Author: howtobemeagain

In which I ponder…ageing and ageism

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cate-blanchett-cover

So I’m in Canberra at the Australian Association of Gerontology’s National Conference and I have to say that I’m feeling a bit bleak.

Not just because I’m in Canberra*, but also because I’m finding out a lot of very worrying information about myself.

Here I am, a mere 18 months or so off being 50 and feeling quite dynamic really. I feel like my career has taken off again over the last few years, that I still have a lot to give and that there is still a fair bit of progression/promotion left in me. I feel better about my body than I probably ever have. And I’m probably fitter than I was in my 30s. If you ignore a tendency to forget what I was talking about, I think my mind is generally as sharp as it’s ever been. It’s certainly more full of stuff anyway.

But apparently, things are not looking good for me. I can’t tell you the number of times over the last few days that I’ve checked in with a speaker to see what they mean by ‘older’ and been told 50. The Older Women’s Network starts at 45 for God’s sake! And suddenly I feel old and relegated to the scrap heap.

The news everyone has for me is not good either. I am apparently more likely to be discriminated against at work, passed over for promotion and unable to find employment after being retrenched. As a woman, if I am single, over 50 and living in rental accommodation (oops) I am at significantly higher risk of homelessness after I retire than other groups. Of course my disease risk is much higher too, and I’m more likely to be lonely and lack social connections, especially if I’m single – and the news there is not just the tragedy of being Billy No Mates but also the added bonus of a research study that has shown that weak social connections has the same impact on our health as smoking, and increases your risk of death by between 50% and 90%. Awesome.

There has been some good news though. Older people (in this particular study, they meant over 65s – yay!) are the biggest growth group in online dating and the evidence is that they are having lots of sex with multiple partners (again yay for ageing!). However the reason we know this is that there has been a 50% increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections in the age group (oh…). It seems this age group, who often have had only one sexual partner in their life prior to divorce or bereavement, missed out on sex ed and see condoms only as barrier protection against pregnancy and not against disease. Thankfully, there are people working on addressing this.

On the other hand though, another study that was presented found positive correlation between sexual activity and physical intimacy, and happiness in older people in Australia**, so despite having gonorrhea, all those over 65s are probably feeling pretty perky.

I don’t want to think that all the future holds for me is loneliness, unemployment, homelessness and a nasty case of syphilis. I think you’ll agree that would be disproportionate. It’s hard to believe that my career might already be over (one of the speakers talked about reaching the peak of your career around 50 and then opportunities diminishing. If that’s true, I’m in trouble), and although I’m currently in retirement from the dating scene, I do try to keep an optimistic outlook – either about eventually meeting someone, or having a great life on my own.

However, I am a bit concerned about how our demographic changes and the ‘grey tsunami’ that’s on its way will work against the backdrop of a society that so values youthfulness. Which is where the photo above of Cate Blanchett comes in. Cate was born within a year of me. In the photo above she has been clearly photo shopped so that there is not a wrinkle in sight. She is as lithe as a teenager. Now to be fair, even when she hasn’t been photo shopped she is exceptionally beautiful, but really that’s the point. Magazines exort us to look younger, they try to sell us clothes that are modeled by girls who are as young as our daughters, and promote images of older women that are unachievable and what’s more, dishonest.

And how does all that play out in real life, for the normal, single woman who is knocking 50? Well I was recently out for dinner with a male, single friend and we were discussing male attitudes to women’s bodies. I was initially reassured when he was telling me about how much he appreciated ‘real’ women’s bodies with curves and imperfections and the maturity that older women bring. But later when we were having a laugh and comparing online dating profiles, it turned out that the age range he had specified started at 27 and ended a year before my age. He’s 5 years older than me. So when it comes to it, they say – hey – I see your wisdom, your emotional maturity, and your valiant efforts to hold back time and be the best version of your 48 year old self that you can – and that’s great and everything. But I’ll trump that with some pert breasts, some shapely legs and a flat tummy unravaged by pregnancy and childbirth*** thank you very much.

Where will it all end? Who knows? Tomorrow I have Elder Abuse – what’s so special? Existing legal protections and Re-imagining Ageing to look forward to. I’ll let you know if there is any better news…

*by far the weirdest city on the planet (oh ok – Australia), but I have to say it’s growing on me. Everything is so new, and so planned, and so very neat. And there are nooks and crannies and gardens with lots of public art. So not so bad.

**Seriously. Surely no one was surprised by that?

***and the Peroni, KitKat and pack of Pringles from the mini bar I had while writing this

In which I ponder….Lemonade

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So…it’s finally properly and completely over.

Although we’ve been separated over 5 years and divorced for almost exactly 1 year, I have only just today received our court stamped financial settlement.

