Sunday 30 November 2014

To date or not to date. And why envy can be good.



Who knew how hard it would be to meet a man? It wasn’t like this when I was younger. It’s a though once they get to fifty, the men either disappear, hibernate, or get cold feet when it comes to actually meeting someone new.
It’s been a week of disappointments in the world of dating. I managed to meet one man but there was no spark. All he wanted to talk about was electrical equipment and finance! Two more men who I really wanted to meet, chickened out. One put me off, several times, finally asking if we could meet today then cancelling at the last minute. Annoyingly he hasn’t said why yet.
Another, who wanted to write letters before  meeting, eventually admitted that he had this frankly barmy idea that if he wrote letters and sent his phot to 20 women, at least one would fall in love with him before they actually met. I mean how daft is that? Then again, I suppose  it might work on some people. You do hear of women falling for prisoners, and plenty of people profess to be in love with celebrities, so maybe he has a point  All I know is that it wouldn’t work on somebody like me.
He called after my most recent letter saying how blown away he was by my achievements and talents (I sent him one of my books as a gift), and then said that the reason I might not be getting to meet any of the men who contacted me was because I’m too clever for them. As  I hadn’t actually told anyone else about my degree, books, etc, that didn’t wash. Then he treated me to a long, depressing ramble about how hard it is to find decent women, how much he hated the UK, and so on and so forth. I felt as though I was counselling him. Long  story short, he decided we wouldn’t get on if we met, despite the fact that we had plenty in common. After so much effort, he wouldn’t actually risk an hour of his life and so  another one bit the dust. No wonder so many women decide to give up on the whole relationship thing. It’s really hard to keep picking yourself up.
Various things came up in the hypnotherapy. The focus was on unhealthy as opposed to healthy emotions. For example, it’s fine to feel envious of a person if that motivates you to work harder, but not if you feel bitter or jealous. This is something I struggle with. I’m constantly comparing myself to other, more successful or more prolific writers. For example, I’ve just read on Facebook that Della Galton, who I adore, has written fifty thousand words of short stories during November while I have written about ten thousand. I feel terribly envious despite the fact that I COULD have done the same. I made the decision to only work part time a year ago, so that I could try other things and maybe have some fun so why do I still feel jealous? It’s like people who have amazing web sites, or get book deals. If I worked harder, I could do that too. It’s my choice. I need to let go of unhealthy envy, which, believe you me, is b****y hard to do.
At the moment, I’m still concentrating on stories with twist endings as that’s what Fiction Feast are short of right now (one and two pagers). I have three in progress which I should have finished by about Tuesday.
Right now, the sun is shining for the first time in days. The light is so good, I simply have to go and get some painting done. I AM part time you know.

No comments:

Post a Comment