Dating

 I have only used one dating app at this point and I have not been impressed. I have met some very nice men on the surface level. I would say they have all been at the least, good conversationalists. They have been, if nothing else, interesting people. All of them have wanted to pursue a relationship with me. Unfortunately, I have not had the same feelings.

To revise, there was a retired Mathematics Teacher. He was pleasant enough but on the one and only 'date' we had, he was already annoying me since our sense of humour was quite mismatched. I called it quits soon thereafter. He was a bit shitty but there was nothing I could do about that. I remained perfectly polite.

There was a 'between jobs' CEO of a Not-for-Profit organisation. I think his thing was that he wanted sex, and a certain kind of sex at that. He was interesting but in the throes of a divorce and looking after a mentally ill adult daughter. He was displaying some, for want of a better word, narcissistic tendencies around his value in the workforce and some insensitivity towards me. So, that was an easy 'let go' for me. I think that we had three dates in all, maybe four dates.

Then came the retired Vice-Chancellor of a major international university. This partnership showed promise until it became obvious that something was very wrong. Our libidos were extremely mismatched even if one took kink right out of the equation. I just couldn't see myself living like that and we went our separate ways, actually staying friends for some months until there were things I couldn't sanction. I'd like to emphasise that I say my goodbyes extremely politely but very matter-of-factly. I am starting to have plenty of practice at this.

Then came a Eurasian man, really quite sweet in many ways. His thing was to travel, and I almost agreed to go on an international trip with him. However, there were a number of amber lights, enough to make me feel I should let that relationship go too.

Then came a relationship counsellor who had had a massive amount of psychoanalysis - much more than is good for anyone. He had developed a single life over a decade or more and it soon became apparent that there wasn't room for me, which was fine because I saw major issues in pursuing that one too.

Then came a very big guy, interesting, social, lots of positives. But he had been brought up very traditionally, and I think he was holding onto a lot of trauma judging by the state of his body. I won't elaborate but he clearly hadn't been looking after himself. He also was a bit shitty when after two dates I said I didn't think there was adequate compatibility.

There were people I chatted to online, on the dating app, for a while, and that's all good, but rather useless. I wasn't going to be moving to the mountainous area of South Australia or to visit Darwin etc etc any time soon.

Currently I am chatting by text to a sort of farmer in the Yarra Glen area and to a man who lives in Sunbury - most probably unlikely scenarios. I give it a go. I try.

My daughter suspects that men think that all is well with the way I am polite so it's a shock when I announce that I feel it isn't a match. Could be. It's a bit soon to imagine a girl participating in your life permanently after a couple of coffees/wine/lunch/dinner though, isn't it?

I am pretty sure I am on the wrong site. My youngest son is having wonderful success with Hinge, and I think that's a better proposition. His profile is exceptionally good and he's getting a lot of hits. Seriously, he hasn't a hope at keeping up with the onslaught of 'likes'.

The only guy that made me feel a bit sad was the Vice-Chancellor because if he hadn't been so 'of the mind and not the body', I think we would have been great together. I was not, however, going to be able to cope with the rigidity of mind and that's that. I did sometimes wonder if he might be autistic, but it doesn't gel with pretty high function in the academic realm, as far as I am aware. 

I am not in the least unhappy. I continue to work through a very detailed plan that transitions me eventually into a new life. Every day is full enough for me, which is not to say I don't cry still, because I do. It's an unpredictable thing. A wave of welling for my husband's company washes over me and I am back in the weeds for a part of a day. I'd like to think this is normal. I did, after all, lose my life partner who loved me very much and whom I loved very much.

I have made this comment a few times, in my day journal for instance, that I want a man in whom I can find my 'home', meaning that when I am snuggled up to him, I feel awash with good feelings; a soft place to land, so to speak. That's what I want.

Deakbreakers

 My focus has not been obtaining a new partner. Between the obligations to my children, forging a life alone, grieving, and the responsibilities of my new financial circumstances, I move between those parts of my life with little time to think about the fact that I am alone. 

