Scared Bunny

I am 37 years old and I have never had a healthy relationship with a woman.

There, I said it. For the record, it's not the first time I said it. That would have been in therapy this week. My therapist echoed the idea. I went over every significant relationship I have had and truly none of them were healthy. The closest I came was in high school, but she had a crush on one of the biggest letches imaginable and just couldn't let go of that. That was harder than hell to watch.

But the question I have had is, "how do you learn to have a healthy relationship"? I always just kind of thought it was a natural instinct. But clearly something in my upbringing taught me that one person in the relationship needs to be abusive, and the other a victim. I have filled the bully role just once, and I have had a very hard time forgiving myself for that. But I was the victim in all relationships both before and after.

Lately I have been reminded of the line in Fight Club; "We are a generation of men raised by women. I really wonder if another woman is the answer we really need". Setting aside for a moment that that sounds a little bit gay, maybe it's true. Maybe what drives my problem is that I feel a need to have a woman. Isn't that how we are raised? Every single parent I know that is remotely normal has been through single parent groups, group dating, set-ups ... As children we all saw that and it conditioned children of divorce that the single status was undesirable. I sincerely believe that when we go through a divorce, especially as a parent, that we are conditioned to try to remedy this "problem".

And we are truly taught that it is a problem. I am not religious, although I am spiritual and was raised as a Baptist. I recall specific scriptures about how woman was designed to be man's "helpmate". (I love weird Bible words.) If a man died it was his brother's duty to marry his wife. In fact, one of the arguments behind recent debates about whether Jesus married Mary Magdalene is the fact that it would have seemed so peculiar for him to be single that getting followers would have been hard.

Everyone says you find your love when you stop looking, but I know that is a crock. Every person I know who I was close to never really stopped looking. They just SAID they gave up. So here goes.

I QUIT! I am not looking for a woman. I am perfectly content being alone. I want to be alone. My king size bed is too small for two. Time home alone with nobody to talk to besides the dog is PERFECT. All I really need is an Internet connection, a Big Screen and the expanded basic cable package with all the movie channels!

Now, in theory, I will find the love of my life.

In the mean time, maybe I don't need HBO. I can't watch Big Love anymore anyway. It's too depressing. But I do need Showtime.