Only sunshine for the helpy

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I guess we're all helpies. For reference, I can't imagine why anyone would assume in this context that I'm in any relationship at all. I'm filling a cookie cutter with a logo & URL because it helps some of us sooner or later.

I may have to try again. It's...well, I suspect part of the trouble is regional, this isn't a part of the country famous for Tolstoyan discussions of existential lousiness, and a lot of the therapists I've been to get really anxious when it feels to them like you're "dwelling". But it's just incredible to me -- I say, in English, in simple language, exactly what the problem is, and I just cannot get these people to focus on it.

I have some idea of what you're talking about, too.I was involved with the most amazing man, like a twin to me, and he killed himself about three years ago. His friends, at least, understood that he was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of person. The therapists I saw afterwards were worse than useless, though. Full of cliches and the world's silliest questions. They were all redeemed by a wonderful, lifesaving crisis-line lady I talked to after I read the police report.

It baffles me, though, the part where you have to spend hours battling to the starting line. Where you're trying to get them to accept what the problem is and help you deal with it. I've resorted to classroom techniques at times, where I sit there and put the therapist through paces, have her explain to me in own words what I'm there for. I'm sure it's blazingly condescending but it's the only thing I've found that will get them to focus on the problem I've brought to them, rather than Problem #6 from their shelf. It works. Usually they wind up baffled, but actually staring at the problem, and then asking me what I want them to do about it. I've learned to ask at that point whether that's a problem they have any knowledge of. Then I have to fend off the stuff about how they're willing to try or to listen to me ramble or etc, and I stop them again and ask them whether it's a problem they know. Or understand. If they don't, but they can't quite say so straight out, I know it's time to go.

Oh, my god, I just realized what the issue is. They're embarrassed for me, because they assume I'm ashamed and embarrassed, also delusional. I forgot about the whole Forgotten Woman thing -- apparently single women over 40 are supposed to be hideously unattractive and with self-esteem through the floor because no one wants them. (Which isn't true anyway.) They're trying to encourage me to be less discriminate because OMG woman yer pickins are slim and ye might wind up ALOOOONE. They're not hearing what I'm saying at all, which is that we don't even get to step B, Do the men want me. We're totally bolloxed at step A, Do I want so much as a conversation with these available men, but I am supposed to be terrified that no one will want me, and very low on self-esteem. I'm not supposed to have the balls to know so well what I do and don't want, or to look at "alone" and say, "yes, very likely, better figure out how to live there" without actually meaning "I'm an awful unwantable person". What a pain in the arse.

Do you think you're in some way looking to grieve? I don't mean after the loss of the man you were involved with, though possibly there's something unfinished there, but for the loss of a future you thought would come?

That's an excellent insight. Not yet, I think, though I imagine I will, once I have some clue about what there might be instead. But this is what happens as you get older, isn't it? Your life is...not haunted, I think, but furnished with the ghosts of futures you thought you'd live in. I had a sort of dream once, when my daughter was very young, that I'd have another girl and her name would be Beatrix, Beate, something like that. It was so real that I believed it would happen, and I still sometimes miss that child, the life in which my daughter had a little sister. Almost nothing about my life is what I imagined it'd be at 15, 25, 35. I had another dream once in which I was old, living in a small apartment in a city, with an old man -- sweet, slight, quiet fellow, it was clear I was the one taking care of things, and that he was a nervous person who needed some protection, but in his own way he was taking care of me. He was sitting at the kitchen table. And I was rather stout -- not fat, exactly, but old-lady barrel-shaped. I believed that one could happen, too. Maybe it will, I don't know. But you imagine these things and they tell you something about how to live, what your life means, what the meanings of the everyday things in your life are.

