men

I am beginning to realize how messed up my views of sex and relationships are.  I am mean and manipulative when it comes to dating; I get off on being seductive and sexy and at first, guys do tend to think I am sweet.  I love the rush of thinking that I am falling in love with someone, of using it as escape, a door into an alternate universe; it is fantasy; I mean, a relationship with someone is life-changing.  And my addict self wants a life change.

Dating in the city is a lot of fun.  If nothing else, it makes a good story.  (Ever hear of Sex SSex and the City?)  And I am a good storyteller.  I cling to that.  I cling to what I know others have told me I am good at because I am afraid the rest of me (possibly even me, the true, real, essence of me) is hopelessly mediocre.

And I am a performer.  An entertainer.  I like being the funny one, the juggling elephant, the center of attention.  So I use men not only for their attention but because I know I’ll then have an opportunity to be the leaker of juicy details when I see my friends.  Who, deep down, I am convinced don’t–can’t–really love me for me.

And recently some of my friends have been growing up a bit.  And they’ve actually said, “I feel sorry for this guy.”  And I’ve felt…nothing.  I’ve felt nothing.  How the guy fares in my crusade for love attention distraction what have you is completely irrelevant to me.  It’s about what I want when I want it.

Wow.  I am realizing all of this right now, as I write.  (What you learn about yourself when you don’t eat over it!)  It’s amazing how everything I went through with the food and my body I am now going through in my relationships.  Like all these defects manifest themselves in identical ways all over the place in my life–tiny little mirrors lined up throughout my entire make-up.

Ok.  So.  Also.  Mom and Dad.  I never thought about how their relationship might cause any disfunction in me, since now they seem to be happily married and just celebrated an up-there anniversary.  But when I think back on the example I got when I was a kid, particularly as a teenager in my first relationship, things start to make a little more sense.  Back then my mom would really ride on my dad a lot (that sounds horrible, but bear with me–to be honest it’s a pretty accurate figure of speech, since my mom definitely wears the pants in the relationship).  She would say things like, “He’s so oblivious” and roll her eyes a lot and even make this scoffy noise.  She did it because she was insecure.  She is a fearful woman–and that’s okay.  We all have that.  I can say all that definitively now, but then I had no idea.

I don’t have any more time to write today, but this is huge for me.  A real cathartic breakthrough.  I’ll update again soon.