It gets to me in circumstances like yesterday, my son's graduation from a master's degree and the fact that it was a bittersweet day without my son's dad being there. It gets to me in circumstances where there might be a rupture in the children's lives and I don't have someone to help to carry the load.

I happened to catch Jack Kornfield talking about Ram Dass in an episode that came on in the car this morning and I was reminded to put down the load, to let go, to recognise that some loads are not mine to carry.

I've been a listener all my life but in the past months I have become a talker, and we become talkers when we are processing life circumstances, as I am now.

I read somewhere that the research shows that better than talking is writing and I have an encrypted online journal, set up for me by a friend. He can read there himself if he wants, and I don't mind at all if he does. He's a therapist, encourages me from time to time to keep writing there, and has an innate understanding that it helps me to write.

My therapist friend is kinky, a dominant but very much a man of his time where he understands that the cultural norms have changed kink, so he talks about preferences over rules, and he has an overarching looking out for me approach as opposed to saying, 'I want you to...' or 'You should...'. Rather he just encourages and offers suggestions.

Our relationship was formal - professional - until very recently when the therapy ended officially after two sessions where the trance work was phenomenally successful. So now, we're back to friends, just friends, and what flavour that will be, I don't know, but I like that he is there in the background of my life. 

He has strongly encouraged that I go to rope classes and I will soon. The kinky side of me is very much there still and I look forward to it, as soon as I can find mental space for it.

Of my suitors there is one that stands out. He is kind, intelligent, well educated, had a good career, still does a little work, is generous and sweet with me. He has opinions and preferences, but he aims to work in. I research the films available on a certain night for example and it's clear to me his preferences and I accede to those preferences. 'Good choice,' he will say, although it is his choice actually.

I don't mind this at all about him, it makes me smile and feel warm, but I cannot for the life of me, get him to be assertive with my body - like take me over to the wall and kiss me passionately. Were he to do this, I think he might be the man for me, but he doesn't do that and thus I am confused and quite unsure. I do not have the slightest idea what to do about this and yes, I have talked about it. It is, unfortunately, a deal breaker for me. I wonder if he might understand what I mean about a 'dealbreaker' and I wonder why he won't respond to my statements that I need touch and affection in my life at the least.

We did end the relationship some time ago over this matter but stayed friends.  He dates but I get the sense he is still after me and in some way, I am still after him, if he could just commit to an understanding of my needs. 

I think it may be chalk and cheese, highlighting the need for a kinky man in my life and that I must not settle for less. This is life, not a life I chose but one into which I was born.

Psychoanalysis - the end

 Okay, psychoanalysis for me, that was a dumb idea. Maybe with someone else, someone with positive regard for the client and a non-judgmental approach, but, ah no, that experience needed to be terminated. 

Before I terminated, I checked with several people - the hypnotherapist, the man I had gone on a few dates with and was a therapist, my son who is a therapist, my eldest son, my male 'friend', and they all agreed, 'okay, sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we don't listen to our intuition, and that's what happened here, so let's step out of the mud and run in the other direction.'

I hot tailed it back to the hypnotherapist who isn't just any old hypnotherapist but a kink educator. A light scolding:

'Now, what did you learn from this experience?'

'To follow my instincts.'

'That's right.'

So, we had a great discussion before a trance which was breathtakingly healing. We got onto boundaries. We were talking about kinky dating apps and rope classes and so on, and we got onto boundaries, something that, frankly, I have been confused about.

He was explaining that the men he talks to, they don't want a whiny 30 something submissive, they want a slave: someone who can be obedient to them and someone who can take care of herself too. They want a slave with confidence.

I asked a dumb question.

'Well, what if they want something, like money, and I don't want to give it to them?'

I could hear the hold back in his voice, the pause, what he was dealing with.

'Then, you say NO.'

Then, he explained.

'With your husband you weren't allowed to have boundaries. If you created a boundary, which you started to do, he actively punished you for it. The person who should have been teaching you boundaries was punishing you for creating a boundary.'

I hadn't thought about it quite like that, hadn't actually realised that I was in a dominant:slave relationship, but yes, he was right.

