CAPÍTULO 2.................................................................................................................................................. 26
2.7. ESPECIFICACIÓN DE LOS REQUERIMIENTOS DEL SISTEMA
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As women, we practice the art of depriving ourselves of things that make us happy, even though we are keenly aware that happiness is a key to our survival.
We undertake this deprivation until we create a void in ourselves; a big empty space, waiting to be filled.
When the void gets to be too big to be ignored, we decide to stop depriving ourselves. We think, “Why should I deprive myself? I deserve happiness and this will make me happy.” And we’re right, we should be happy. That’s usually the point when we decide that we will fill the void that we’ve created regardless of how much it takes to fill it or what it costs us.
As women, we tend to create voids around eating, shopping and men. After we starve ourselves on diets, we binge eat until we are bloated, fat and guilty. We tell ourselves not to shop and to maintain a restrictive budget until we’re so needy that in response to our need we shop until our credit card bills rival the national debt. We deny ourselves the experience of relationships until we are so lonely and devoid of emotional validation that we become willing to pursue a relationship with any guy that will look at us for longer than 15 seconds. Even if he looks like the kind of guy who just dragged himself out of bed and onto the barstool for the evening.
WE LET OUR LIVES DEVELOP A VOID AND THEN WE FILL THAT VOID WITH WHATEVER WE
CAN GRAB ONTO REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT IT’S BEST FOR US.
Don’t let this happen to you – again.
Here’s what I recommend. If you do everything in moderation, then you won’t end up with a void and subsequently, you won’t end up filling the void excessively.
Here’s an example. You’ve dated plenty in your lifetime. In fact, you’ve just ended your last relationship. Well, six months ago. You’ve done all right in the meantime; you have a gym membership and lots of new shoes. You’re saving for that trip to London you’ve always wanted to take and you’ve signed up for a cooking class. Who needs sex? You’ve had that. In fact, you had great sex with your last boyfriend. The lying, cheating, bastard who also had great sex with his secretary. You’re not sixteen anymore, so you don’t need sex or even want sex all that often. Or, so you tell yourself. Meanwhile, you watch every couple that walks past you as you have your lunch in the park. You can see what you’re missing; companionship, intimacy, just having someone around to do things with. You have replaced old people with new hobbies. You like to cook now.
Seeing all the couples, you wish you had someone to cook for.
I know. I’ve been there and I understand.
But here’s what happens. You comfort yourself with these patronizing thoughts for the better part of a year and now it’s been over a year since a man has touched your hand. Even accidentally. You’re starting to feel desperate. But you ignore your desperation. That’s not you. You are vibrant and beautiful. You’ve whitened your teeth. Your gym membership has paid off. You’ve lost 17 pounds. You don’t need a man to complete you. You are complete. But still, you miss the intimacy. You wonder if a man will ever hold your hand again. You wonder if it’s possible to forget how to kiss. You think, “It might be....” You kiss the back of your hand to see if your suspicious fear is true. You can’t tell from kissing the back of your hand.
So you decide you need to get out. You call up the girls from your stitch and bitch group and you make plans for the weekend. Friday night arrives and you’re ready. You’ve waxed, tweezed, trimmed, highlighted, flossed, exfoliated, moisturized, plumped, fluffed, blown dried, curled and dressed in a manner that will make undressing very very exciting. You’re ready to hit the bar and relieve your social anxiety.
When you get there, you scope out the joint and realize the pickings are pretty slim. But you’re determined. You’ve come to meet someone new to get involved with and that will happen. Maybe. No...
it will. You console yourself again with the thought that you have had plenty of sex in your lifetime. Even great sex, like the sex you had with your ex boyfriend.... Suddenly you get the twinges of a tiny panic attack. You don’t want that to be the last great sex you’ll ever have. Rapidly, you look around for just one decent guy.
You see someone. He’s sitting in the corner, off by himself, nursing a beer. He looks pensive, like he’s got weighty thoughts on his mind; he’s barely paying attention to the rest of the bar. You go over, smile brightly and introduce yourself. He grudgingly shakes your hand and mutters his name in response. You smile brighter and think “This is your lucky day! You’re going to be with me!”
Yes, he is and he doesn’t deserve you, but you won’t realize that until six months down the line, after you’ve diligently waxed, tweezed, trimmed, highlighted, flossed, exfoliated, moisturized, plumped, fluffed, blown dried, curled and dressed in a manner that will make undressing very very exciting, because that’s when you’ll realize that he’s barely noticed your efforts. And that’s because he’s an introvert and you’re an extrovert. It’s also because he wasn’t looking for a partner to share his life with and you were. And WHY did this happen?
BECAUSE YOU LET A BIG, EMPTY, VOID IN YOUR LIFE GET FILLED BY ANYTHING THAT CAME ALONG
SO THAT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE A BIG, EMPTY, VOID IN YOUR LIFE.
