I am sure for as long as people have been on this earth, that there is someone out there that gave them advice. God did it to Adam and Eve, he told them he didn't think they should have eaten that damn apple. I am sure the first caveman went out to chase down some kind of mammoth on the open range only to hear the elders give him advice on which direction he should go. I am assuming someone gave Mary and Joseph a bunch of advice on where to stay the night she gave birth and I doubt ANY of them said "you know, that barn over there looks really nice, why don't you go in there, have a kid and wait for these guys to show up with gifts. "
Bottom line is, everyone has advice for you.
When you are single and in the dating world, you become an open table for this. People will line up outside your door to tell you what they think of what you are thinking, doing and wearing when it comes to dating.
"oh honey, get out there and date all sorts of guys, what do you have to lose?" This comes usually from a woman with white blonde hair that wears coordinating colors with the appropriate holidays. Today she is wearing red, white and blue and sipping on a glass of iced tea. Her red lips look like two maraschino cherries bobbing in a sea of fake tanned skin. She adds a little more squeeze to her lemon and looks over at me as if she has a secret and can't wait to tell me. "that is how I met my fourth husband. I just dated and dated and dated every guy I could. I didn't say no to ANYBODY." I find it hard to take advice from someone who's furniture is covered in plastic and won't consume anything unless it's on a tv tray. She smokes Virginia Slims and goes into horrible coughing attacks every 22 minutes, holding one of her dainty fingers up in a "wait a moment" fashion, then continues to tell me how she would go out to all the local dance halls and just dance with boy after boy after boy. I don't have the heart to tell her it is not 1945 anymore....
"I want you to take a break from dating...." My therapist looked over his reading glasses at me, his round stomach holding his clipboard like a beach ball sized table. His office is bright and cheery and I am sitting on a couch that absorbs me like a bean bag chair. I am hoping he is not looking when I try to stand up. "I'm sorry, did you just say for a YEAR?" He looked at like I just asked him if the sky was blue. "Yes, one year. No dating, no internet dating, no nothing." I am certain he is going to include a "but" in there at some moment, or one of those fancy "howevers" that smart people say when they feel you hanging on their every word. And nothing. "You can join a church, a running group or a philanthropy group, but you cannot date for one year." One year....ONE YEAR...that means I have to spend my birthday alone, christmas alone, VALENTINES day alone..... I couldn't go a year without dating. Who was going to tell me I wasn't fat? Who was going to hug me when I got home after a great day and who was I going to fall asleep next to? one year...that was like, 12 months, 365 days!! 52 weeks..oh crap that is a long time. "ok" I said, looking at him with all the confidence of a cowboy walking into a saloon. "I can do that. Sure, I mean, what the heck." I would make it exactly 1 month and 2 days before I would be back online. I fell off the dating wagon. My therapist is definitely not going to be happy.
"Why don't you just get out there and do the things you enjoy doing? You will meet someone for sure." This is one of the good ones because this often comes from the land of the "been-marrieds". These folks still hold hands when in the grocery store and have been together so long that their idea of the famous online "wink" is the little paper notes we handed each other in the hallways at school. When you ask them questions about when they were single they act it out as follows, we will use Dave and Jenny for the purpose of this story because they seem annoyingly in love. "Oh wow, honey, I don't remember exactly. That was so long ago." I had asked Jenny a question about how long it took Dave for him to call her. We are on their back patio and Dave is flipping burgers on the grill. Jenny is pruning her rose bush and she stops after my question and tilts her head much like a dog does when you ask if it wants to go to the park. "Dave, do you remember?" Dave gives a little chuckle and moves the burgers back and forth one millimeter with his tongs and shrugs his shoulders then looks at me, "When I met Jenny, I just knew." Jenny is now glowing and she shuffles over in her little jean shorts to give him a kiss on the check. I lean over and vomit in Jenny's roses.
"you just gotta get out there and ask him out. You are a strong woman that knows what she wants and this can be intimidating for a guy." This statement comes from the following people, my dad, my uncle, my grandfather, my high school basketball coach, my revenue manager, my old food and beverage director and Tom Hanks. Well, one of those people is not necessarily true, but if I bet you he would tell me the same thing if he knew me. All of these people in my life are assuming that men out there are afraid and just waiting for a beautiful woman to sweep them off their feet. These men are shy but after the first 14 dates they start to really warm up and a nice strong woman is what they need. "you just need to show those men what they need to do. Teach them what they should say to a woman and how they should treat them." I look at these individuals and say "but I am already raising one man, why should I be responsible for raising another?" This conversation is usually ended by a little tousle of the hair and a kiss on the forehead. These people also assume I am still a child and that finding the right guy would just be nifty.
My all time favorite of all the advice I get from people "you have to stop looking, it will come when you least expect it." This makes me want to jump over the table and dump queso on your head or overnight a drum set and new puppy to each of your children. I am not sure which one I would do first but just know that is the option. There are only 3 people in the history of dating who ever found the person that they were with when they weren't looking. Maybe you were one of them, ok WHATEVER!! but for the rest of the dating world that doesn't work. If you give me the bull shit of how you were at a party with your friends and how you weren't looking for a boyfriend at that time and how you were just in a place where you didn't want to date, I call bull shit. You may have been distracted from the idea of dating at that moment you met him, but you were not standing with your forehead pressed to the wall with your fingers in your ears going "lalalalalalalala" you were at a party, mingling with people, and you met someone. This comment comes from people that forget what its like to be single. The ones that are too tired to give you any real advice, so they draw from the stack of "lame expressions to tell your single friends so that they will go away" pile.
"Call him. Call him. Call him now!!" This is coming from the friend that is your "report to me first" friend. She sits on her knees and stairs at you all wide eyed and even bites her bottom lip when she waits for you to grab your phone. "C'mon, call him NOW". You sit back, a little amused and also frightened at her as she is starting to stare at your phone which is closer to her than to you. You wonder how quickly you can grab it and even point to an imaginary thing on the wall behind her and say "what is that?' So you can grab the phone before she does and calls him for you. "no, I'm not going to call him, I am going to let him call ME." You lean back in your chair, fingers slowly walking toward your phone so as to nonchalantly pick it up. She has the same expression on her face as a little girl after you ask her if she wants some ice cream.
My head is filled with advice. From my hairdresser to my family to my coworkers to the person in line at the grocery store to my therapist....well, I guess I pay my therapist to give me advice, so we will let that one slide.
From the moment I became second time single, I have been trying to get rid of the "give me advice PLEASE" tattoo that has taken over my forehead. But it's hard. Either people are all professionals when it comes to the relationship department or they just want to hear themselves talk. Some of the advice I love, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want it. I also realize that putting these blogs out there opens me up to the "what do you think" portion of our program. I know it comes with the territory, just maybe ease up a little on the advice of your single friends out there looking for love and lean more toward the "listening" part. You have to understand that being single in your 40's is not easy. We are constantly hanging out with our married friends, wishing that we could have just five minutes of what you have in your lifetime. Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side of the dating pool, but sometimes we have to figure out on our own how to get in the water.
