I don't want to think about your penis

Flirting is a tricky thing. I remember a conversation with someone distinguishing what counted as harassment and what counted as welcome flirtation, and my opinion was, the distinction is based on whether the person receiving the attention wants it, or not. I know that admission offers fodder to anyone who feels entitled to consideration by anyone they encounter, and it feeds into that idea that you can get away with anything as long as you're attractive and charismatic enough to bend the limits of what is considered appropriate.

The title of this post is based on that long standing assumption that the mention of a man's foot size corresponds to his penis size. In a fairly unprofessional environment where I no longer work, one guy would regularly ask one of my coworkers his shoe size until one day the coworker responded in exasperation, "I wear a size 9 and I have a small penis" (I cannot will not confirm or deny this). I remember joking in college with someone I was head over heels for, when he said "You know what they say about a man who has big feet," and on cue, I quipped, "He wears big shoes!" For the first time in my life I'd achieved perfect comedic timing, and with my crush, no less. We laughed and laughed. I can confirm he was well endowed, but also extremely popular, funny, and contrary to what all of that implies, terribly insecure.

When I briefly went out with a former coworker a year and a half ago, I noticed he made mention that his feet were "DDD" - wide. He favored basketball shoes outside of the steel toed work boots he'd worn at our site, and paired with his not so tall stature, they looked a bit like clown shoes. I never understood bragging about the width, except that he could have been alluding to the girth of his peen. Every time he raised the topic, I felt revolted, because when you don't like someone that way, you don't want to think of anything except a Ken doll situation in their pants. That alone should have been a sign for me to cut my losses, but I stubbornly hung on. When he finally self imploded via text, I felt relieved it was done, and best of all, that I no longer had to hear about the width of his feet and experience the corresponding unwelcome thought of his penis. 

Solving for X

When the pandemic started, I initially believed I would finally read all of the books I'd been meaning to read, which of course, didn't happen. I didn't learn a new language or become a skilled baker. Years late to the game, I started listening to podcasts. 

I can't do audiobooks, my attention scatters and I lose the plot, but shorter listening commitments aren't too challenging for me. I subscribed to a lot of love story related podcasts at first. One was the New York Times Modern Love podcast. At the end of 2020, while living separated in my house, was episode #256, "Desire is Never the Mistake.

The narrator describes a story of flirtation, and the magic of being made to feel special, followed by disappointment and shame. The lesson in all of it, "Allow yourself to want things, no matter the risk of disappointment. Desire is never the mistake."

In the epilogue to the essay, the narrator informs us that her life is full, complete with a husband, kids, a minivan and a mortgage payment. She kept allowing herself to want things, and was rewarded with her happy ending.

Following this essay from 2007, there is present day interview with the author, Paula McLain. Before getting into the update to the update, she summarizes her childhood in foster care after being abandoned by her parents. Her belongings were in a black plastic trash bag, and every time she entered a new home with new "parents" she would have to figure out how to be tolerated by them. It meant being polite, consuming food that she may not have liked, doing whatever was necessary to avoid offending these strangers she she could feel safe.

The way she described that made so much sense. When we are young, not all of us are loved in ways that allow us to be ourselves. We have to learn personalities, and figure out how to survive in the circumstances we didn't have the agency to change. When you grow up, and do have greater control over your life, how do you break out of that mindset when it seems like we are programmed for it? How do we even recognize we are doing it? How do we embrace this idea that desire is never the mistake while we are simultaneously taught to appreciate what we have? How do we learn to be grateful for our lives as they and also accept that it is okay to long for something different?

On the other side of it, we scold ourselves for being cautious. "Do it scared!" "Shoot your shot!" "Ships were not meant to stay in a harbor!" Someone will be there to spout off a snappy quote and judge you, no matter which way you go.

In the interview, the author revealed she was no longer married, and in her words, she chose to divorce because she "was bigger than the marriage was allowing her to be." It's a bold statement for a woman. We aren't supposed to want to be "bigger." We are supposed to erase our names, shrink into "Mrs.," and settle into the wholesomeness of familyhood. We are supposed to be content with the husband, kids, minivan and mortgage, but what if we discover we're not? Then you're selfish, guilty of the sin of "wanting to have it all." How do you stop consuming a life you don't actually like? 

The author shared that this essay had been released before launching her bestselling book, and that her decision, which she admitted felt scary at the time, had allowed her to prioritize her career. She was also celibate in an effort to stop what she called "solving for X." X was the promise of a safe, secure, fulfilled, joyful existence. Following the approved equation - the things we are told result in obtaining X, do not always result in achieving X. By being alone, she prevented herself from making the error of laying blame on a partner for failing to provide her with the elusive X. She closed by saying, "Security is only being able to live with yourself as you are, and like all the parts of yourself without turning away."