I’m neither happy nor sad about it really. It’s good to know that I will no longer be lining the pockets of lawyers, and that I at last know what the future is likely to look like financially. I’m never going to be rich but I’m not going to be poor either, and that’s fine. I won’t have the sort of life I would have had if I had remained in the marriage, but for every material thing I’ll no longer have, I’ll have a ton of happiness to which I previously would not have had access.

There was no fighting about the settlement – I took what I was offered, and I didn’t ask for more. But I was careful to seek legal advice throughout the process so my decisions – although often against the advice of my lawyers – were well informed. The most important thing for me was to maintain my integrity and find a path through what was equitable and fair, and what was enough. In the end I went for enough, because what I was offered was enough. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling that I was lucky that my ex husband was so successful. I want to spend the rest of my life knowing that I’ve worked hard and that with hard work comes rewards.

It would have been easy in some respects to fight – and certainly that was what my lawyers were hoping for, since it would have lined their pockets. But if you should ever find yourself in a similar position, make sure you consider whether the psychological and emotional toll of the process would be worth the potential financial gains. I was constantly aware of the incongruency of feeling envious about the fact that my ex appears to live in such comparative splendor given that I have spent my entire career working to improve the lives of the disadvantaged. Why should I be entitled to anything better than the actually very nice life I already have?

But envy is an insidious thing. It creeps up on you as you scroll through your social media feeds, watching your friends living the life you expected to have post childrearing – exotic travel, holiday property purchases, renovations, rediscovering romance with your loved one. It mixes up with anger and takes you back to a place you thought you had left. Then I realized that my envy was really just a disguise for the grief I was experiencing for the life I had lost, both present and future, that I thought was going to be mine and ended up being one of the casualties of divorce. And I was reminded, again, that nothing is guaranteed, nothing can be promised, and that you have to make your own luck.

Even without fighting though, I found the process draining and demeaning. In addition to my inner turmoil about the above, the system seems to consider that the material assets built up over the course of a 21 year relationship belong to your husband, who may, out of the goodness of his heart, decide to give you some. Then you are supposed to be grateful and consider yourself lucky.

I refuse to be grateful.

I am grateful for my beautiful children, and I am grateful that I have the means to support myself going forwards – but everything I have taken from my marriage is part of what I helped to build up and as such I have taken my share. I am not lucky that my ex husband is successful – we (he and I) are lucky that over the course of our relationship we jointly built up a life and careers from which we will both continue to benefit.

Now I can start the work of really planning how I will protect my financial interest going forwards – something that I should have been doing all along.

I already know that leaving my husband is the best thing I ever did for myself. I’ve never regretted it, although I’ve found it hard to process. But I will no longer torture myself over what was done, or not done, or could have been done. I will not wish for the life I would have had, or mourn the one I’d left. I will race forwards in life, reaching out for all the opportunities I would have missed, all the adventures I would not have had, all the lovers I would not have kissed.

And should I ever find myself in a similar position again – God forbid – I will simply channel Beyoncé…

“This is your final warning…

  You know I give you life

  If you try this shit again

  Gonna lose your wife”

 

 

In which I ponder…mothering

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tired-mom2

Years ago, when I had two children under two, from time to time someone would observe my sleep deprived visage, my poor body wrecked by two difficult births and my often hysterical demeanour, and tell me that I had to enjoy it, because it would be over before I knew it, and my two beautiful babies would be gone and grown.

Frankly, if I could have, I would have happily bludgeoned some of those well-meaning people to within an inch of their lives with my double pushchair, but generally I would smile through the pain, agree and return to my life, which consisted mainly of child related activities and sobbing quietly in corners when I thought no one was looking.

I was terribly disappointed with myself. I loved my two children – of course – but at the same time I couldn’t help feeling that I had somehow ruined my perfectly good life by having them.

On reflection, I had to admit that there was really nothing in my life, prior to actually producing children, that would have suggested that I would be either good at being a mother, or indeed enjoy it. I watched some of my friends in envy as they took to it all like ducks to water, baking cakes, making jam and spending hours playing mindless games with a two year old, and appearing to be actively enjoying it all.

I, on the other hand, wanted to poke my own eyes out after 10 minutes of toddler play, and felt like a massive failure.

None of this stopped me from loving the bones of them, or from doing the things that I knew were good for them and for their development. I would have – still would – lay down my life for them. I just wanted to like it more. I had expected to like it – I had thought that even though baking and jam making and building a tower and knocking it down over and over and over and over again had never interested me before, that the act of pushing a child out my nether regions would perform some sort of hormonal miracle and I’d find all that stuff fun.

It didn’t. And I didn’t.

