Fixing men.

Thanks for your emails asking about when I'm going to write again or how I am or what I've been doing.  Really, it makes me happy to know you care.

I'm just been coasting.  My job is still exhausting, but I'm no longer feeling the fear of my boss, the flip-flop in my stomach when I have to face him.  One more old issue resolved, or at least controlled.

With that weight lifted, I'm finally feeling more interested in socializing and even went out last night with fellow Wowettes to a dance.  OK, it was a dance we all thought would be so dull that we'd eat our chicken dinner and leave within an hour or so.  But!  We had a blast!  There weren't any guys there that interested us, except the one guy I always see at these events who always laughs and kids around me, is affectionate, and never asks me out. But we chicks had our dinner, a glass of wine, and spent the rest of the evening dancing with ourselves to the music of the 50s and a fabulous live band. And I mean really dancing.  Picture five or six of us women on a dance floor full of couples, in a circle and doing all the moves from the 50s and 60s in unison.  I swear we looked like go-go dancers without the pedestal to dance on.  We laughed and we giggled and we had the best time.  I met two women I invited to join Wow, two women who were classy and smart and played with us like we were all old friends.  We're fabulous women and we're single and unattached and we had a great time.

Not that it wouldn't be fun to have a great guy in my life.  But meanwhile, being single is fun.  I had a week that was pretty tough at work, talking to three elderly married women who were taking care of very sick husbands, women who sat at my desk and cried.  And I thought of some of my single women friends who claim that they desperately want a man in their life so that, when they get old and sick, he will take care of them.  How do they know the guys won't get sick first or would the guys they pick really be their nursemaids when they get old and disabled?  And this week I heard from several other friends in long term relationships, complaining about their husbands, how the one who has always refused to travel now refuses to take a trip or the guy who always refuses to go to parties with her now refuses to go to a party.  And the single one who just met a guy who fell head over heels for her but has some traits she can't tolerate so she gave him some books to read so he'd suddenly become the man of her dreams.

Maybe the biggest problem in relationships or marriages is not money or lack of communication or not enough sex.  Maybe it's unrealistic expectations and denial.  My theory is that we women have really long lists of what we want in a mate and then we meet a guy who has a few of those qualities so we decide he must have all the items on the big list.  When we find out he doesn't, we make it our project to make him into the guy we originally and mistakenly thought he was.  Remember that line from Samantha in an episode of Sex and The City where she said something like, you can't change a guy, that maybe you can change his hairstyle or clothing, but even's that's a struggle.  I read this week that personality is fully formed by the age of seven years old.  Seven!  How can we possibly change a guy in his 50s or 60s?!?  I've heard so many times when a woman friend doesn't like something her guy has done, like he's unmotivated to get a better job or he doesn't show up on time ever or he'll never go to the movies with her, and she says, "I'm going to have a talk with him."  Ladies, it doesn't work.  It's like talking to my Suburu and telling it to be a Mercedes.  Just not gonna happen.  You get what you buy. That's it.

I know all this because I've done it.  Many times.  It's hard to get all that attention and affection and warm fuzzy stuff from a guy and face the fact that he has qualities that are intolerable so we have to give him up. Being such strong successful women, it's hard to admit that there really is something we cannot change or fix or make right. And I do admit that sometimes guys, and probably some of us women, put on a good show until we're hooked and then turn into slobs or get moody or refuse to pick up our clothes.  But ladies, he is who he is.  Accept him or move on.  Really.  But meanwhile, you can always count on your women friends for a great time. Every time.