If you're a regular user of Facebook and/or MySpace you'll notice that one of the "About Me" items that many of your friends pay attention to is your status. A few weeks ago I changed my status on Facebook from "Single" to private because I didn't want anyone to know I'm single. A few people (the married ones actually) excitedly asked: Does this mean you have a boyfriend now? Alas I do not have one but I count myself lucky that I'm not changing from Married to Single as one of my "friends" of Facebook is currently facing. In fact, she's addressed this status issue by saying "There's no 'Almost Divorced' on Facebook but that's my current status."
Of course, this is the first girl in my age group to go through such a traumatic experience. I'm not going into the details but let's just say I'm on her side, not that I was remotely friends with her soon t/b ex-husband.
Whenever someone I know gets divorced, it really shakes me to my core and unfortunately compounds my anxiety about getting married. I'm lucky in that I have many outstanding examples of marriage in my nuclear family however that is just not enough of a comfort to me. Even if I got a pre-nup, there's not an emotional clause to it by any means. There's no financial award if someone says to their spouse one day "I never loved you" or "If I have to be with you one more day, I'm going to kill myself." I can't imagine saying that to my husband never, ever!
I'm more than content taking care of someone for the rest of their life if they ever became sick or disabled, as I've seen lovingly done. I believe in marriage vows, whatever form they come in. I believe they are as important as the marriage license you sign and file after the ceremony.
What does all this have to do with the title to this entry? Well, my friend's been going through a lot of growing closer to God regarding her status. While she has been dating the same guy for over a year, she says that she's single until she's married. She feels free to date other men and doesn't mind if he dates other women. Now most people would label this an "open relationship" right? I admire her gumption to expect nothing in the form of a commitment until they are married.
Unfortunately in my case, I attract the commitment phobic, sans my first boyfriend. He was more of the over-committed type and it drove me insane. My resolve to meet a guy 'where he's at' often means minimal communication yet consistent outings. It means nothing on Valentine's Day but a gift on my birthday that I pick out. He's the type of guy who wants me to be happy while I'm actually in his presence, but doesn't really give any thought to the larger picture of how I get joy out of life.
I'll give you an example. Yesterday I went to a gym with this guy I've been getting to know. He had a free pass to his and asked if I'd like to go. Now if there's one place I hate it's the gym. I've tried it, alone and with people, and it's just not for me. I'm more of a team sports or yoga class chicka. However, I've been trying to meet him where's he at so I said okay. Now, my girlfriend above would freak if she knew I did this because it means I'm not showing him who I really am, I'm just being too damn accommodating.
Let's just say, when we left two hours later, he said "You didn't get a lot out of that did you" or something to that effect. I did, truly I did. I walked a couple miles, did a modified yoga thing on my own. Basically, since we're at different fitness levels, hello did he not know that going into this?, there's was very little chance we'd actually have spent much time together. The whole encounter was a clear indicator of just how out of sync we are. He was there and I was over here we checked in with each other but our routines couldn't be any different. It's kind of like we happened to be there at the same time and just walked in and out with each other.
Anyway, he's such a nice guy when I actually spend time with him I'd pretty much do any activity he suggested. However, the lesson I learned is next time be up front and say "look I'm not a gym rat but since it's free I don't mind trying it out" I'm just really really afraid he's going to disappear again out of my life and I actually like having him try out for a place on Team Maggie. I swear I'm making shirts one day people and maybe you'll be lucky enough to get one!
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