The moral of the story, folks, the lesson learned, is that if you identify as a kinkster - a submissive, a slave, a dominant, it's going to be hard to find a therapist who is going to be able to talk to you in a way where you understand each other. Be careful who you open up to. I mean this woman told me I was living in a fantasy world and the only reason she could think that up is that I shared my fantasy life. There's more. It was wretched. Such a violation of trust. Never going back.

Psychoanalysis - a few sessions on

 There have only been two sessions with the psychoanalyst but things in my mind are moving quite fast. I happened to meet a man - I am actually dating him - who had hundreds of sessions with a psychoanalyst, seeing her three times a week, and I just can't understand this from a practical perspective. I need the week to process what I said in the session, to let it brew. He assures me there was no other way for him and of course I take him at his word. At the time, he feels there was no other way.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about my fantasy life. When B sits down, she just stares at me, or she might move her hand slightly, to gesture "go".

I want to talk about my fantasy life, I began and I launched in. She listens brilliantly and if I say something that she wants to pick me up on she will say, "This is different". I can't remember all the subject matter, but at one point I think I said,

"Anyway, that's over now."

"It's not over," she said.

"Well, he died."

"This is different."

"Right, it's different."

Get the drift?

I mentioned a harsh fantasy, where the men are intolerant, strict, demanding, unforgiving, usurious, misogynistic, bastards basically. I am always at their mercy and there's not a tender bone in their bodies. I am simply there to be trained to understand that there's no way out. It has to be obedience at every moment of the day and there's no one who will disagree with them. I have no agency.

Oh, her ears pricked up with that. "No agency?"

"Yes, no agency. I have no free Will. I can decide nothing." 

So, then I mentioned the softer fantasy. I am with a man who loves me and I love him, but he is also strict but for our mutual benefit. There's a lot more sitting at his feet style of interaction, not nasty but certainly dominant and there are rules, there are roles, there are consequences and there are expectations.

"This is different," she said.

"Right. This is the relationship of my dreams. This is the one I want. But, to get off fast alone in my bed, I go to the first one," I explained.

Something can stir a curiosity in me, and I found myself researching sexual fantasies and what they might mean. I won't go into that now, but I wasn't surprised to read that fantasies turned against oneself relate to childhood trauma.

On reading this in some detail, I found myself aroused. That's how f**ked this is. I went to the bedroom, and I allowed myself to think about the first fantasy, the one where I am basically abused, let's call it for what it is, and I found very quickly that for the first time in months I was coming hard. As the literature said, the fantasy had ended with an explosive orgasm.

Generally, this would have led to feelings of relaxation and pleasure, but this time I was also noting the fantasy material, watching out for what my mind was producing and I found myself weeping. I even said the words out loud, 'Why do they treat me this way over and over?'

I am fully aware that my little girl brain decades ago fired together thoughts of neglect and abandonment with something kinky. They fired together and they wired together.

The thing is that they are starting to bother me. The fantasies which started at the same time as I was suffering neglect are now reminding me of that start in life and I don't really want to be reminded of that time. I don't really want to be reminded of a childhood where my compliance and lack of agency to speak my opinions or feelings hurt me and led to me repeating that pattern in adulthood. I want to move on. I am happy to hold onto the second fantasy but not the first one.

In a couple of days my job is to tell B. what I find fulfilling about the fantasies. She's given nothing away about this all. I think she can see that I am onto the fact that this all ties together - the neglect and the subservience together with the fantasy life and the orgasmic response which led onto a sound sleep.

It's thought that as you speak your truth these sorts of things - the images in this case - can lose their potency and maybe even start to fade, or at least not bother me.

I'm neither happy nor sad, relaxed nor tight, positive nor negative in mood. I enjoy a lot of time to myself because I know I am going through something big and transformative and I don't have a great desire to be with people. The interactions are daily, to be sure, but I am not seeking out company daily. I am grateful for the silence. 

I minimise the items in the house and garden. I seek simplicity in my habitat and ultimately in my mind. I am coming to terms with a life that was tainted from the beginning with a lack of normal touch and attention and looking ahead to see where life takes me now. I know I cannot and will not repeat from where I have come. This at the least, I know.  

