Category: Relationships

Going on dates with boys…

by Ashley filed under Motherhood, Relationships

A few days ago I posted a pic of Van from a one-on-one date I took him on. Underneath the photo, I wrote: “…And he talked and talked and talked about football. I’ve never been so content to just listen. This age is the best”.

A lot of people, mostly moms, sent me heart emojis.

I went on a date the other week with a guy who had a pretty unique and diverse background — raised in another country in a culture that was different from the country he was raised in. Sidebar — as much as my friends hear me bitch about the urine in the dating pool, I really do enjoy meeting different people. I’m not even sold on the idea of “finding a partner” at this point — I’m really just enjoying meeting people and hearing different people’s stories.

Anyway, I learned a lot about this guy’s life because I was curious and that curiosity led to me asking questions.

At one point he mentioned having a daughter that was 7 years old. I told him my youngest was 7 as well. He asked no follow up question; no “oh, you have more than one kid?” … nothing.

He continued talking about himself.

I asked him about his relationship with his kid’s mom, because I know there’s loads of ways it can go —> co-parenting, parallel-parenting, counter-parenting, and I’m always intrigued. He didn’t reciprocate the question.

And he continued talking about himself.

I called a girlfriend on the way home and shared my narrative that men really don’t seem interested in getting to know women. So many men seem complacent in allowing women to cater to them, to center them. And it doesn’t come across as malicious, it comes across as ingrained.

This morning I thought back to my date with Van and what I wrote about it. It occurred to me that a man’s first experience with a woman is with his mother. A mother who was happy to just listen and listen and listen, who welcomed her son onto center stage while she took a seat in the back of the audience.

I read somewhere that you can’t be a feminist and a mother because the two are at odds; that being a mother is literally solidifying yourself in a role in a patriarchal society that’s really damaging to women (to men, too, but that’s a separate post). As mothers, we are constantly praised for self-sacrifice; we give and give and give and the more out-balanced what we give is in relation to what we take, the more applause we garner. The unpaid, underappreciated labor of motherhood is truly what (indirectly) fuels our economy (a separate post).

I often feel like I’m fumbling with the responsibility of raising three boys; like I can’t counter the weight of patriarchal conditioning especially in light of the fact I’m still coming into awareness of so many ways it impacts me and my role as a mother.

The following night I took Sonny out for a one-on-one date. I told him he can pick anywhere he wants for dinner. He picked Cane’s Fried Chicken, a fast food chain I honestly hate. I paused, gave it some thought and consideration, and said, “I’d like to go to a restaurant where we sit down and they serve us. I don’t feel good after I eat fast food.” He immediately had a strong reaction. I followed it up with, “Remember this is a date for the both of us. When you go on a date with someone, you want to make sure the other person feels good with the decisions being made. A date is about the couple, not about just yourself. Can we find a restaurant we both enjoy?”

And we did.

Maybe men aren’t considering women because they were raised by mothers who prided themselves on taking everyone else’s needs, wants, and desires into consideration above their own.

I’d like to change that.

Imaginationships

by Ashley filed under Relationships

I want to share more of my dating life because the opportunity for self-expansion (and just pure entertainment) is vast. Also because I think relationships are the best mirrors and therefore wonderful opportunities for observation, which can lead to acceptance and then to growth, if we let it.

I read about the concept of an “imaginationship” in Becoming the One by by Sheleana Aiyana and it’s stuck in my mind ever since. In a lot of ways, I think this is the crux of one of my issues in relationships. Imaginationships are just that, relationships that are imagined; potential paired with projected hopes onto a being that may or may not be any of the things I want them to be. It’s essentially me pushing my will onto someone else. There’s a lot of ways I’ve looked back and have come to terms with ways I’ve bent, shifted, and shaped to make myself a good fit for someone else. But the flipside is also true; there’s a lot of ways I’ve ignored, denied, and/or dismissed parts of another to sell myself on them being a good fit for me.

As life happens and circumstances present themselves and this other person doesn’t act in accordance with the role I’ve assigned to them, I often feel anxious. The root of my anxiety is the discrepancy between the reality I’ve created and the reality of what actually is. In the past, I would react to this anxiety which usually presented itself in me trying to control other people, places, or things in subtle ways.

The more layers I peel back, the more I come to realize that the answers are all within each of us and so the work is getting more in touch with oneself. Today, I can label the anxiety as anxiety. I don’t react to it. Instead, I invite it and acknowledge it as my body sending me a message. When I fall into an imaginationship, for example, my anxiety serves as a reminder that I may be fooling myself. It’s an opportunity to ask myself if I am ignoring what’s before me in an effort to hold onto an image of another that I’ve created. When I can make this differentiation, I’m provided this wonderful freedom to choose: do I want to see this person for who they are or who I want them to be?

I came across these three rules: 1. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time, 2. Don’t talk yourself into unseeing what they showed you, and 3. What we allow is what will continue.

I try to live by these. When I know better, I do better.