him that if he was going to be out with me, he had to be WITH ME, be proud to be with me, keep his eyes on me, not look over my shoulder. It's just basic dating etiquette to be invested in the person you're with. We discoursed and decided to abort our nascent relationship - I'm relieved.
So where are these alleged dots and what do they connect? As I thought about Mike, Kaveh's cautionary words rang in my ears. Like Mike, I'm a glitterer, sometimes bigger than life. I'm often fueled by adoration - for a time it fills the empty void in me until I need the next fix. Kaveh told me the story of Marilyn Monroe - a therapeutic fork in the road. Her therapist told her "every woman in the world wants to be you and every man wants to fuck you." What they didn't want was to know her, preferring their own version of Marilyn. He told her she could be "loved" by everyone in the world, or she could be truly loved by just a few, who would embrace her entirely, even the not so pretty parts of her. Marilyn professed to wanting to experience real love, said she was willing to do the work needed to get there. But, when the therapist told her she had to give up her public persona, give up the plastic Marilyn, she couldn't do it - she was hooked on adulation. Kaveh told me this story years ago - he worried that my drive to be uber at everything was a way of putting a glittering shield around myself. Even my parties where I give myself over to the service of my friends for their enjoyment has a suspicious quality to it - a Sarah=Martha Stuart feel to it.
OK, the dots again. Mike - he is so incredibly handsome, engaging, a great singer, a doctor. People are ga-ga when they meet him - they are struck by his physical beauty. All common sense flies out the window. He could be a Charles Manson or a John Wayne Gacey and still they would fawn. Reminds me of a funny joke my friend Curt told me recently. A man is being interviewed by the admissions person for a senior housing complex where women outnumber men ten to one. When asked where he's from, he tells the woman that he lives in the very same town. "How is that possible?" she asks." I would have seen you." "Well I spent the last 50 years in jail for killing my wife, cutting her up in little pieces and burying her in the back yard." "So, you're single, then," the woman said. Funny, yes? My point is that we can be fools to be blinded by beauty. None of the people supplicating themselves before Mike last night knew the first thing about him. They lost their manners, were rude to approach my table to make time with the man I was with, they were unattractive in their obsequiousness. Ugly, ugly, ugly. And Mike...he took it all in as his due, didn't dissaude the attention, didn't try to make me comfortable. He left me with JUST two choices: accept the shabby treatment or say, "No Thanks."
I, of course, said "No Thanks," and today I consider myself lucky to have had the experience of Mike. I'm flattered he found me desirable, am grateful for the fun we had, I'm glad to see first hand the "Marilyn Effect". I'm grateful for the reminder that pretty is as pretty does - it's important to look your best, great to have style and sex appeal but at the end of the day, do you really aspire to have people falling at your feet who don't really want to know you - who just want some glitter to rub off on them? It's terrific to have had this boot camp dating lesson. Really useful to be reminded not to be over-impressed with looks and to be wary if people are too fixated on mine. I'm grateful to be just pretty enough to be appealing but not so pretty it's a pathology.
Challenge today is thinking about appearance. If you've ever wished to be drop dead gorgeous, that hot guy or gal who, when you walk into a room, turns heads - think about Marilyn and Mike. If you're Mike, you will have a steady stream of women who want to taste you. If you buy into that attention, you'll spend your days, flitting from one to the other, tasting back, a sip here, a nibble there. But none of them will be the real deal because any woman who's looking for the real deal runs for the hills when faced with Adonis Narcissus beauty. It's truly one of those cases of "be careful for what you wish for." Maybe hard to feel sorry for Mike and Marilyn - but one can be a victim of their own beauty.
Peace,
Sarah
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