When you think of a twenty-three year old woman, you think of a girl on top of the world. Young, sexy, and boobs still above the equator line, she's got to have the world at her beautifully painted and artfully dressed feet. The world includes men, and the possibilities for love and life are endless. I love going out and talking with my girlfriends from law school and hearing about how my sincere belief in spinsterhood isn't founded on reality. Oh, well that's for boring women or that's just not going to happen to you. My least favorite line of all, 'well you're pretty so don't worry you have options."
Well, do I?
What makes you so sure that in less than five years, I will meet the perfect prince decked out in his little shiny prince boots and a white horse to boot? Why are we so optimistic about our chances to find love in a world where men have so many choices, they choose to fuck all women to protect themselves from getting screwed emotionally. Why do we believe at the age of 23, there will be someone out there for us, the perfect guy who is on our level. Our culture is centered around the perfect little love that will culminate into the perfect little wedding with flowers, gifts, everlasting romance, and eventually a little bundle of pooping joy.
What makes us so sure that when we find him, he will be the one? And why the hell are we so picky? Even my friends who I dearly love to death tell me that I'm jaded, pessimistic, and out of touch with reality. The major theme of all of their advice can be summed in two words:
Don't settle.
Settle means to fix, appoint, to stop, resolve, to sink to the bottom... to quiet, calm, or bring to rest. I don't know about you, but that sounds absolutely divine. To stop all of the dating madness, the initial high of finding something that's not there and the subsequent weeks of tears and pain when you realize it was never there in the first place. To fix a broken heart by not letting it break in the first place. To sink to the bottom, knowing that once you reach the bottom, that's it. There's nothing else. Just the quiet rest you have been looking for your entire life. Safety.
There's an episode of Desperate Housewives I cannot stop running in my head on this issue. If you haven't watched DH here's a synopsis. Bree Van De Kamp's husband had just passed away and she's still dating George. Bree's husband cheated on her months before he had a heart attack. After his heart attack, the two of them began to drift apart. It's mainly Mr. Van De Kamp's fault- he couldn't see the pile of wonderful he had sitting right in front of him. Bree worked hard to bring him all the happiness in the world. She spent days working to make sure he was happy only to reach a point where she too, realized that the man she loved so much wasn't there in the first place. Towards the end of his life, he passes away and Bree continues her life and finds a new relationship with the local pharmacist, George. George isn't Mr. Van De Kamp. She has no passion for him whatsoever. He's kind, sweet, and best of all, he's safe. Their relationship begins to progress and she can't seem to get away from the intense passion she had with Mr. Van De Kamp.
Well, let's fast forward shall we? Here's the scene that stays with me each day of my life:
Desperate Housewives: Season II, Second episode of the season...
Dr. Goldfine: "So You agreed to marry him just to be polite?"
Bree: Well, obviously there's a downside to being polite..
Dr. Goldfine: So when will you tell him how you really feel?
Bree: That's why I wanted to talk to you, Part of me is thinking maybe I should just do it.
Dr. Goldfine: Do it, you mean actually marry him?
Bree: I know it sounds rash, but there's something comfortable about George, we share the same tastes and interests, and best of all he loves the Opera!
Dr. Goldfine: The Opera?
Bree: Yes. We went to see Aida last week and we both cried buckets!
George loves art, poetry, and music, it would be nice to be married to someone who looks for beauty in the world like I do.
(Sighs) I don't know, that's why I am here. I don't know what to do Dr. Goldfine.
Dr. Goldfine: Bree, You've said many times how comfortable you are with George, but you don't feel for him the way you felt for Rex.
Bree: No. (Pauses) True love is great, but at this point in my life, I think I'd rather just go to the Opera.
I wholeheartedly agree. At this point of my life, at the tender age of 23, I would rather go to the Opera. I mean, do we truly know what true love is? Is it the manic feeling we get when that 'special' someone doesn't give a shit about us and would rather go out drinking than even say goodnight to you? Is it the feeling of despondency when we love so hard that we break our own hearts when the other party has no inkling of how they feel about you. It sounds absolutely absurd if not insane that we put ourselves out there in hopes that someone will wake up from their selfish, me me me stupor and shower us with their affection. What's the point of doing something that hurts? Is self-preservation not one of the fundamental goals of human existence? We spend each day avoiding the obvious risks- don't jump in front of that car or don't eat food that's been on the ground. Why are we so hesitant to avoid the risk of getting our hearts broken once again?
I'm faced with a choice. Between Mr. Passion and Mr. Safety. Mr. Passion fills me with, well passion. Our time together is intense, fulfilling, and breath taking. He and I have the most amazing intellectual conversations and end up talking well into the wee hours of the next morning. He sets something inside me upside down and makes me think that there's something to having my cake and eating it to.
I fell in love with him.
I began the process of divesting part of my soul to make room for his in my life. I didn't know where our relationship would lead, hell I was happy if we just got to spend time with each other. I did not want any guarantees of a life long commitment, diamond rings, and a baby burp blanket. I just wanted him right now right there for the whole world to see him as I saw him. He's the intense passion that keeps me going throughout the day, just knowing that he was there to listen to my thoughts, to laugh at my funny quirks, was overwhelming.
I wanted us to have a chance at creating something new, reveling in our fortune of finding someone who doesn't want to change your religion, your nutty habits, or the way you brush your hair out of your eyes. A chance to love so hard that something breaks off in between the two of us and joins together to create something new.
Unfortunately, like so many passionate encounters of the lonely kind, I ended up being the one who was broken. Broken into pieces by something that was really not there in the first place. Shakespeare was an idiot to say it was better to have loved than to not love at all because if you have "loved" enough times as I have, you begin to realize that your love is something sacred, that should be guarded jealously until the person who comes along is ready for it. Love isn't a renewable resource- it's one that if you give away enough times, you will end up like the US in an energy crisis with no sources of oil left to save your economy. Desperate times call for safe measures, and in my case, Mr. Safety.
Mr. Safety is the man who has always been there for me. We have a wonderful time together, but I can never see myself staying up until the wee hours just talking about life and the philosophy behind it all. He couldn't tell the difference between Voltaire and Fred Astaire if you asked him. Yet, he is kind and he loves me so fiercely that I can't help but feel as if life would be unbearable without him. He is wonderful to be around, he is a man of his word and he is the most transparent and honest human being I have ever met. Best of all, he loves me. In a way, I do love him.
But.. I don't feel the butterflies.
I can't talk about all of the ways of the world with him. Even making out feels like a chore that I check off on my to-do list, along with picking up the dry cleaning and homework for class in the morning. He is a part of my routine. He is safe, predictable, and at this point in my life, he is exactly what I need. At this point in my life, where everything else seems so unsure- law school, friends, family, and whether we will have a planet in the next fifty years, Mr. Safety is the one constant that I can count on. He isn't Mr. Passion. When he touches me, I feel nothing. When he holds me, I feel safe... but still nothing. I feel safe, I feel happy to have him around, but at the end of the day, I press my fingers to my lips trying to figure out how passion feels like. Can passion be custom made like a gorgeous Sherri Hill evening gown? Can it be copied and pasted like the words on my blog? I sincerely hope so. I sincerely hope that like the bones in our bodies, that passion can grow into Mr. Safety. Perhaps maybe the same passion I feel with Mr. Passion is actually just in the form of safety with well.... Mr. Safety.
At the end of the day, I realize that I too, just want to go to the Opera.
But while I sit at the balcony, peering down on all the actors acting out the ridiculous passion we fight so hard to replicate in real life, I will find myself pressing my fingers against my lips, hoping to remember what the fuss is all about.
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