Psychoanalysis

 As the time since my husband's death has rolled on, I have noticed a range of emotions. Sometimes, I am functioning quite well, but other times I notice a cascade of emotions. I wouldn't say that they topple me over. I don't lie in bed or find I can't cope with the many challenges that I have inherited. I get on with it.

Yet, I do notice that I am going through some sort of change, or transformation, or growth, or maybe it's regression. Whatever it is, it's undeniable. 

I found myself tangoing with the hypnotherapist I have used, sort of banging on his door seeing if he had a fix, and he doesn't have a fix. It's far too existential for hypnotherapy. It's not a structural sort of problem - like, add exercise to your life, or find a new man using this particular dating site. That stuff is well intended but it's not for now.

For now, is dealing with big emotions and violent dreams and thoughts that feel very true and unexpressed, and that don't have a loving or accepting component at all.

In fact, I have found myself wrestling with a thought. It's this: I worked ultra hard to give what has happened in my life the nicest packaging in every way. The goal was unconditional love, forgiveness, kindness, good intention. All that. 

However, what is really happening under the hood is much more vehemently judgmental, unforgiving, and carries the sentiment of 'What the f**k just happened?'

In that state, you can only move on so fast. It's not the time to date since I found that I was just so disappointed in the men I was dating. I had so little patience with them. I didn't express that. They didn't know until I said, 'thank you, but no thank you' but under the hood, I was thinking, 'There's no way I am listening to this shit for the rest of my life.' I was and am just so picky about it all, far preferring my own company.

So, hypnotherapy and hypnosis were no good for now. It was too...prescriptive. I don't want a prescription, somebody else's version of the 'solution'. 

I read a bit and located a psychoanalyst. Ahhhh, exactly right. I wanted to talk and I wanted someone to listen as their job. Perfecto. That, I am happy to pay for.

Bring me your dreams, your daydreams, the thoughts you don't speak, she says. Brilliant. That's exactly what I want to do.

I have never felt before in my whole life this urgent need to express myself so freely and I am going to enjoy every second of this process.

The story goes that eventually the patient runs out of things to say and it's what they say after that to fill the silence, something that can't be rehearsed, where the real juice is. Right now, I don't know what that is, but I am sure it is sitting in the subconscious awaiting it's turn.

Oh, thank you Lacan. Thank you for your invention. At last. Let the chips roll where they may.

Dating apps

 A couple of months ago I dated an older man. We had eight dates until, frustrated, I explained that I didn't think we had a romantic future together. He was an extremely polite and respectful person, and on one level I enjoyed his company and conversation, but it was impossible to not notice that his greeting and goodbye kiss was more like a peck. 

I think it was the third date when he asked me if I liked to hold hands and we started doing that. However, it got weird. Not only did he want to hold hands at times when it was comfortable to do so, but pretty much all the time. What this seemed to do was act as a shield against further intimacy. You can't go in for a hug or to wrap yourself around someone on the couch if you are sitting side by side holding hands. I would think in my head about what to do in moments, but nothing felt like it would be generously received. It felt like we were two islands and the mass of water between us would keep us that way.

I was sure that he wasn't sure about me because when I tried to bring up my needs as a woman, to be in the presence of a man who liked to assert control for our mutual benefit, he completely closed down. This was definitely off putting to him. An academic all his life, I think he was living almost entirely in his head. 

It gets worse. His wife had died suddenly 14 years ago, and he was devoted to her memory. She had most certainly achieved sainthood in his mind. After that, he married and that failed and he almost married but lived with another woman, and she left. My nail lady told me to run. It was impossible to compete with a dead wife who had died young.

All well and good. However, he wanted very much to stay friends and at the time it seemed a harmless request. For the last two months, he would wish me good morning and sometimes say something that prompted a little conversation. That seemed fine.

I had met him on a platform where I could see he often went, even when he was dating me, so I recently said 'goodbye' on that platform. He asked why I did that. Well, I explained, we text.

Then, he started to tell me about this new "lady" he was seeing for coffee and gallery dates, like we used to do. And then it felt weird. He was trying to set up a time to see a play together or have lunch as friends and supposedly he would tell me about this new lady and so on.

