All's Fair in Love and Work

It may seem a strange analogy, but I sometimes look at being single as similar to being unemployed. The longer you go without a mate or job the more your perspective changes. I think after you've been on your own for awhile, you lose much of the elasticity you need to put up with another person's antics, or a boss telling you what to do(or, worse, with that other person trying to tell you what to do..).

Those things fade from your memory with the passage of time, and become 'someone else's problems'. Much like if , say, you work with your hands as a livelihood and suddenly stop, you'll gradually lose the callouses on your hands and thus the work will be difficult to resume, since you've lost that "protective coating".

You may want a mate or job very much, since there are definite plusses to both(regular sex/regular money, ..) but you get less willing to put up with the crap involved in either situation the longer you're out of it, so they become harder to obtain. You're gonna hurt your hands without those callouses..

Me, I've usually had a job. Getting a decent job took some time and effort, but I've usually had something coming in as far as gainful employ. I haven't always had a mate though, and have had some long periods in between them on occasion. This is one of them.

Well, with a mate as well as a job, it's all in how much you're willing to put up with, what you're willing to accept, and what you're getting out of it in terms of "benefits". Unless you're independently wealthy, you have to have a job since you have to make enough money to live, so what you'll accept and put up with are usually pretty open. She doesn't have to be pretty but she does have to be dependable.

Conversely, you don't have to have a mate, though of course it would be very nice to. So what you'll accept and put up with is quite different, since it's not an abolute necessity(though you do compromise some things as time goes on). Like the job, it's a whole set of things you look at--a "benefits package", as it were--that you use to decide if you want to get involved with a particular person. Besides what they look like, whether they have/want kids, what kind of beliefs they have(how many Gods they worship, if any)-and of course, whether they're employed. Or employable..

Like everybody else, I've got my own tastes, things I'd prefer to have given my druthers.. But pretty much all of my preferences are negotiable, or transferable--as in a restaurant, I will except some substitutions for preferred menu items(and strangely enough, for each of the things I like, I've fallen for someone who definitely didn't have them along the way). I used to think I should 'hold my ground' as far as my absolute preferences, but it's really better in the long pull to have some flexibility--if nothing else, you enjoy more.

Nonetheless, there are two things with a woman that I am a sucker for and one of them is a clever wit. This attribute can just about close the sale by itself. If we can laugh together, then we can probably do some other kindsa fun stuff together too. Seems logical anyway.

Hell, I dunno. As I mentioned earlier, this is one of those dry periods, during which I usually re-examine my views on whatever it is I'm not getting(dammit!), to try to find a better way of doing things, one that will yield results. This period has been punctuated by a few interesting nibbles, but nothing conclusive. So I'm still trying to figure it out.

The only thing I do know is there has to be that "thang", that connection between you. A sort of buzz you get just being around each other. I had it with the one I married(well, and divorced, but I did marry her)and a few times besides. It's so cool when it happens, however briefly..So that's what I want, somebody I "connect" with. So far it hasn't happened with any of the women I've met, but I trust it will sooner or later. Just gotta have faith, I guess.


Oh yeah. The other thing with a woman I'm a sucker for(and, if the evening goes particularly well, hopefully of ) is , well, let's just say a relative inability to see her feet looking straight down. I do love that particular attribute. What, you thought it was going to be something noble and- uplifting? Come on.. Seriously of course, physical attributes such as these are not essential to attractiveness, however desirable they may be. (I've fallen for a skinny gal or two in my time.) Still, a buxom woman with a clever wit could easily have me for dinner.