Polarity

"It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes."
- Arianna Stassinopoulos

My son comes home with a love note from his little girlfriend yesterday. It's a full page long, painstakingly handwritten, and it's adorable. Since my dyslexic boy can't read the note, he asks me to read it to him.

I'm watching his face as I read, we are laying together on the living room floor. He's smiling. He's listening. He's happy. He really likes this little girl, she's definitely his "first love". I finish reading this letter, that ends with, "I really love you" and turn to him. I'm smiling, I'm on the verge of happy tears, and he smiles back at me.

"Wow, babe. Your first love note. What do you think?" I ask, waiting to hear some tremendous outpouring of emotion that matches what she just gave to him.

Instead, he shrugs his shoulders, picks up his little matchbox car and says, "Mom, do you think this is the coolest car I have?"

WHAT?

Men and women are tremendously different, and nowhere is this more obvious than in intimate relationships. It's been a topic that seems to have taken on a great deal of importance to me and to some of the people I'm close to so it's something I've given a great deal of thought to as well. Here are some things I've noticed (yes, they are generalizations, and yes there are exceptions to the rule).

Women view every man they date through glasses that are specifically colored to screen the man for his "forever potential". It's not our fault, it's biology. Since the dawn of man, women have done this for reasons very necessary to survival. Women needed a strong man to protect and provide for her while she nursed the offspring and kept the cave clean. She needed that security and stability.

I would like to believe that my criteria is quite a bit different than my Cave Sister's was - I don't "need" a man to provide for me. I'm not out actively searching for the best hunter to fill my belly with the most meat and wrap the warmest hides around me while simultaneously protecting me from the neighboring tribe. I don't need the biggest, strongest most virile man in the village to repeatedly impregnate me to carry on the legacy.

However, when I honestly think about the criteria that I do seek, my requirements are not all that different. The intellect and humor I seek are survival mechanisms in our modern world, and I wouldn't mind being protected from the aggressive tribesman next door. I don't seek the biggest and strongest guy in the village, per se...but you all know how those big boys just melt me and make me forget my own fucking name...and while being impregnated is not real high on the to-do list, I do want the man that makes me want to have Caveman Sex - all the time. I can't help it, it's part of my very fiber, embedded in my DNA from thousands of years ago.

Surprise, surprise...I digressed. The bottom line of all this is that women seek the stability that's implied in "forever". Women seek to build a home, to nurture and to provide a safe haven for their family. We know pretty quick if they have that forever potential (I can tell you the answer to that question in regards to ANY man in about 5 hours), and if they do, we throw our all into it. We give them our hearts and our soul almost immediately. Then we don't understand why the feelings are not reciprocated just as effortlessly and with the same totality.

Men are hardwired differently, it all goes back to biology. Just as we aren't to blame for falling hard and fast, men aren't to blame for being more aloof in love. Men are meant to carry on the species, and to do so, they are obligated to share their seed with any and every willing receptacle that comes along. No, no - that's not right. That sounds bitter and it's not meant to at all. To clarify, men are drawn to the women (plural) that will help carry on the legacy in a good way - so men are drawn to the woman that appears as if she will be a suitable partner, primarily for sex and primarily to carry out his legacy. Of course, today men don't seek to sire children with every woman, but the things they notice first are the physical characteristics. Once that has been well-established, I think they begin to look at other aspects, like which woman will keep the cave the nicest, which woman will build the best fires and which woman will make the most enticing stew out of the meat they brought her - but initially, it's really about sex.

When they aren't ensuring the longevity of the tribe, they are out chasing mastodons with the cool new spear they fashioned out of rock, a couple of twigs and three drops of sap from some tree. Its imprinted on their DNA just like our relationship pathologies are imprinted on ours.

But all of this is only half the battle, my friends. If you really think about it, it's more than remarkable that any two people meet and fall in love. Not only do you have to be attracted to a man enough to be interested, you have to have that interest extend into "forever potential" - he has to fit your picture.

As if that weren't enough, you have to fit his picture, too. The reasons you may not fit his picture are as wide and as varied as the reasons he might not fit yours. You might have everything in the world going for you, and then discover that your perfume reminds him of his least favorite aunt. He might have everything in the world going for him, but the way he waves his hands when he talks reminds you of your distant, but strange, cousin.

Ultimately, none of it matters. I don't want to be with someone if I don't fit his picture. Conversely, the times I've tried to date someone that didn't fit my picture have ended fairly disastrously. Many people have told me that I need to relax the criteria that appear in my picture - that it's too rigid, too unyielding and too lofty. I disagree. My picture is important to me and it's what I want. I won't settle for less and neither should anyone else.

The explosion that occurs when you realize you genuinely love someone, that you couldn't possibly live without them? I have no idea, honestly I've never felt it. But I'm optimistic that someday I will. Until then, I'm going to watch you boys toss your McGuyver'ed spears around and think about how hot you look slaying wild beasts.

There's a storm coming, I can feel the change in the air and I've read the weather reports. It's going to be a big one - the Perfect Storm. I'm at the edge of a high pressure system, but it's not quite time yet. I'm going to prepare myself right now, while things are calm so that when it hits, I'll be able to recognize it and embrace it. Then, I'm going to sit back and happily watch it roll in with the intensity and wild beauty that I expect; content in the knowledge that I'm ready for all that it brings.