I recently bought a house. By myself.
The other day, I had a lovely female friend over, and we were talking about the new home, furniture and fixtures I was planning to buy, the home improvement projects I had just successfully completed, and the paint colors I had chosen. I've been in the house for almost 3 weeks, and I am close to being finished setting it all up. Cosmetically anyways. The roof, that's another story.
In the midst of the tour, she turned to me, and casually said, "You know how Gloria Steinem said we're becoming the men we want to marry? Well, you're the man I want to marry."
As weird as this sounded, I believe it's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. And ironic because I can't really remember anyone ever telling me that I was the woman they wanted to marry. Well, actually once, in college, when I told some guy how much I liked beer, and how I actually knew the difference between the different types of beers, he told me he wanted to marry me. But that's it.
Having been uncoupled for most of my adult life, I've had to figure out ways to do most of life's activities alone when I have to. Eating, sleeping, taking out the trash, moving furniture (except for the really heavy stuff), paying the bills, planning vacations. I've always wondered if being needier would have made me a more irresistible mate. But being needy is something I can't even fake.
Maybe knowing that I didn't need to be taken care of made me seem a little stand offish. Maybe not being needed, just being wanted, was hard for my former partners to take. Maybe I'm better off without them anyways.
But at the end of the day, the reason the comment made me smile was that I heard in it not only the permission but the insistence that I continue to be myself.
It was freeing to imagine that my independence, ability to work hard and take care of myself and those around me would actually be considered desirable qualities. Because I always thought they were.