It was a timely message at the close of 2020, a year we had started out feeling fairly normal. We eventually learned how flimsy everything was, our healthcare, our schools, our need to protect each other from a virus that ranged from mild to fatal, depending on the circumstances of individuals who caught it. We had started off hoarding toilet paper and baking bread - physical things representing comfort and nourishment. We virtuously wanted to make this extended time at home into an opportunity without recognizing how hard it would be, and how much from the "before times" we would miss. So many of us wanted keep up the distractions long enough to make it back to normal life, while simultaneously learning that the safety and security --the "X"-- of "normal" life was an illusion. 

With the busy-ness of the old life gone, I had no choice but to look at myself and re-assess my existence. I hung onto podcasts to thwart loneliness as I worked from home in one of the bedrooms in a house full of loved ones and a marriage I wanted to end. Like Paula McLain, I was afraid to make that choice. Why wasn't what I had working for me? Why didn't I feel more grateful? What's wrong with me?

I've listened to that podcast episode at least a half dozen times now, feeling the hurt and heartbreak of that holiday story every time. The interview with the author that followed is the real lesson, that there is no formula for X, no narrow path to achieve a safe, secure, happy life, and that is freedom.

Two years ago

 On Christmas Eve, my phone showed a prompt to look back at memories from two years ago. I usually ignore the prompt and continue with my day, but the first picture in the series was of the bed in the basement room of the house where I used to live. The headboard was made by my mother's father, and the night tables match my dresser, part of an antique set that my mom insisted on buying in the '80's. The bedspread was orange, and the sheets were reddish purple, a set my mom kept on her bed before she died, and in the center of the foot of my bed was my cat, the only thing there that migrated from that bed to my current one. 

I slept there because I was separated from my husband in my own house. At first, it started with him moving into the basement, complete with silent treatment. When he decided he wanted to talk, I said I wanted to separate. I had voiced that I was on the fence multiple times, and this time I was definitive. It was two days before my birthday, and I decided I didn't want to "work on it" anymore. I didn't want to owe anymore. I did not want the conflict of fitting myself into a marriage that seemed to make everyone else comfortable except me. 

Several days later he set up a Zoom call with friends to celebrate my birthday, later claiming he was still in denial over everything. But that wasn't the point, either. The zoom call was not my style, it was something forced on me, something I hated. I don't like surprises or being the center of attention, or having a cast of thousands acknowledge me. I just want the few special people in my circle, whose connections I've cultivated, to know me, love me, and accept me (and check me when it's needed).

It seemed like yet another glaring reminder that we were attached, but not connected. That he was big on grand gestures that made him look good, without asking himself if it was what I wanted. My sister was the one to warn me about the call, the same way she warned me about the surprise baby shower he tried to throw for me when our first kid was on the way. She knew me, and knew I'd hate this flavor of  celebration. 

In the first couples therapy session after I told him I wanted to separate, the couples therapist kept reminding him that only one person has to want out for the marriage to end. There was no mutuality needed. One person wanted out, and that was enough. This was how many of our sessions went. He would have an issue, and she would gently remind him. He often claimed that she was taking my side. Or, that someone else (or the therapist) had influenced my decision to leave. It was often that way, his idea that I didn't have a mind of my own, and other voices were what solidified my choices. 

After that session, he insisted that I tell him about all of the ways he messed up during the course of our relationship. It was the first time he'd actually heard me. We were the classic case of one partner committing a massive, fatal stab wound while the other made their partner bleed out slowly with the survivable but ever present pain of a thousand papercuts. 

I had an affair, which was the thing big enough to land us in couples therapy. I don't mean to sound casual about that, it wasn't. It was devastating, hurtful, destructive and deceitful. It's also more common than anyone wants to admit. It's the thing that will make your spouse never look at you quite the same again. I make no excuses for myself, as there are better, more responsible, less damaging ways to address your issues before heading down that path. My own actions rendered me voiceless for a long time. I didn't feel I had a right to stand up for myself or ask for what I needed, or be the one to leave the marriage, after what I did. If I brought up "old shit," my audacity to even bring it up would be met with incredulity, and in one instance, a hole punched into the headboard at six in the morning. But is "old shit" old shit if it's never resolved to satisfaction? Is it really "old shit" if it keeps repeating?

