Rebelling Against Fickle Men

I've been living in the on-line dating world for awhile. Everything about me wants to rebel against this strange way to meet guys and maybe even find romance. But there actually doesn't seem to be too many alternatives. Generally it can be a lot fun.  I like the dating part and meeting new people.  I'm not too nervous because I don't take it too seriously.  But when I do, I seem to get myself into trouble. Why?

Fickle men.

Growing up hippy, I never learned manspeak.  So I actually thought that when a guy says:  "I need some space because of life issues"  he was saying "I need some space because of life issues."  And when he said: "It's not you. It's me."  he meant "It's not you. It's me."

I really truly did not know it meant: "Two days ago I thought I loved you, but guess not. Bye."

Fickle men.

When did it become so difficult to just say: "You are cool.  I am cool.  But the relationship probably isn't.  Let's split and discover new adventures."

Come on,  that can't be all that hard. Why don't guys just say what they mean?  Or maybe they don't know.  Hmmm...

And how can you go from 100% in to 100% out in one breath? Doesn't it take time to get over someone you have shared your body, heart and mind with?

And wouldn't you actually like to be friends with an ex-lover?  I would.

These are men I truly liked or I would not spend time with them.  Romance is cool.  But I really really adore my guy friends.

So why exactly do these splits need to be so clean? Isn't life supposed to be sort of messy?

As you can hear,  I've got way more questions than answers about this whole dating/romance/who knows thing.

Fickle life.

Out Of Control?

I dreamt of a tidal wave, didn't get swept away but it was a wake-up call. As you can imagine, when you have vivid dreams like that you wake up pretty shaken. Upon analyzing my dream, I realized I've been bottling up lots of feelings and emotions. To me, the dream symbolizes that I have to get rid of old habits that are no longer serving me, before I really do get carried away by the tidal wave of life. Time to start in a new place. As any human on this planet, there are always overwhelming emotional issues that demand our attention.  We burn the candle at both ends and the middle.  Are you a chaos addict or an adrenaline junkie?  The problem is when it shows.  Revealing the unbalance when you are late for everything, unprepared, disorganized, and forgetful.  People need to take care of themselves. We need wise selfishness in all kinds of relationships. If you need time for yourself, you must take it or else you'll feel like a plant trying to grow in the driest soil. We must water and nurture ourselves. People need growth and stability.

On a positive note, a wake-up call like this is refreshing when you realize that you need to make brand new starts in certain places of your life and clear away old things. It's a renewal process.  Like a butterfly shedding its cocoon and flying, living free and happy.   Is it time for change? People view change to be a scary or intimidating thing. It's time to confront  and quiet down those overwhelming rough waters and have calm peaceful balance.  When those waves creep back up again, we can learn how to surf and enjoy them.  Instead of being terrified and disturbed by uncertainties, we can learn how to ride the waves out.

How having sons can enhance your career

I am a marketer. Having sons has made me look at life in different ways and rebel against some of my thinking.  It has also made me much better at what I do. Expect the unexpected.  I have only sisters.  My mother had sisters. My father had sisters.  Then my sisters and I started pumping out boys.  I was totally unprepared to raise sons -- from the hosing during a diaper change  to the endless loudness and roughhousing that I always thought meant they were trying to kill each other (they were not.)  They truly were weird and exotic creatures to me. And they made me look at the world completely differently.

Here's the thing about being a marketer -- it works best when I discover the unexpected.  It may be a customer insight.  It may be a benefit to a product that was not originally planned. It may be spotting a trend.  The unexpected feeds the creative juices and can truly make a different in persuading people to buy a product or service.

Men and women are different. I can hear you scoffing: "She really didn't know that?!?"  Well, not really.  See, between having only sisters and coming of age in a generation intent on proving that women and men were equal, I didn't really believe that boys were innately different than girls.  So while my sons were raised progressively,  they totally preferred trucks, guns and action figures from the beginning.  They wouldn't have been caught dead in a dollhouse and had absolute distain for anything pink or frilly.  The big exceptions were Cabbage Patch kids and stuffed animals.

At the beginning of my career as a marketer,  we really didn't make much of a distinction between men and women. Geography, age, interests, attitude and purchasing patterns were the variables we tended to look at. But then we all started to wake up. Companies finally understood that women often think and act differently than men.  No longer was it enough for a car salesperson to include a wife in the conversation; cars started being directly marketed to women.  Now we enter an age where youth is pushing the boundaries to a no gender place.  What fun!

Emotional guys.  From my conversations with other mothers, I assumed that girls -- particularly teenagers -- would be emotional wrecks on a high wire while boys would be more collected and calm. Girls would wear their hearts on their sleeves; boys would be stoic.  Nope. My sons were emotional as kids and are still emotional as adults.  It's one of the reasons why they are such amazing fathers.  They don't try to hide joy or sadness all that much.  They have big, big hearts.

I think smart advertisers really get that emotion moves men just as much as women.  Budweiser. Microsoft. Jeep.  Just take a look at these Super Bowl commercials.

Do we need to show men weeping or bring them to tears? Nope.  I haven't seen my son Joe cry in 15 years.  But, when I see him playing with his daughter,  it is pure emotion.