I felt like my life, and my self concept was disappearing – being subsumed to the needs of others. And now, looking back with the benefit of maturity and experience, I realize that essentially that is what mothering is. What seems like a sacrifice at the time is in fact a brilliant quid pro quo arrangement, where you give up your life and in return you get a lifetime of parenthood which actually knocks pre parenthood into a cocked hat and then stamps on it.

Thankfully, as they got older, I got better at it, it got more interesting and as a result it got easier. And now just at the moment when I could honestly, without a hint of irony, say that being a mother has actually been the best, the most important, the most fulfilling and the most challenging experience of my life, and that my children have brought me more joy, more laughter, and more love than I ever thought possible, I find myself the mother of two adults aged 18 and 20 who are contemplating flying the nest completely.

So, stand down your double buggies ladies and listen to me. Cherish every moment. Know that your best is good enough. Because it turns out they were right.

It is over before you know it…

 

 

 

In which I ponder…sex and thenearly fifties

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zac-efron-spray-down-baywatch-set-01

It is a sad fact, universally acknowledged, that my next significant birthday will launch me into a half century.

I can’t say that I am thrilled about that.

I approached my 40th birthday with some excitement. Life was going pretty well thank you very much, and I felt like reaching this milestone would finally allow me to join the ranks of the proper grown ups.

In the event, things worked out rather differently to how I had imagined. At the time I was writing a different blog, and I wrote about my fortieth birthday here. You can read it if you like…

Anyway, I’m feeling rather less positive about being 50. It’s as if in the decade between turning 40 and turning 50, I’ve rushed along developmentally, succeeded in becoming a grown up and then peaked too soon and joined the geriatrics. All in one very fast decade. When I went to renew my drivers license I was not allowed a 10 year one – because I am too old. Perhaps they think I will not make it through the next 10 years so there is no point in me wasting time and money on my drivers license. Or perhaps they think I will lose my marbles. Who knows. All I know is that it made me feel very, very old.

But the other thing that makes me feel very old – and very tired – is the idea that when I turn 50 I might (probably) still be single. Not that being single in itself is so bad, but because there is something – in my mind anyway – so deeply tragic about dating at that age that I’ve decided that when that time comes I shall retire gracefully and invest in some cats. And perhaps some knitting needles.

In the meantime though*, I continue to be a woman in her late 40s who often finds herself on dates with men who are around 50, many of whom are very interesting. I really don’t have anything against dating men in this age group except for one thing – they seem to have little or no understanding of female sexuality.

Take, for example, a recent unhappy experience, which sadly has not been unique – either to me, or to other single girlfriends.

I met a man on an online dating site. He was funny and we had some shared interests, so based on that I agreed to meet him on a Sunday afternoon in a café. We met and the conversation flowed freely over a pot of Earl Grey Tea. And then, after we’d finished our tea – just the one pot – he asked me whether I’d like to go round to his place – with an unmistakeable glint in his eye which sadly I’ve seen way too often.

Now, had George Clooney or Zac Efron** turned up that café, there is chance that I might have viewed an invitation to join one or other of them (or maybe both of them!) at their place with some excitement. I might even have suggested we give the Earl Grey a miss and get right to it.

As it was, the man sitting across the table from me looked like a fairly average 50 year old. Balding, a bit of a paunch and slightly suspect dress sense. None of this stopped him, of course, from being interesting, even potentially attractive, given the chance to get to know him. But the thing is this. When you are a balding, slightly overweight man who has reached his half century and is wearing a shirt that screams ‘I don’t have a partner and haven’t had for a while’, you are going to need to do more than provide me with a pot of Earl Grey Tea to facilitate the removal of my underwear.

The reality is that at our ages we can’t just rely on our physical presence and a cuppa to provide enough of a frisson to persuade someone to join us in the bedroom. Or at least men who meet me can’t, and I suspect I am not alone.

It’s not that men who are 50 are not attractive. It’s more that actually they have so much more to offer than they allow me to discover if they move straight from cups of tea to bedroom gymnastics. It’s going to be rare that you meet a man in my age group who – by virtue purely of their physicality – makes you stop in your tracks and try to drag them off to the nearest boudoir. But I’m sure that – or at least I hope that – there are men who are willing to let me get to know them, and are interested in getting to know me, so that we can both discover what else we have to offer beyond our now less than perfect bodies that might make us want to find out what’s beneath our clothes.

But that takes a bit of time, gentlemen, a bit more effort, and more than a pot of tea.

*because I’m not actually 50 until 2018, but I’m preparing myself psychologically

**my fantasy man. Inappropriately young, but such a fine specimen of a man I’m pretty certain no one is really immune to his charms. Not that I’m seeking someone who looks like that – chance would be a fine thing! That’s a picture of him up there, in case you don’t know who he is. You’re welcome.