A future alone...I realize I hadn't been thinking about it, imagining what it might be or mean. It's just a blank. And lonely, though of course it's possible to be married/partnered and lonely too. You live differently, alone, the things you care about and the places you go are different. And the friends you have, because like it or not most married women aren't keen on having unattached women hanging around their houses, not with husbands there too. Thinking about it, I realize much of the anxiety comes from suspecting that people won't know what to make of me. Reasonably social, not busy with family, have work I enjoy, not on a manhunt, not widowed, not gay, not anti-men, just...not willing to do much of what's necessary, from the woman's side, to make a relationship go. And willing to be alone rather than with, say, some perfectly nice orthodontist or teacher or what have you. I'm already experiencing some of this -- I've had people get angry at me because I wouldn't come to dinner and meet an Eligible Man who just isn't interesting to me (and who wouldn't be happy with me, either).

--there are cardinals outside by one of the apple trees. I'm so glad it's not winter anymore--

I think that's one of the things that's been most surprising: people getting angry at me for refusing -- because unable -- to budge on certain things when it comes to who I'm willing to date. And taking offense. I think that from the social-facing side of it, the part that's not just about me doing whatever I do, that's the difficult part. A young single woman is at the beginning of a story; she's seen as holding out a bit, but it's expected she'll couple up, not miss her chance. An older single woman, 50s, 60s...either she's been abandoned or rejected, or withdrawn unhealthily...or she's said no. She's refused the men around. Which seems to make people angry.

I wonder, actually, how many of the stories you hear about "unwanted older women" actually exist to assuage men's egos. Because it seems to me there are lots of women who find new partners in their 40s-60s, and also a fair number of divorced women, 40s, 50s, 60s, who just want nothing to do anymore with the sort of nonsense they'd put up with from men all their lives, and would rather stay alone. And because they're supposed to be objects of pity, people find it infuriating when they turn out not to need any and reject men who aren't that great. Gosh.

I've actually gotten attitude like that from men who think that because I'm a single mom, and not rich, I'm desperate for anyone to come along and save me. And when I say 'no thanks', to them it's like I'm saying they're so horrible that even the lowest of the low won't have them, and they get all insulted and angry. Without, of course, noticing how rude they've been to me.

This. Exactly this.

And I think Hopper has touched on something very significant, as well. Before you can reach acceptance, you have to go through the other stages of grief. And loss of a hypothetical future is nearly as tangible a loss as any other.

It strikes me this is Alice Munro territory.

Indeed.

So now, what are you gonna do?

Read some Alice Munro and have some thinks.

Munro was herself in a similar position, though I think she's had a man friend for a long time. But she was a woman doing things she wasn't supposed to've been doing, and she wrote a lot of stories about women on their own, quite good ones. She'd married young to a fellow who built up a bookshop, and she was supposed to've been dutiful wife in the shop and raising their daughters, but instead she hung around being squashed and writing for a while, then flew the coop. There were problems, too, with the fact that she was far more talented than her husband was. Wasn't a bit nice for her children though the rest of the literary world thanks her.

Her Lives of Girls and Women is...er, well along with every other CanLit novel I've read, I guess...one of the few things that gives me second thoughts about moving to Canada. Crazy's bad enough without repression. I probably shouldn't be watching Guy Maddin, either.

Last edited by tarantella64 on 08 May 2014, 4:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I am not very fond of fiction literature.

I have not read any Munro. She sounds good. I shall have to look into her work. Especially as it's short stories. I do like a good short story.

(It struck me that with all the 'I don't understand women!' that goes on here, the confused men could do a lot worse than to read, and widely, fiction by women. To look at the stories they tell, and how they tell them. It's as close as can be to sitting inside someone else's head)

But I was thinking about stories, and how we are very much lacking stories about such lives lived. Hollywood, that repository of dreams, will bring down all manner of catastrophe and terror on the entire world if it means it can create a couple, or reconstitute a family - I mean, what sort of obstinate person could not understand the primal value/necessity of being in a relationship? If it intends to have a character - particularly a woman - not looking for romance, they best be either weird, or still psychologically bound to their tragically lost love. That is, they cannot seem to the audience capable of getting a relationship/romantic interest yet still reject one.

