OPINIONS ABOUT MEN AND RELATIONSHIPS

Note:  This piece was originally written when I was 23 years old.  It was originally entitled “Girl Talk.”  I have since modified it somewhat due to my past 35 years of additional living experience. Thank you Hillary Clinton!

Do you ever wonder why some women are so vain that they buy expensive clothes, put on lots of make-up (to cover their perceived imperfections?), and pamper their bodies so much?  I know why – the men of course!  It’s hard to live without them, yes?  I spent most of my life trying to find the perfect man only to realize I was looking for the perfect me.  I was trying to find a man who could put up with my habits, good, bad, indifferent. So, I got braces, contacts, gained and lost weight – all at the expense of those wonderful yuppie health clubs, especially, during the 1980’s – and permed and colored my hair.  Each year it would get more and more expensive, all so I could look like Farrah Fawcett, or whoever was the current beautiful woman of the time.

The torture we put up with these days to be a perfect woman, our image of a perfect woman, that is, just to define ourselves, or to get the right man!  We spend most of our waking hours trying to be the perfect image for the perfect man.  I should own a health club by now!  I think the whole point of this exercise is to prove to myself that I could be the woman that he wanted, or so I thought; when I was really becoming more of a fake, a facade of a personality.  Did he love me for what I was, or what I would become, or did he love an advertisement that I was trying to be for him?  (But, of course I didn’t learn all this until much later.)

So, I thought about it. I told myself: Stop looking, and believe in yourself, as a whole person, just as you are, and the right person will come along.  Then, I stopped looking, and the universe gave me my answer.  I received the strength to be who I am today, and then I found the person who could help me become me.  He knows me better than I would like him to know.

I used to think everything I did was for the men in my life.  I am sure that was because I am a product of the 1950’s woman-thought. It was a partly the era, and how I grew up, because I thought I must be perfect in order to keep a relationship secure and sustaining.  I’ve seen many things on the TV that constantly remind me that men are vulnerable to other women, and that if women don’t use the right hair conditioner, they will lose their men.  Are we to believe that all our men are so morally corrupt they will go off with any woman out there, just to prove they still have it?

I now believe these men are still the minority, and their behaviors are what makes the news and what makes excellent evening sitcoms.  I would like to think that there are still some men out there who can maintain loyalty and faithfulness.  Yes, they can be tempted, but most do not react on those temptations, or at least that is my current view.  It is an assessment that I hope most men will concur.

The truth is, there really is no one perfect male, just as there is no one perfect female, and you will find just the right one for you, not so perfect, but the one that meets your needs.

Life is really a series of molehills to climb, and every fifth one you come to is a mountain – a real Colorado hill!  You have so many directions to climb it, and, after you pick the direction, you wonder if you picked the right one.  My life has been a series of molehills and mountains, and taking two steps forward and one step back in each stride.  It is a perpetual conga.

I feel that a lot of those forever questions have to do with my own learning process this lifetime – with the ever ensuing question of what I’m supposed to accomplish. I won the game so far, I think.  I once thought I was supposed to be a great musician, so I studied hard.  Then, one day I woke up and decided that this wasn’t my destiny this time.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be sure of exactly where we should be going.  I just know we will continue to go until we die.  Perhaps that’s what it’s all about after all, the going.  What do you think?