In which I ponder…being present and finding what you’re looking for

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search

 

Anyone who is dating will know that the question we are asked most often is

“So…what are you looking for?”

In my naivety,  at the beginning of this journey, I thought people were asking me what sort of a man I was looking for – and frankly I had no idea. I’d chosen badly once, but I didn’t want to see all future men through that lens, because it seemed so negative. I found you frequently met people – men and women – who had a long list of things they knew they weren’t looking for, and they were nearly always all the things they had ended up hating about their previous partner.

I say ‘ended up’, as it’s a sad irony that often the very things that we once thought were appealing and attractive about people often end up being the things that in the end we can’t stand. For my own part, for example, I originally loved my ex husband’s lack of emotion, as I came from a family which could fairly be described as being emotionally labile. But after 21 years, I realized that this lack of emotion was not actually a cool, calm and stable disposition, but literally the absence of any sort of emotional landscape – and it’s very hard to have a meaningful and connected relationship with someone like that. Or at least it is for me.

Anyway – I digress.

Later, I came to realize that the ‘what are you looking for?’ enquiry was, in fact, code for ‘are you up for one night stands?’. I suppose it’s helpful to at least ask – and this often happens well before you’ve met I person – and it does mean that no one is wasting their time. But the last couple of times I’ve been asked it, it’s got me thinking.

Once upon a time – long, long ago (i.e the last time I was dating, over 20 years ago), this was not a question people asked. When you were dating, everyone knew what that was – you go out on dates with someone and you see how it goes. If it doesn’t go well, you stop dating and you find someone else to date. Repeat. Simples.

These days it all seems to have all become a bit unnecessarily complicated.

It seems to me that there are now two answers to ‘what are you looking for?’ and they both sit at extremes of the relationship spectrum. On the one end there is just looking for someone for tonight, thanks very much. And at the other end there is the search for ‘the one’ with whom I spend the rest of my life.

Now, it can’t just be me who is thinking that actually there is a lot of space between those two choices.

But more importantly, it occurs to me that whether we decide we are looking for something fleeting or something long term, every time we discard someone because they say they are looking for something different, we miss the opportunity to just let something grow. In the old days, occasionally one night stands led to long and happy marriages – probably because people weren’t obsessing about where this was all going. People didn’t go into relationships with an agenda – or at least I don’t think they did. And sometimes they would be taken by surprise and find themselves falling in love with someone at a time when it hadn’t occurred to them to be thinking about the long term. Certainly that happened to me – I was at University and couldn’t have been less interested in finding a husband, but I met a man and 3 years later we were married. And although it didn’t work out terribly well, we had 21 years and 2 beautiful children to show for it at the end.

But more importantly, while we are fixated on where the relationship might go, right from the beginning, we cannot claim to be being present. And by not being present, we risk enjoying the moments, which might be incremental and which, in fact, we do not know to where they might lead.

I’d like to advocate a dating movement. We could call it ‘Present Dating’. We just forget about our agenda, about finding what we’re looking for. How about we just enjoy the moments? We stop asking about what people are looking for, and we just go on dates and see how it goes. If it’s fun and you enjoy one another’s company, you carry on dating until you don’t feel like that anymore. And that could be tomorrow, next week, next year or never.

Just like the old days.

 

In which I ponder…Fakebook

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I still know one or two people who don’t use Facebook.

It’s my experience that people who have not succumbed to the questionable joys of the worlds largest social network are a bit proud of themselves. Smug even. And sometimes they imply that simply by eschewing its pleasures they are somehow on a higher intellectual plane than the rest of us – as if refusing to be part of it means that they spend their time, Jean-Paul Sartre-like, contemplating life’s deeper issues while us Facebookers waste our lives sharing photos of our dinner and pictures of kittens.

It’s far more likely that, like the rest of us, they are actually just watching trash tv and putting a load of washing on.

Personally I really like Facebook. As an emigrant, it has allowed me to keep up with friends and family, and for them to keep up with us, in an easy, instant way. It has meant that our connections across the miles have stayed strong. And I’ve been able to reconnect with people from school and University with whom I almost certainly would have lost touch without Facebook – given that I move so much. It’s actually been a massive pleasure to see how well everyone who went to my very ordinary state comprehensive school in the North of England has done.

But one of the criticisms often aimed at Facebook*, and those of us who love it, is that people just share the pictures and thoughts that make their life look marvelous, when actually we all know that our lives are relatively mundane. Facebook is full of pictures of lovely days out, declarations of love and admiration for other halves, and exciting news about the successes of our children. You rarely see an outright, all out ‘my life is shit and you should all fuck off’ post – and we all know we all have days like that. It’s almost like there is an unspoken law about it – no matter how grave your problem, on Facebook you are required to put a brave face on, be inspirational, and only occasionally allude to the darker moments in life.

