Holiday Lonlies

The holidays are tough.  The shopping, parking, the chaos, cooking, family, the long cold dark days . . . .Do I need to continue? It almost makes even agnostic/semi-atheistic folks like myself glad that the Christian propaganda machine co-opted a mid-winter holiday that's taken over the globe.

The holidays are tough for the folks who have family.  Now, in some way, we all have family.  There are three basic family types when I think about it. 
* The first is your given family.  They are the people who raised you, potentially genetic relations, potentially adoptive relations. 
* The second is a family you choose.  I have a handful of close friends who are my family.  Especially when living overseas, this kind of family is common and necessary. When you live far away from your given family, you need other people to make your life abroad.  These are the people that you depend on, who bring you soup when you are sick, who celebrate your birthday with you, who cry along with you and then drink along with you.
* The third family is the one you make, i.e. marriage, relationships and procreation/adoption. Obvious! Also, one I don't have at the mo.

Holidays exacerbate a situation for people are lacking family.  I think of myself as a friendly, active person with people in her life.  That said, this holiday season, my given family (what little of it I have) were away.  My chosen family are, for the most part, in other countries and other parts of this country.  E was my rock as he hosted brunch on Christmas.  He is the Star of Bethlehem in my Christmas story this year.  Other than that, no one was around.  Not for fault of their own, I'm not blaming them.  It's impossible to pluck a friend from Madrid, a few from Jakarta, one from California, etc, etc, until we get the "beam me up" style technology I keep hoping for. All that considered, I had pangs of loneliness and twinges of depression.

Apparently, I am not the only one.  I had a few first dates in December.  I thought I was doing pretty well only to find out that a couple of my friends had even more dates.  One girlfriend had about seven dates in two weeks.  Another male friend had so many I couldn't keep them straight as he was telling me about them.  How did I not know that December was dating gold?

Granted, the results don't seem to be any better (or worse) than dating any other time of the year. Santa didn't bring me Mr. Fantastic this year.  I didn't stumble into him while Christmas shopping rom-com style. But, as I always advocate, meeting more people means that the laws of averages have to bend in your favor at some point!

I am interested to see what happens now, after the new year has sprung and we are in the marshlands between NYE and Valentine's Day. Will the dates continue? Will men lay low until after cupid has disappeared for another year?  In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed as the last of the holiday cheer runs its course. Another first day next week!

Managing Expectations

There are lots of ways I manage expectations. 

Growing up I expected, without consciously knowing it, that I would grow up, meet Mr. Right, have kids, a house, a dog.  I think many women mature under the notion that there is someone for every one.  I no longer expect there is.

I fight the expectations that society sets. I suppose I could say I ignore those expectations, but fight makes it sound intentional  The romantic comedy routine, the way books and stories tell us we'll fall for each other and it will be magical from the beginning.  The societal expectations that we all pair up, procreate and live mildly miserably ever after. Most of you can guess I eschewed that assupmtion about the time I left the country.


I realize that all relationships are a bit of reconciling the ideal with the close enough. It's part of the dating beast. What I want and what's out there to be had aren't a matching file. My list consists of a few "deal breakers", some "strongly advised to have" and lots of "this would be nice as bonus".  The older I get the less willing I am to settle with a guy who isn't close enough to right for me.  The less willing I am to take crap.  And I have reconciled myself to the fact that it might mean I'm single a long while longer.

I no longer expect a call.  This is a tricky one because on the one hand I think know that I'm a great catch. I'm intelligent, well-traveled, blah, blah, blah.  That being the case, I have come to expect a lot of lousy dates to get to the few good ones.  Yet, even after a great date, I doubt there will be a call or a second date.  Why?  Because expecting there will be leads to disappointment, and that makes for a sad panda. Am I cold and jaded? Maybe.  Am I less upset than I used to be? Maybe.

There is a tiny sliver of my conscious, on the border of the subconscious, that has forseen my life without a partner in it.  An expectation of sorts really.  I'm not quite ready to give in to that one but I know it there and don't feel haunted by it.

When I'm on a date I make sure I am not giving signals that would allow him to assume (expect) that he's going to get laid, that I'm a doormat for him to trod on, that I am looking for happily ever after or that I am less than awesome.  One can only do so much about another persons expectations though. Mine are more than enough to juggle.