I finally voiced the "old shit" and he listened, claiming he'd never realized it was all connected, or that it was damaging and hurtful to me. In his mind, his offenses "one offs," and then, in his mind, the couple kisses and makes up. In my mind, "make up" means the problem is resolved enough for both parties to actually want to kiss again. When I'd get angry before, I'd be dismissed as jealous or overreacting, petty, and once, "spiteful." Now something was at stake for him, and he listened. Now that I was on the edge of the cliff, screaming, he finally saw and heard me.

That was a pattern this couples therapist saw immediately. A parent-child pattern, was what she called it. The "parent" in the relationship acts a certain way and the "child" acts out in response. If I'd pointed out an issue in a calmer fashion, it was brushed off. Not serious, not a big deal. If it escalated into yelling, and obvious upset, then it was something to be taken seriously. I didn't want it to be that way, and here we were again, with me saying I wanted to separate, and him finally taking it seriously, despite months of me admitting I was on the fence. It was fitting, one last confirmed display of that old established pattern. Something about that made me feel despair. Even in this last ditch communication, I had to go to exhaustive measures to be heard and taken seriously.

He'll always claim he was blindsided. And, because he would throw the empty threat of divorce into an argument, that he assumed I was doing the same, not remembering that I didn't operate like that. It was also a way of completely disregarding that I had maintained a deeply intimate relationship with someone else for a long time, and if that isn't an indicator that someone has a foot out of the door, I'm not sure what else to say.

I didn't intend for this post to pan out how it did. I was going to do a comparison of that basement bedroom photo with the progress I've made, the house I've bought, the new, bright and peaceful place where I sleep, and the lack of regret over my decision to move out.

I’m not sharing this to make my marriage to look bad, or to say I regret getting married. What I learned recently, it isn’t about getting everything right in the relationship, but how the couple repairs together. When he said or did something  that felt harmful, and I pointed it out, he would see it as an attack and defend himself, and sometimes blame his reaction on me. Getting acknowledgement like, "I see how it can feel that way" was an impossible feat. I had made the grave mistake of believing his sensitivity equaled the ability to be empathetic.

Marriage isn't terrible. It can be beautiful when both partners respect and support each other, and have founded their connection on friendship. I question if I ever had a friendship with my husband. It certainly didn't feel like any of my other friendships. Sometimes it felt like a competition, or like he had to bring me down a few pegs, or side with someone else if I came to him with a personal conflict. He would always argue this with, "Do you trust me with your life?" which sounds monumental, but it's a cheap question. We trust strangers with our lives. If I can't reliably share something with you and trust that you can see and validate my perspective, or feel that you are in my corner, even if you disagree, then I can't trust you as my life partner. Others may be able to do this, as these things roll off of them, but I need that, and wanting that isn't too much.

Even COVID didn't stop a pushy door-to-door salesperson

After over two years of dodging COVID-19, I caught it. I'm guilty of attending several indoor social gatherings without a mask after being vaccinated and boosted. I have to say peer pressure, even at almost 47 years old, plays a role here. But I didn't catch it during an optional fun social gathering. I caught it at a fairly large work meeting, which I volunteered to attend to brief a presentation.

In retrospect, all of that seems like a bad idea. I had to drive to a different location, sit in a large conference room with people all day, and worst of all, be the last speaker of the day. I'm an introvert and I like routine. None of this makes sense, but I did it, and what was my reward? A hot scratchy throat, sneezing, body aches and a positive COVID test. 

I self reported to the Maryland website and received instructions to isolate for five days. Hermit permit granted, I guess.

In the evening of day two of feeling like crap, the doorbell rang. I'm in a three story townhouse, so even if I rushed to get to the door from my third floor bedroom, it would take awhile. I looked out of my second story front windows to see if there was a vehicle to indicate some sort of delivery, but there was nothing. Then I heard them use the door knocker. And finally, impatiently, a loud cutesy "Shave and a haircut" rap at the door. 

I cracked the door wearing pajamas and my KN95 mask. It was a young male person with brown curly hair in that signature uniform of people who go door to door on summer evenings. They carry clipboards or electronic tablets, wearing sweat-wicking polo shirts with the company logo, and khakis. The goal is to inform you of a problem they noticed with your house, that a neighbor has used their services, and if they can just have some of your time, they can give you an estimate, and usually a few discounts *if you act soon* on the estimate for the solution to the problem that you didn't even know was a problem until they graced your doorstep.

What was it going to be? I needed new siding? Windows? A roof? It didn't matter. I stood in the cracked doorway and stated: "I have COVID. This isn't a good time."

Any normal human being would have said thank you and walked away. These are not normal human beings. They are fueled by pushy desperation and the effects of being subjected to the heat and humidity of the midAtlantic summer. He kept talking.