So are we all inauthentic, shallow people posting only the best of our lives on Facebook? And does all this inauthenticity lead to a general malcontent leading to too much comparison – which can leave people feeling their life is not good enough, or lacking in some way?

I’ve been thinking (pondering even**) this question this week. An old friend of mine from the UK nominated me in one of those Facebook photo things, where you have to post a picture daily for a week of something ‘every day’ in your life. The thing that got me thinking is that in nominating me she said ‘because you always seem to be doing something interesting’.

Now on a quick survey of my Facebook page, this does seem to be borne out. My feed is full of photos of beautiful beaches (can’t help that – Australia is so beautiful), events attended, children’s achievements and lovely friends caught up with. I only post the stuff that is either interesting or beautiful. I admit it. You could be forgiven for thinking that I am always doing something interesting.

The reality, of course, is much less glamorous. In between all this interestingness there is going to work, housework, arguments with teenage children, broken washing machines, milk that’s gone off, more going to work, and long hours spent alone watching rubbish on the tv when you know you could have been reading your book if only you could summon up the energy to get off the sofa and find it (and more importantly – your glasses).

But is this all a bad thing?

At times in my life when I’ve really been struggling to see the positives, I have found three things, in combination, have really helped – exercise, meditation and a gratitude diary. Taking time out at the end of the day, every day, to reflect on those things for which I am grateful makes a tangible difference to how I feel about life generally. When you are doing it tough, it’s easy to allow yourself to get into a problem-saturated frame of mind, not noticing the good stuff anymore, and gratitude diaries refocus the mind to a more positive outlook***.

And it’s not just me. There is a body of evidence, and in particular, research done by Professor Robert Emmons that demonstrates the great social, psychological, and physical health benefits that come from this practice.

Since Facebook started their daily ‘memories’ feed, I’m always curious to see what it puts up from 5 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the breakdown of my marriage. You’d really hardly know that my life was imploding from the posts and photographs, apart from the odd oblique reference or cryptic message. And that’s a good reminder that even when things look really bleak, good stuff is still happening – the sun is still shining, the world is still beautiful, your friends and family are still amazing, your children are still making you proud every day.

So how about we stop seeing Facebook as Fakebook, and start seeing it as a enormous, global, online gratitude diary in which we favour the positive over the negative and celebrate the good things – big and small – that happen everyday? Who’s up for that? Because actually, those of us who have access to Facebook, have got it pretty good. The media is full of information about what’s wrong with the world – and there is plenty wrong with it – but we have a secret. At the same time as all of the fear, uncertainty and inequality we are bombarded with everyday, we also know our lives are boring, wonderful and beautiful in all their predictability, and we want to share them.

 

*Of course, the other big criticism of Facebook is that the ‘friends’ on Facebook are not ‘real’ and that the quality of those relationships is superficial and might be a barrier to developing meaningful friendships in the real world. I beg to differ though. Facebook has meant I have remained connected to people with whom I would otherwise have lost contact over the years, and I’ve actually made new, real life friends through it as well. I have two friends who I met on Facebook – one because she was selling clothes which I bought, and we became friends, and another because we both commented on a webcam at the Quay in our hometown in the UK from neighbouring suburbs in Sydney. And when my daughter recently started at a new school in a new suburb and was feeling very isolated and lonely, a young man she had met once at a party but then added on Facebook (as young people do) passed her in a corridor, recognized her and then messaged her to say hi – was she ok, she must be new, if she needed anyone to hang out with to let him know. And now they are best friends. So there. Facebook is good.

**see what I did there?

***it occurs to me that this contrasts significantly with our global approach to news, which is largely negative – as we are told that the good news stories don’t sell, and almost that good news isn’t actually news. It’s hard to believe, when looking at Facebook, that if the people controlled the media – rather than the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world – that the news would be so dark, when our personally controlled news feeds seem to make so much effort to stay in the light. But that’s probably a whole other post…

 

 

 

 

In which I ponder…times – they are changing

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vacations alone

 

Not that long ago, going on holiday used to be all about doing as little – physically – as possible. I would judge the quality of a holiday by the number of books I managed to read, and it was not uncommon for me to get through 10 books during the course of a two week  break.

I would sleep as late as two young children would allow, then move myself from my bed to a sunlounger either by a pool or a beach and read. Then I would eat my own weight in food and drink, as if there was a danger that I might be starved on my return home. Holidays were a free pass to sloth like activity and gluttony.

These days I approach holidays very differently.

These days I see holidays as an opportunity – that does not often present itself – to get in maximum exercise, whilst not succumbing to the sort of desperate, stress and tiredness fueled eating that can often punctuate my day to day life.

