RELATIONSHIP? HUH? WHAT?

Dear Reader,

A friend of mine asked me the other night what I was looking for in a relationship. Of course, what he meant was the kind of relationship that the word “RELATIONSHIP” can only mean, that is, the kind between a man and a woman, who would be me. I answered, honestly, that at that time, I had no real idea what I was looking for.

Over the years I’ve pretty much determined what I want in my relationships with friends, coworkers, clients, family, and others. My circle of relationships of these types is fairly extensive. Primary are honesty, mutuality, respect, openness, communication, and for many of these relationships, unconditionality. I know that in the real world this last quality is really only available from my cats and the dogs I know out in the Park I work in, but I at least hope that my family and closest friends feel some sort of unconditional affection for me, as I do, or try to do, for them.

But, what I want from a RELATIONSHIP is something I haven’t thought about for nearly 15 years. I pretty much gave up on ever having a RELATIONSHIP back then, after the last big breakup, which inspired a major meltdown on my part. It took me a long time to recover from this, but I decided that I was simply not going to go through that process again. It was just too risky and potentially painful, and like flying, I could choose whether or not I wanted to participate. I chose not to.

I took a great risk about 7 years ago with a man I had known in college, and it ended in utter disaster for me. My resolve on this topic became steeled; I was not going to do this again. I worked on making myself as unavailable as possible: kept a bunch of weight on, dressed sexlessly, hardened my exterior as much as I could, and generally desocialized. I gave up on the idea that I would ever meet a man with whom the feelings were mutual. I decided this was simply never going to happen, and I was not going to deal with men in that way, or make myself in any way available for them to deal with me. Now, to be clear, I never had any other type of interaction; women simply do not interest me in that way at all. I have many female friends, but it never occurred to me to have a RELATIONSHIP with a woman. I gave up on the concept of RELATIONSHIP entirely.

I don’t know quite when or how things changed in me to get me in a situation where I have been posed this question, “What do I want from a RELATIONSHIP?” But they did, about 6 months or so ago.

I can fairly easily describe the traits I would like in a man: very intelligent, funny, verbal, wry, articulate, open, in touch with his emotions even if he won’t admit it (yeah, I know it’s corny), musical, strong, open-minded, non-judgmental (at least of me), spontaneous, but not dangerously so, worldly, expressive, physical, sexual, generous. I would add “likes to be outdoors at least some of the time,” active, interests other than work but enjoys his work/career and is good at it, has friends other than me, is happy with me having friends other than him, lets me do my own things, shows at least some passing interest in them, shows me his and lets me decide if I want to join in, likes cats and possibly dogs, space allowing, doesn’t run screaming into the night if he meets my family. I’m sure there’s more, but these are the basics. Oh, yeah, and lives in and loves New York City.

But this doesn’t address the question of what I want from a RELATIONSHIP with this theoretical man. This is much more difficult, because although I have met many men who incorporate at least some of my “wish-list,” and some who incorporate most of it, I have never had a successful interaction with any of them.

With this in mind, I need to ponder the question for a while longer before I formulate and post an answer in this forum. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

All the best,
Catbird