"A neighbor... I noticed spiders on your house... something something."

I was incredulous. He was still trying to steal my time, and willing to put himself at risk of catching COVID to do so! Aside from that, my house is situated in what should be the woods, so there will be spiders. And, I like spiders. 

"Please don't do this to me," I said. "Go to the next house, please."

He looked miffed. It wasn't like I removed my mask and coughed in his face. I was trying to do both of us a favor.

"Okay, enjoy" he said in a "Whatever" tone of voice.

Yeah, thanks, I really enjoy being sick. I shut the door with a little more force than necessary and locked it for emphasis.

I'm getting better now. My daily text from Maryland told me it's okay to stop isolating, but I'll savor my time indoors awhile longer.

Compromise creep

 In life, there is no do over machine. No unringing the bell, or taking back certain events. What is done is done. There's an analogy about relationships that I like, that involves a comparison to cement. In the early days, the cement is pliable. But the things that happen in those early days can wind up affecting the shape and state of the cement once it's set.

When I first moved in to my soon to be husband's apartment, I had come from Korea, from my first and last duty assignment. His place was decorated but some of the things on the walls were from other women. When I wanted to make his place our place, I removed some of these things. 

The centerpiece, a pen and ink drawing of a scene in the African grasslands, of hunters with their spears and shields, and the words "My Father's People" underneath, was a gift from an ex girlfriend. Her father was from Burundi, so this cliched little scene was possibly rooted in something genuine. It was a college project that she was going to throw away, and he asked her if he could have it. A nice enough story, and at the same time, I didn't want this hanging on the wall in my home. When I approached him to figure out what we could do with it, he revealed that his parents paid $80 to have it framed. My suggestion was to take it down, but store it and take it with us the next time we visited his parents. 

Marriage is about compromise, and I thought this was fair enough. At the time, he agreed.

Here was my shortcoming: I was insecure. This was my first (and supposedly last) big real life relationship with someone. I don't have a problem with exes, but there are exceptions. This one in particular was a fame seeker. Once, my husband said, "Did you know I dated an Olympic skier?" What I felt wasn't jealousy. I didn't want to be an activist-actress-artist-athlete. I wanted my husband to stop flaunting past conquests in an attempt to see if I cared. I wanted protection, not provocation.

And there was my husband's shortcoming. He liked throwing out bits and pieces of his past like chum, to see if I'd go into a frenzy. There wasn't a consideration of my much slimmer past, or of how he might have felt had I casually tossed out similar tidbits. It often felt like his way of making sure I knew what I had: a man who was good enough to date an almost famous Olympic athlete. I now realize this not so subtle marketing of his worth was his own way of dealing with being insecure.

 Months after the compromise, he was deployed, and I was home, tending to our pets and the apartment. The art was stowed safely in the laundry room, and life was peaceful. Then, in an email, my husband decided to share an idea. "Let's keep that artwork," he proposed. "It may be worth something some day. We could even send our kids to college."

There's a thing in my professional life called "Requirements creep." It describes how an organization may want something to fulfill a defined need, but over time that something can balloon into more than the original idea, with cost and time needed for development of that magical solution reaching unreasonable proportions. This was compromise creep. I felt my offer was fair, a meet-in-the-middle fix, and now my husband felt it was acceptable to override that with what he wanted: to keep the artwork.

The more I thought about this, the angrier I became, until one evening, I pulled that artwork from its cozy hiding spot, unscrewed the frame, and thoroughly stomped the "might be worth something someday" creation into "definitely worth nothing now" oblivion. It felt damned good to put my foot through that foam board. I wish that piece of art had been a lot larger to prolong my satisfaction of destroying it. I fully understand why rage rooms have become a thing.

Was it immature? Certainly. Did I let my feelings do the talking? Absolutely. Did it calm the fury? For a little while.

I told my husband what I did, and he made sure to say "It's okay. I'm not angry." How magnanimous.

We never sorted through this issue in depth. This "cement moment" kept coming back. After a certain point, past some unspoken statute of limitations, a neat little trick happens: you become the problem for dredging up "old shit." In this relationship autopsy phase (we are separated now, over twenty years later), I look at who I was, how I felt, and why I acted how I did. I look at what fed my insecurities, how poorly equipped I was to sort through my feelings and articulate them, how so many seemingly little slights can erode a relationship over time. Often when I revisit these cement moments, I'm angry at myself for not doing a more solid job of standing up for myself.

It all sounds foolish, but what I know now, after decades of this relationship, and so many years of living, is that the surface issues we argue about aren't really the source of the conflict.