I still love to read, but the one week holiday I have just returned from resulted in finishing only 2 books but walking 75 km.

A typical break consists of getting up relatively early and going for a decent 7 to 10km walk. Then all I really want to do is eat a healthy lunch, lay on the beach reading a book and periodically venture into the water. I might go shopping, so long as I also have time to read and walk as well, and in the evening I’m not that bothered about going out drinking or eating – I’d rather go to bed, read and make sure I was in fine fettle for my walk in the morning.

I’m starting to realize that this is not making me a great holiday companion for many people.

This holiday I’ve been away with my daughter and my parents. My daughter is generally of the view that her legs have been designed exclusively for the purpose of dancing, and my parents are getting older and are not much up for route marches through the National Park. To her credit, my daughter did, under some duress, accompany me on one walk – the longest and probably most challenging walk I undertook during the week – but there was no way she was coming every day.

This does make me wonder whether I’m actually suited to holidays with other people. I want to be selfish when I’m away. I work hard. When I’m on holiday, I want to indulge myself. And I find increasingly that the way I most successfully indulge myself is by doing things alone. Yet at the same time, I feel terribly afraid of being in a situation where being alone is not a choice, but just my life. There is something about being on holiday alone, as a necessity, that fills me with dread.

I’ve decided though that I need to meet this fear head on. I’m going to experiment initially with short breaks alone. Years ago, during a particularly desperate moment in my marriage, I spent a week alone near Marbella – ostensibly to get over some recent relationship trauma. I learnt the hard way that for me this was not a good thing – an analytical mind that some might describe as prone to overthinking, does not benefit from a week alone even somewhere as lovely as Marbella. I had way too much time in my own head. With this in mind, I’ve decided I should not initially plunge myself into the traditional 7 days away. A few long weekends will suffice and I will see how I go.

There is a part of me that isn’t the slightest bit afraid and suspects that I will love it. I’ll let you know. And if you have a good book recommendation, please do let me know.

 

 

 

 

In which I ponder…choices, walking and Moet

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Despite being on holiday in beautiful Noosa, today has been a tough day.

The reality is that sorting out your financial settlement post divorce, and extricating yourself from joint international tax difficulties* is hard work – intellectually and emotionally.

I’ve had to sit through a teleconference involving both my family lawyers and my tax lawyers, and I just can’t help thinking that there must be an easier, quicker and more efficient way to do all of this.

And of course, there is. I can forgo my right to legal representation, and just sign all the documents that I’ve been sent by my ex husband.

There isn’t a day that I don’t wish that’s what I had done. This process has been way more complicated, and has taken a much greater psychological toll than I had ever anticipated. But the reality is that I spent most of my marriage with my eyes shut, or open just enough to only see the things that didn’t make my stomach twist and my heart ache, and I promised myself that I would come out of it with my eyes wide open, and having ensured that I was aware of all the facts. For the first time in my adult life I wanted to make an important life decision in possession of all the relevant facts.

Right from the moment that I made the discovery that led to asking my husband to leave, there has been a part of me that wishes I could have allowed myself to continue my life in blissful ignorance. But I know that the path to real happiness – to joy perhaps – to go through your life journey properly present, aware of all its pains and its pleasures. And I made a choice, in the moment that I said ‘you will have to leave’, to do that.

And lately I’ve also started to really understand that how I deal with these issues is also a choice, that there is not much point in choosing presence if my default position is always to allow myself to fall into distress when I experience an upset or a reminder. It’s unrealistic to expect it not to hurt, to not feel sad, angry, frustrated. But that I need to acknowledge these feelings and then work to move on from them.

The best way I’ve found of doing this is to walk determinedly, a little too fast, for as long as it takes to make it all feel a little better. It’s unrealistic not to feel these things, but I’ve discovered that walking, outdoors, preferably somewhere beautiful, does the trick about 98% of the time. And if you can do this with someone you love, and who loves you back, all the better.

And for the other 2% of the time there is Moet.

*Yep. I totally get that this is a bit of a first world sort of problem. It’s not as international as say, a Mossack Fonseca style problem, but for me, it’s still been a big headache…

In which I ponder…chemistry

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Chemistry

Before I joined the single hoards, and probably before, I was a great believer in chemistry. You have to have it, I thought. Real love and real, lasting relationships have to start with that special something which hits you like a thunderbolt and tells you, amongst other things, that you need to get this person naked somewhere.

This, of course, entirely ignored the fact that I had married a man who I thought was an arrogant dickhead on our first meeting.

