“Hurry up, boys. I haven’t seen Grandma all week, so I HAVE to stop and see her before we head out. The party starts at 2:00, it’s a three and a half hour drive and it’s already 10:00. We gotta go now!”
Scott stumbles out of his bedroom, and rubs his head, his bleary eyes struggling to focus. “I need to shower, Mom.”
“Scott! I woke you up an hour ago! If you needed to shower, why haven’t you already! We’re going to be late!”
“You did not wake me up an hour ago.”
“I did, too!” I look at the clock and then back at my son. I sigh. “Ok, I woke you up fifty six minutes ago.”
“Can I just have five minutes? I didn’t shower yesterday.”
“Just wash your hair, Scott. Come on, it’s time to go.” Greg joins the discussion.
Half an hour later we finally make it out the door. A stop at Grandma’s, a stop for breakfast to go and some gas, and we are whizzing across I74 through cornfields and sodden prairie. Greg and Scott carry on a lively debate about politics, religion, music, and childhood memories. I smile at the road, grateful for the privilege of bearing witness to their bonding, despite the angst of the morning.
We pull into the driveway of the Roann PawPaw library and see a congregation of the menfolk milling about outside, the women inside getting the feast organized. Gender roles have changed little in Roann over the past fifty years. Maybe more of the women hold down jobs, maybe the men play more of a role in child rearing, but when you come right down to it, we are all still pretty much domesticated to the fifties.
After lunch, I sit down to talk to my Aunt Joann. She is one of my favorite people in the entire world. She has no edit button for her thoughts, never has, never will. I like that about her. I disagree with her on almost every political and religious issue. Our child rearing styles, housekeeping styles, culinary skills are polar opposites. She was married for decades to my all time favorite male prototype, but even if she wasn’t, I’d still love her. We hold no common blood lines, although I share a strong physical resemblance to many of her children whom I love like siblings.
“Betty Jeanne! I’m so glad you came. Tell me, tell me, how’s your love life?”
I smile indulgently at her. I’m used to this. “Love life? What’s that?”
She laughs. “Oh, don’t I know what you’re saying. My sister Pauline is in her seventies and she has a man, and so does Wilma, but not me. I don’t have one and I don’t want one! Why would I? I don’t need someone telling me what to do at my age. Don’t need it, don’t want it.”
I sigh. “I don’t need it, but I can’t say I don’t want it. I date a lot, but if I like them, they don’t like me, and if they like me, I don’t like them. I guess I’m just looking for someone who is as strong and as smart as I am, and I’m having trouble finding that….or maybe just seeing the strength in others.”
Aunt Joanne looks at me skeptically. “Do you know what you need to do, Betty Jeanne? You need to act not so smart and not so strong.”
“Aunt Joanne!” I laughed, she was being so typically Joann, and so ridiculous. I grinned back at her, my grin fading as I realized that she was being serious. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I am not, Betty Jeanne. You act all smart and strong, no man is going to want you. No man is going to want to compete with you. The man has to feel needed, and how can he feel needed if you make him feel stupid and weak.”
I sat back in shock, although I should have expected it from her. My inner critic started up. Stupid and weak. You make men feel stupid and weak. No wonder you are alone after all these years.
I thought back over the past seven years, the men I have loved and lost, the men who I have sent on their way and the men who have taken their leave of me. Mostly I thought of the men who chose others instead of choosing me.
Was Aunt Joann right? Did those men choose weaker, less intellectual women because I was just….too much? Too competitive? Did I make them feel weak? Did I make them feel stupid?
How does one pretend to be weak? How does one mask one’s intelligence? I stared at her, my mouth gaping in amazement.
“But Aunt Joann, I don’t know how to act dumb. I don’t know how to act weak or indecisive. I never had the luxury of learning that lesson.”
“Oh, come on Betty Jeanne, you’re a good actress. Just fake it!”
I thought about what she said the entire way home. I had told her that I had a date Sunday evening and as the time approached, I thought even more about what she said.
Was I just too smart and too strong for my own good?
I liked my date. I sensed from the moment that I saw his picture on Match.com that he was kind and gentle. He confirmed my suspicions through dinner. He was a gentleman. He was articulate and a little shy. He laughed at my quips and anecdotes, but told none of his own. We shared divorce stories and kid stories. He looked at me like he thought I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He didn’t flirt with the waitress, in fact, as far as I could tell, I was the only person he saw in the room. He did a good job of playing the traditional, doting romantic date, without going overboard.
He reminded me of my cousins and my brothers. Strong, silent, kind and good.
I liked him immediately. We went to see a movie afterwards, neither of us ready for the evening to end, although it was already nine o’clock with a work day the next morning. After the movie, we kissed in his car for two hours. We removed no articles of clothing, not even a shoe, just kissed in the car and looked silently into each other’s eyes until he reluctantly took me home, hugging me tightly in front of my car, still in the restaurant parking lot.
For the record, there is nothing in this universe that compares to kissing in a movie parking lot for two hours, fully clothed, when one is in one’s forties. I highly recommend it.
I don’t want to mess this up.
Guys, I know you love to fix things. I know you love to give advice on mechanical topics to help a woman in need. Give me some advice. Do I really need to dumb down? Do I really need to flex the helpless female muscles I have hiding deep down in my psyche? Do I need to forget about my raging libido and freeze my legs closed? Do I need to follow the rules and make him miserable so that he will want me? I’m really at a loss.
At stake is six months of celibacy.
That’s right. I PROMISED myself, after my last post, that I was going to take six months off beginning March 21, the first day of spring, until September 21, the first day of fall. No dating, no sex, no nothing. If I mess this one up, I’m going home alone for the next six month.
I have a second date with him tomorrow. We are going out for sushi. I love sushi. So does he.
What should I do?
Please help me….