We need many more sorts of stories, that we might consider a wider, richer variety of narratives for our and others' lives.

There's a problem where we obtain a desired outcome, and it turns out the outcome itself wasn't what was desired, but rather the desire was for the desiring itself, what kept us moving forward. Though marginal, I think it's sort of recognised.

And then there's where the desired outcome needs to be given up on. Given the amount of time we spend in thought about the lives we are not living - be it already lived past or alternative present or desired future - such a loss is a very real one, and I think it does grieve us. And yes, such things haunt us. And there's a lack of stories or even recognition - what kind of loser gives up? Didn't any number of last minute to-the-airport chases teach us otherwise?

I get the feeling that a lot of people are not letting others give up, because it devalues their own desired outcomes, their own efforts in the game. Because maybe you don't actually have to play the game, in which case, how much time and effort have I pissed away on it?

God, yes. There's a lot of fragile egos out there.

My mother in law was widowed some seven years ago, age 55. There was a brief dalliance with a man a few years back, but having been married - not always particularly happily - and raised children, she is now far more content than she has been in a long time, getting on with her own life in her own way.

Now why a fiction work would have anything to do with women or the way they think? lol - do Agatha Christie or let's say... J.Rowling works reflect how women think/want? At best they reflect one mind. (hmm Meyer may know something, and the crazy fandom among female teens for Edward was reflecting something surprising lol).

Fiction is fiction.

A book like the "The Chemistry Between Us" recommended by eureka is more helpful in understanding humans as a whole.

Part of the point is that it is a way of putting oneself in someone else's head - in this case, women. So while it does not necessarily tell us anything about women at large, it does show us the sheer variety of thinking and concerns and desires women can have. And, where they write about such, it is a useful way of getting to grips with female subjectivity/experience - that is, what it is like to be addressed as women are addressed.

And yes, part of the point is that there is little uniformity - something which is a helpful counter to bear in mind when trying to consider women as a hivemind, which seems to be the tendency on here (and elsewhere).

Speaking of hiveminds, another line of interest would be to study the films that are marketed to them, and in general the marketing and advertising aimed at them. As with men, it is through these things that women are shown what to desire, and how to desire it. For that matter, watch 'male' advertising - these are the images and behaviours of men women are shown and taught, how they are taught to think men see themselves/want to be.

Because there is no 'what women want'. I cannot think of a single thing that every biological woman on earth would share in wanting beyond terms so broad as to make it practically useless. There may be certain statistical clusters around 'norms', but if you're looking for some overriding biological essense, it'll be hard to come by.

If there were was a 'what women want', any female writer would reflect that. She couldn't help but do so.

The best way to understand a woman is, obviously, to get to know her. And to not assume whilst doing so that there is some great mystery or difficulty to understand - you'll just end up looking for something that isn't there.

I do think there is value - particularly for those with AS - in learning about the dramas and games people in a given society/culture are expected to play. But I wouldn't mistake the part played in those dramas for some particular subjective being/desire.



Fiction is stories, and narratives (as is a lot of non-fiction, of course. Humans love their narratives). That it is 'made up' does not make it any less true.

Going to be honest OP, I don't understand half of what you've written on this thread. Maybe it's your communication abilities that are the issue here. Maybe tone it down a bit for other people and stop being so pretentious.

Good god, so it's not just me then. It's not very clear to me what exactly she is complaining about here.

Good fiction will give you the truest, richest, and most complex picture of human emotion, decisions, interaction, and navigation of life that you'll find. That's why it's valued as art. If you expect one novel to give you a blueprint for everything, of course you'll be disappointed. The library itself is what matters, it holds the collective wisdom. But various writers are smart and perceptive about particular things, so they're the ones you go to if you want to read about those things, how people live with them.