My ex-husband had been at the same school as my sister’s first husband and I met him at their engagement party. I had attended the event with a university friend who had – by really anyone’s standards – exceptionally large breasts. He had spent the evening talking to them and being a bit of an arse and I thought nothing much further of it until shortly before the wedding, when my sister told me he had requested to sit on the same table as me.

On reflection, this may have been in the hope that I would bring my generously endowed friend with me, but the rest, as they say, is history.

So anyway (and somewhat inexplicably), when I first started dating, I was definitely looking for that elusive frisson of excitement, but I can report – having thoroughly researched the strategy – that chemistry can lead you astray.

Or is it biology?

There is not a singleton amongst us who has not embarked on a highly unsuitable, and ultimately doomed relationship based on following what their body, rather than their brain, is telling them. And this is definitely not confined to men, who have been much maligned by the suggestion that thinking with their nether regions is a problem exclusively theirs. The only difference between men and women in terms of letting their carnal desires get the better of them is that women simultaneously also think that these feelings might end with a happy ever after (as opposed to a happy ending…), whereas men are not thinking beyond getting your knickers off, and would probably lose all feeling below the waist if they knew you were hearing the distant sound of wedding bells.

These days, I am prepared to see if those feelings develop over time, even if they are not there on the first couple of dates. My only proviso is that when I look at my date, if I’m thinking that I definitely never want to see him without his shirt on (let alone anything else) there is not much point in going on. If you’re kind of repelled, I’m not sure you can move on from there.

It’s important though to ensure that your date is not aware that they are not doing it for you. I learnt this the hard way, by sending a text message to my date whilst he was in the loo which said that I didn’t find him at all attractive*. The message was meant for one of the Julies and it turns out that no amount of swearing, banging your phone on the table and suppressed shrieking will bring back a text message that is winging its way to the wrong – oh so very wrong – person. I’m sure the people on the next table thought I was having some sort of seizure. And I wasn’t far off to be honest. I briefly considered jumping in a cab and disappearing, but sadly I’m English and I felt that would compound my rudeness, so I stuck it out. He was really very charming about it (although he did later send me a text message asking me rather plaintively whether I liked him, which I thought was a bit awkward under the circumstances).

The example I generally use to other single friends to support my theory that chemistry can grow over time is that the best (physical) relationship I’ve been in post marriage was with someone I didn’t fancy on our first date. When he asked me for a second date, I put him off for a week or so because I thought I had a better prospect, but he turned out to be one I felt much more sure I didn’t ever need to see naked, so I met up with him again. And something happened – we made a connection we hadn’t made before and that was it. On the whole the episode goes in the ‘really not suitable, and definitely not a long term prospect’ bucket, but I let that relationship continue for some time past its sell by date mainly because I was afraid I would never have sex that good again**.

So my advice, not that I think anyone should ever take relationship advice from a nearly 50 year old spinster with a divorce behind her and 5 years of dating, is not to write your dates off too quickly. If you get on, have shared interests, and when you think about the possibility of seeing your date naked you don’t get a little bit of vomit in your mouth, carry on. You never know what might happen.

*in my own defence, I want you to know that this text message also contained a number of complimentary things about this man, but my point was that despite all these positives I still didn’t find him attractive. Which might be worse, I don’t know. Anyway, it wasn’t a horrible or bitchy message – as I’ve said, I’m English. I’m genetically pre-programmed to be nice…

**have I defeated my own message here?

In which I ponder…dating rules

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Rejected

 

In many ways my experiences with dating have been largely positive.

I’m quite selective about who I will go out on a date with in the first place – not necessarily because I’m overly picky (nearly 50 year olds can’t afford to be super choosy…), but because my time is precious and I don’t want to waste an evening with someone who is a bit of a tosser when I could have spent that time with my children or a friend.

Then generally I won’t go on a date unless said date is prepared to give up his surname so that I can google him before I go. I’m surprised by the number of men who are not prepared – for ‘security reasons’ – to do this, or who are horrified if I reveal I’ve done it (although generally I don’t tell them).* But I don’t suppose any of the men I’ve dated ever find themselves considering whether or not they are organizing to meet up with a murderer or rapist. For the same reason I won’t allow anyone to pick me up from my house until I’ve got to know them well, and I also won’t get in a car with them to go to a second venue. Dating of the type which essentially involves meeting up with strangers is potentially dangerous – even sometimes lethal – for women, and so I take my safety very seriously. If this means I check online to see if you appear to be who you say you are then so be it, and if you are offended by it we probably just shouldn’t go on a date.

So, once I’m on a date, I already usually know that the guy is genuine, as far as I can tell not married, and we’ve done enough chatting to build a bit of a rapport. I’ve been on very few dates which were terrible, and even then they’ve made for amusing anecdotes. I met one guy in a pub and when I arrived he was clearly already drunk. For reasons I can’t now explain – but probably inexperience, as this was early on in my dating adventures – I didn’t immediately leave, agreeing to accompany him to dinner during which he loudly announced to me (and most of the restaurant) that he would like to lick my breasts.