A little alarm bell went off. I don't mean to downplay all the horrors that are happening to people right now, but I haven't had wonderful things happen in my life lately and I have a responsibility to take care of myself. This friendship wasn't doing me any favours.

I suggested via text that he allowed this new relationship to blossom and that our friendship was secondary to that, but he argued for his continuance. I really didn't want that. I am trying here to do things that are right for me rather than right for someone else. I am trying not to let abundant empathy stand in the way of good sense. I wrestled with the thoughts for at least a minute until I texted, 'Why don't you check in in a couple of weeks?' This, I felt, was better than his reliance on me to interact on a daily basis.

So, what's this all about, I ask myself. He makes me feel weird. He makes me feel like there is something wrong with me that I want intimacy, that I would like to feel some (gentle and not so gentle) control. 

I think I have been on the wrong dating app. If that's your proclivity that app is not where you are going to go looking for a submissive. Yes, I have strong tendencies towards independence but in the hands of a dominant man, that tends to take a back seat. I want that.

Healthy relationships

 Over time, if you keep track of your behaviour, patterns may emerge. In my case, I have tended towards attachments that simply were not in my Highest Good. Something made them feel good at times and at other times, they felt quite toxic. I was often off balance.

It isn't all that complicated at the heart of the matter. My parents being busy, self-absorbed, loving but at a distance, led me to chase love, but in all the wrong places because we tend to repeat these patterns unwittingly.

This blended with an early private life where my mind had co-mingled love with strict discipline, perhaps a scene in a movie I had watched, or a book I had read. Who knows.

This meant, in practical terms, that when I was in touch with someone who gave me intermittent reinforcement together with access to that dynamic in my fantasies, this became a 'hook' for my desire to feel love and to be pleasing; for the slot machine to throw out a random symbolic gold coin or two; to feel affection.

A situation where one is in a trauma bond with someone sometimes feels abusive but often not. The mind has a way of rationalizing things, especially if the coins were given out early. The mind says, 'it happened once, that means it can happen again'. I have written about it before in the sense of the fly being caught in the spider's web and when I wrote that, it felt erotic, whereas what I write about today isn't in the least erotic. Rather, it feels like shame.

Shame is the trickiest emotion I think I have experienced. There's a part of the brain working hard to protect you from shame until, in my case, I came head on to the feeling and registered it as just that. It started with a feeling of disgust when listening to a podcast hosted by a Dominant and then the deepest and most uncomfortable feeling of shame overtook me. What the hell had happened to me to have had any other feeling than this deeply uncomfortable feeling when listening to comments about submissive women that sounded harsh?

Even since then, my brain still asks me to use certain dark fantasies as a way to relax. I am well aware of the dichotomy of these two experiences. I do not berate myself for that but rather offer myself a great deal of self-compassion. My brain is wired now in a certain way and only time and effort will rewire it.

I can only speak for myself, and as had happened once before, when the drama and hurt of the association flooded me as it did when listening to this podcast, the decision to remove myself entirely was made quickly and almost effortlessly.  

I don't want to use jargon, but it felt like the Protector that was not allowing me to feel the shame, felt I was ready to withstand the emotional pain of that and stood back. The truth was revealed to me. I needed to move on now with self-compassion and I needed to ensure that any future associations, friendships, therapists or lovers were entirely healthy relationships for me. 

I needed to choose with full awareness, and I needed to note that healthy relationships don't always, or maybe never, have the zing of something that could light up the part of the brain that responds to intermittent reinforcement, or a power dynamic that isn't based on love and respect and taking into account the high likelihood that someone with childhood trauma could be retraumatised. Anyone less than a person academically highly trained to understand the effects of childhood trauma, attachment styes and a propensity to be susceptible to intermittent reinforcement could potentially do more harm.

I think I will have to look out for this for the rest of my days. There's a bit of post trauma sitting in the wiring of the brain and some susceptibility to a trauma bond, but also, I have grown older and wiser, and I am my own best friend now. I do not foresee this happening again.