Dear Cary,
So it's happening again: Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Gets boy's number. Girl and boy begin dating. Boy sends all of the "very interested" signals. Girl responds in kind. Incredible sex. Eye-gazing. Natural feeling, intelligent conversation. Then the sixth date: No eye contact, little attempt at conversation, unimpassioned sex. Boy abruptly, awkwardly leaves that morning, making no mention of weekend plans. Boy insults girl with small talk. Girl feels used and disappointed. Girl writes Cary.
What's going on here? Seriously. This has happened to me before. But I didn't expect it from this guy. He's 33. He's in med school. He's traveled extensively with the military. He's bright and clever. He lights up a room. He has a zest for life that's devastatingly attractive to me. He's confident.
My male friends tell me that I intimidate guys. I've tried to tone it down. With this guy I really took it easy. Followed his lead. Was always very much myself but let a little more of the softness through. I avoided all the old traps. It seemed to work. I was pleased with myself for breaking old patterns. Then, sure enough, with no warning he's gone. Vacant.
Typically this is when I begin to act like a circus clown, jumping all around trying to pinpoint whatever it is that will take him back to where he was before, and this is when it gets ugly and I get pathetic, and the whole thing is scrapped (usually with good reason by then). But I really don't want that to happen this time. I want to change this pattern. I want to understand what's going on here.
I really like this one. I do. I rarely meet people that are as passionate about living as I am, and it felt so nice to not feel like someone's specimen. He doesn't need my energy to feed off of -- he has his own. I trusted that he wouldn't be another man who would profess how incredible I am and then in the next breath tell me that I'm "too much."
I feel hurt and disappointed. How was I the cat's meow on the fifth date and a sex buddy by the sixth? Cary, can you tell me what happened at five and a half? I can't think of anything that I did. I really can't. I'd tell you if I could. Why did he turn off, and more importantly how should I respond? Typically I would call and confront him (weirdness ensues), but this time I want to see what he does, and what you say, before I make a move to unearth whatever's going on.
How should I proceed? And is there some way I can avoid this in the future?
A Little Broken Hearted ... Again
Dear A Little Broken Hearted,
As I go over your letter, trying to locate you, the image I get is of a woman spinning wildly like a child on a gleaming ballroom floor, throwing sparks into the night, arranging the very universe by her dancing, drunk with attractive power. I see a woman who looks only outward at the shiny, spinning world full of lights but never inward lest she fall, a woman who sees around her other shiny, spinning, fabulous dancers and is briefly drawn into their orbits as they are drawn into hers, forming figure eights as they orbit each other on a great dance floor in some marble ballroom. It is a fabulous, glittering ball, half-mystical, and in this ballroom there is no conversation, only dancing and gesture; nor is there any progression, or any time; there is only whirling and more whirling and when the whirling stops there is only a dreamless sleep of exhaustion in plush red banquet chairs, and then more dancing. There is no remembering of hard times here in this ballroom, nor is there any self-doubt, nor are any names exchanged. No one can remember the last time the music stopped, and no one can remember the last time a contemplative word was uttered. This is not a place where contemplative people come; it is just a whirling ball, glittering and festive and timeless.
That is how I picture you, as a glittering dancer at a ball, who met another glittering dancer and danced wordlessly until you exhausted him and then he whirled away. But when he whirled away you were sad. You expected something else. But what was it you expected? No one in this ballroom knew that you expected anything else. All anyone does here is dance.
This man who turned away from you and hurt you: What was the substance of your understanding of him? What did you learn about his wishes and desires? Was he looking for a wife, or just a playmate? Was he completely single, or partially attached? Was he what they call "emotionally available"? Do you know how one would go about ascertaining if someone is "emotionally available"? Did you consider that a handsome, worldly, charismatic former military man who is now in medical school might be in some ways not emotionally available? Did it occur to you that in your busy, whirling extravagance of spirit you might have neglected to closely study his eyes, how he reacts to you, whether he's shrinking from you as you expand to fill the room with your fabulousness, whether he might have appeared short of breath as you sucked the oxygen out of the air around him, whether you might have missed any attempt on his part, however subtle and coded, to warn you that he was not the man for you?
It may be that you have great attractive power but only have transactions, not relationships, with men; that would explain why men come and go from your boudoir at will -- because although you may dance with them and sleep with them, you have neglected the careful disclosure and attentive listening through which two people establish an emotional narrative. You almost sound like a woman in the last stages of a magical girl phase, when you still have the power, intelligence, vivacity and attractiveness of youth to draw men to you, but find that drawing them to you is no longer enough, that you are groping your way into the world of difficult compromise and self-disclosure that adult relationships require.
If you are ready for that, you will find your way. Here is a tip: The next time you are attracted to a man, try to see him not with your eyes but with your heart. Ask your heart what it sees. It may not see the glittering prince that you see with your eyes. By your heart I mean your intuition, your spider sense, the instant feelings of fear or attraction that you used to rely on as a child.
You're going to have to stop dancing and making love long enough to hear what the next man has to say. What he says may surprise you. It may also bore you. Such is life outside the ballroom and the boudoir.
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