I never expect not to have to pay my share of the bill, and in fact it’s fairly important to me that I do as I don’t want to be beholden in any way. There are still some men who think that if they’ve paid for everything you owe them something – and that something is generally sexual. However, if I sense that the guy is purely being gentlemanly, and our conversation has suggested that it wouldn’t be a financial burden on them to pay for it, I’ll back down and say thank you. I hate to think how poverty stricken I would be after 5 years or so of dating if I’d had to pay for me and my date every time, so I never expect it.

I’ve also learnt interesting things from my dates, even though many of them have come to nothing – things that I probably wouldn’t have learnt if I’d still been married. One date recently showed me a number of interesting works of art that are installed in new office buildings around Sydney and another pointed out the statue of a small cat at the State Library which I’d never noticed before and told me its story.**

I’ve been given wine recommendations which I’ve acted upon, and book recommendations which I’ve subsequently read. I’ve also had the opportunity to have some spirited debates about a range of issues with people who have views diametrically opposed to mine and most of my friends.

So – as I’ve said – generally my dating experiences have been positive. But I would, however, like to start a movement to agree some ground rules to which everyone adheres.

Ghosting

So if you’re not dating, you probably don’t know what this is (lucky you), but it’s when someone you’ve been either chatting with or have been on a date (or two) with suddenly disappears into radio silence. Now, when I’m only at the chatting stage and I haven’t met them in person as yet, I’m fine with this – in fact it’s a ploy I use myself. But I do object to it after a date – or worse – a few dates. I’ll give you an example of how this works. I recently got chatting with a guy on Tinder (yes, Tinder! Gasp! You can read more about my thoughts on Tinder here), and agreed to meet him for a drink. We met in a bar in Darlinghurst and got on famously – to the extent that we moved from drinks straight to dinner. He was formerly in the Navy, so interestingly well travelled, and was now working for the Fire Service of New South Wales in charge of all their mental health programs for staff about which he was clearly very expert and well informed. He also had a Masters in Indigenous Studies, had read many of the same books as me and is a bit of a leftie. Anyone who knows me well would recognize that this sort of man is likely to be of interest to me, so I had a great night.

He walked me to the station, and then when I was on my way home on the train, he sent me a text message to see if I wanted to catch up again for a walk and lunch on Sunday. I definitely did. We met as planned and had another great date – a walk in which we chatted easily, then oysters and champagne at Circular Quay, followed by an exhibition. He walked me to the station and on separating to go our own ways I told him I’d had a great time and would like to do it again, but my parents were arriving in a couple of days for a month and I wouldn’t be as available as usual. He said that was ok, and to just let him when I would next be free.

About a week later, I sent a text message saying I was free in a couple of nights, and would he like to catch up? He never replied. About 5 days later I gave in to the urge to send another message – just in case through some technological glitch he hadn’t received it. Again he didn’t reply, so I think we can surmise that I won’t be seeing him again.

Now, under these circumstances wouldn’t it be so much nicer – not to mention polite – to just send a quick text message in response to say ‘hey, it was great meeting you, but on reflection I can’t really see it going any further so I think I’ll move on’? The reality is that I left a 21 year marriage – I think I’m going to cope if after one or two dates someone tells me they are not interested…

The end of the affair

Ending a relationship, no matter how insignificant, is tricky and awkward for everyone involved, so my suggested rule about this is simple. If you’ve shared my bed, you need to tell me you’ve decided to call it a day non-electronically. So, as the natural progression from ‘if we’ve been on a couple of (non-carnal) dates, you need to at least send me a text to say thanks – but no thanks’, if our relationship has progressed to getting jiggy, you need to either phone me, or tell me in person. If it’s clearly not been super serious let’s not waste each other’s time by meeting in person to end it, but a phone chat seems appropriate. And if it’s been going on for quite a while, in person is definitely the way. A text message just won’t do in either circumstance.

And there you have it. A kind of manifesto for dating. Or is it a rule book? It’s all just about being polite and respectful really isn’t it? After all, dating is hard enough as it is – as my granny used to say…’let’s all be nice to one another’…old fashioned but useful advice I think.

*Just FYI guys – I can pretty much google you without your surname if you give up enough information…so you might as well tell me your surname. I often know who you are within about 10 mins of chatting, and well before I actually ask for your surname…

**The cat is Trim, Matthew Flinders faithful ship cat, who circumnavigated Australia then disappeared, and to whom Flinders wrote a touching epitaph which is on the memorial plaque near the statue. The café in the State Library is also named after the cat.