Here's what I should have asked:

Why was my compromise not enough?

Why did he feel so entitled to push for what he wanted, to keep the artwork?

What was so special about this artwork that he thought it would be worth enough to put theoretical children through college?

Why couldn't he ask himself how he'd feel, had the situation been reversed, and we kept some bound-for-the-trash art project from one of my exes at my insistence?

Given how everything panned out (and I am responsible for my own share of offenses), I can also recognize how young we were, how ill equipped we were to commit to a serious relationship when we did, and how many of these seemingly minor missteps wind up forever trapped in the cement, because the chance to smooth them over has long since passed.

The bad penny

The walking red flag that I used to work with left the job in August last year. After he left, we maintained some sort of relationship, which crashed and burned mid November last year. What's lasted longer than that failed connection is his job vacancy.

Last week, my manager informed me that he was trying to figure out how to fill a couple of job openings. Our team has become a skeleton crew, and now we are spread thinner than Piggly Wiggly peanut butter (credit for this phrase goes to a lovely southern-born former coworker of mine). Among the candidates under consideration is Monsieur Red Flag himself.

When he left in August, he took on a significant pay raise, and a significantly shorter commute. Through the grapevine (my manager), I heard that his company has been bought out, and the division he supports will be moving to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So Red Flag is inquiring about his old job, but with updated terms and conditions.

A raise, two months a year of time off (to visit Thailand, of course), and the knowledge that, when his mom dies, he will be retiring and moving straight to Thailand.

I wanted so badly to spill the beans, to tell my manager that there is no room at the inn for this angry little man. To show the tirade of text messages that resulted when he got into a huff about checking with me if it was okay to have a phone call. To reveal that this guy had a lot of nerve to even consider coming back after burning the bridge with me in such a spectacular, unrecoverable fashion.

Instead, I kept a poker face (thank you, KN95 mask, for protecting the lower half of my face in more ways than one), and said "My concern is that he would leave us again for something better paying, and closer to home." My manager added that he wanted "fresh blood," and while Red Flag is fresh, he certainly doesn't fit that description.

Red flags (in no particular order)

•  "I like what you like."
• Explaining that you have to go to the ATM because the $1042 in cash you planned to carry was forgotten at home
• Too many gifts
• Expensive gifts too early
• Having an entire household in Thailand, where you don't even speak the language
• An interest in coins, where you let it slip that these are essential when the banks fail
• Having a loose panel on your car that you didn't get repaired, it flies off and then you take it to the shop, using your auto insurance.
• Being asked questions and avoiding them
• Saying you planned to be at the get together from your old job, but when the date is changed, you now can't make it because it's not worth your daily pay ("I'm not giving up $450 to go eat chili")
• Complaining about "losing" $30K due to taxes, because you didn't get to work overseas for a full year. And why did you have to come home? Because your dad died. But please, let's focus on the $30K.
• Telling a full grown woman that she's going to "blossom."
• Giving a full grown woman two men's size L shirts (one previously worn)
• Finding a new job and leaving a biohazard in the breakroom refrigerator when you leave, consisting of all the food you placed there and failed to remove over several months
• Telling someone to "ask you anything" - instead of just openly sharing the need to know information naturally
• Getting angry at someone for not asking you about your entire household in Thailand, where you don't even speak the language
• Wearing jeans with a hole in it at a nice dinner (okay, it's petty but I don't think it's too much to ask)
• Insisting on "gifting" someone a handicap placard that they don't need at all, and then being miffed that the person won't use it, on principle
• Offering unsolicited swimming lessons when the person you are interested in reveals she is not a strong swimmer
• Jarring spelling errors, while texting (I know, petty. These are *my* red flags)
• Saying "I don't like cats" to a person who has one
• Saying "I think I know why you're in my life" to someone, and then never actually sharing that thought.
• Excessive use of ellipses while texting
• Going on a texting rant, because the woman you're texting does not appear to have the same feelings for you, and also bashing her preferred method of communication because she's a "grown fucking woman." Throwing in insults about different generations, even though you are both Gen X
• Starting a very personal story about the woman who keeps your entire household in Thailand, where you don't even speak the language, and how this woman had never been kissed "on the mouth" (I did not get to hear if that status changed, or he he'd had anything to do with that)
• Saying "Good night" and "Enjoy your transition" when there is a hint of conflict
• Disappearing for two days after getting angry, and explaining that you had to "re-enter your body" to get to a place to be able to apologize 
• Saying "I'm going to die there" when discussing your entire household in Thailand, where you don't even speak the language