The fun part…

…about having someone link to you (even if it is in a semi-snippy manner) is finding a new blog that’s alternately funny/enlightening/provocative to read.

From an older post’s comment section:

…something my godfather had shared with me when I was a teenager: “Don’t marry someone unless you can’t imagine *not* marrying him.” With all former dates/boyfriends I easily could envision life without them, as well as perhaps a life with them (and the problems/issues that we had together). Not so my husband. We married within a year of our first date. And I still can’t (or don’t want to) imagine being without him.

I haven’t posted much about dating lately, primarily because there simply isn’t much to post. As I wrote before, I reactivated my match.com membership in January. Within perhaps a month (okay, maybe two), I realized that still, my heart just isn’t in it. Each time before that I’ve said this, I’ve framed it as, “I’m just not ready.” Finally, I admitted to myself that it’s not so much about being ready; it’s about just not wanting it.

Wrapping my brain around this realization — that I simply am not interested in bringing someone into my life to stir things up — is taking a little adjustment. At the same time, it’s freeing. If I imagine where I will be in five years, I just don’t see myself married. I see myself successful in my own right, parenting my beautiful girl, and perhaps planning for adoption of a second child. A man never enters that imagination. Yet still, I’ve pushed myself to date.

I recently talked to my counselor about this and he helped me to see that I need to let go (even more than I thought I already had) of what people tell me I *should* want, to focus on what it is that I *actually* want. I like the idea of a relationship, really…but in all practicality, I keep thinking that the men I see would make life more work for me rather than providing the friendship and partnership that I crave.

On that note, hat tip to Katie for pointing me toward this article. It pretty well sums up much of what I fear when I think about dating. A snippet:

We seem to have carried with us the unreconstructed sexism of the past — the objectification of women, inability to connect or communicate — but discarded its redeeming virtues. Where traditional masculinity embraced marriage, children and work as rites of passage into manhood, the 21st century version shuns them as emasculating, with the wife cast in the role of the castrating mother. The result resembles a childlike fantasy of manhood that is endowed with the perks of adulthood — money, sex, freedom — but none of its responsibilities.

Take a look at the rest; it’s worth a read. I know that there are men out there who haven’t been sucked into this mentality. Perhaps when I meet one, I might find myself inspired to get involved. I’d love to meet someone I couldn’t imagine not having in my life.