He was anything. He also wasn’t the best thing for you. He was just the anything you determined you were going to get for yourself because you couldn’t stand the void.
In order to avoid this pitfall into the void, date like you should eat and eat like you should shop.
In moderation and continuously.
Make and have friends that are men. Many of them, so that you can experience what it is you like and enjoy in a man and so you can determine what it is you don’t like and definitely what isn’t right for you. Stay in contact with those friends. Call them, see them, talk with them. Being friends doesn’t mean you owe them the pleasure of your body or your heart. Just be a good friend. By having friends, what will happen is that you will never have a BIG, EMPTY, VOID. Instead, you will have a space reserved, when the right guy comes along and not, inappropriately before. Because as we know, if we eat too much, we get a stomach ache and if we wear the wrong shoes, they hurt our feet and if we get involved with the wrong man, we will just get hurt.
S
ince hormones and puberty became acquainted, we have foolishly thought that if we have great chemistry with a guy, a great relationship will follow. WRONG. If we have great chemistry with the wrong guy, what follows is a break in our lives which may sometimes require years to heal. The following are two examples of what will happen if you get involved in the wrong relationship.First example: You’re an executive and you’re in love with a musician. The two of you have great chemistry, but your schedules are like night and day. Literally.
He’s a night person and you have a day job. But still, you decide to live together because you want the kind of life the word idyllic was created to define. After awhile, his entrances at 3 am to romance you ‘til the sun comes up, disrupt your sleep and your day job so much that you know you have to change your schedule
back to what works for you or neither of you will have a roof over your heads. So you decide you need to be asleep by 11 pm and stay asleep no matter what. What you didn’t know was that now you and your boyfriend will argue over this decision because he feels like,
“You’re not trying in this relationship any more.” You attempt to explain your job responsibilities, but instead of understanding, he thinks your explanation is insulting to his own struggling career and now the fight is really on. You wish you’d just kept your mouth shut and remained sleep deprived.
Eventually, he moves out. Leaving a big empty space on his side of your life and leaving you to pick up the pieces. You resolve that you’ll never let the wrong guy into your right life again.
I hope you won’t. It’s great to have chemistry and it’s even better if that chemistry leads to true love. But if the two of you don’t sincerely blend well, then all the chemistry in the world won’t save your life or his from destruction. It takes responsibility and mature decisions in order to maintain the life that’s best for you when someone new enters it. And in the absence of one person making adult decisions, the other person will still have to – for both parties involved.
Here’s the second example. I know a great guy who has a sixteen year old daughter who he adores. In order to be available to pick her up and drop her off where she wants to go, he doesn’t schedule many social engagements (read: dates) for himself. As a result, he hasn’t had a real girlfriend since before she was born. It sounds like a big sacrifice for her and it is,
but it works between the two of them. It just doesn’t work between the two of them and anyone else.
“So how would you do it?” you’re asking. “How would you get involved with a guy like this?” The answer is, unless you want to make adjustments in your life to accommodate his, you don’t.
Frequently, in situations like these, in order to get involved, one person may feel like they have to forcefully establish their own place in the other person’s life; an action which ultimately destroys the functional life that preexisted for that person.
Everyone wants to be involved with someone else, but it all has to be copasetic. If it isn’t, then somebody’s life breaks and someone gets hurt.
You may think to yourself, “Will talking about these differences in advance help me avoid heartbreak?”
Yes, but know this, a guy will tell you the way he likes to live in the beginning of the relationship and then he considers the matter settled. He will not remind you of how he is or what he likes, he will simply expect you to remember what he has already said and to function with it or around it. So you might want to take notes during early discussions with a new lover for future reference.
The thing is, when you’re in the wrong relationship, you have to be big enough to leave that relationship even if you have great chemistry, so that each of you can meet someone who is more compatible for you.
Damn that chemistry and bring on the chocolate!
This is why it is a good idea to take things slowly when you get involved with another person. Learn what comprises their life and look honestly at your own life to see if the two of you are compatible in the day to day world outside of the bedroom and your great chemistry. If you’re not compatible in your daily lives and you still want to make the effort to be together, then realize that to do so requires a lot of respect for the other person and continuous compromise so that everyone ends up healthy and happy within the relationship. It won’t work if only one person gets their way all the time. Remember, just like when you were kids, if you play rough and selfishly, someone always gets hurt.
O
ne final thought, if you're a middle aged woman trying to date men your own age, all I can say is good luck and I feel for you. Middle age dating in the midst of a man’s midlife crisis sucks. There's just no other way to put it. During this age our female emotions amp up in favor of relationships, while male minds close themselves off to anything age appropriate.Dating was so much easier when we were all young and had better bodies, while dating in our 40s becomes a test of our resolve to find happiness. So my advice to you is this, date up or date down. Date someone 36 or younger or 55 or older. Men in these age brackets are terrific companions and are ready to be loved. “You’ve come a long way baby!” and you still deserve the best. So go out and get it!