7/16/2008 – 8:58 pm | by Mary
I realized the other day that R and I are 6 years apart in age. It’s one of those things that I probably was well aware of at one time, forgot, thought it was 5, a couple more years passed, I got deeper in my 30s (i.e. not really caring about age anymore), became worse at math (job would be glad to hear that considering I do ACCOUNTING) until it came to me a couple days ago.
I had just locked the door to my apartment and began walking down the stairs to my car when it hit me, as if a novel thought: Wow. R is 6 years older than me. I then giggled inwardly and pranced down the remaining steps, happy in the knowledge that R is SO MUCH older.
I know. I’m special.
The thing is, after the teen’s dad - who is a mere 2 years my senior - I dated mostly younger men. If they weren’t younger by several years, they were right at my age but that was pretty rare.
I look back on my 20s and I realize that I was one of those girls. The girls that repeat stupid patterns by dating the men that are wrong for them. When things would go inevitably wrong, and they always did, I could wail to my friends while crying in my beer (mmm… beer) saying how men ain’t shit.
I never once took responsibility for the things I was doing wrong, or attempt to date someone more appropriate for me. Lather, rinse, repeat… and repeat again.
That’s not to say younger men in of themselves are wrong for you or anyone, but the younger men that I chose to do (typo, but leaving it) were wrong for me.
There was the pothead snowboard instructor I spoke of in this post. I know most people don’t like to go back and read old posts (but, damn I noticed so many of you still here and commenting! Thanks guys!) so I’ll give you a re-cap.
Jason was a mind fuck. He was gorgeous, but one of those gorgeous men that was so tortured in his gorgeousness. I have to say I was pretty cute back in my early 20s and it was weird to date a man prettier than I. I literally couldn’t take him anywhere without women (and men) staring.
I talked of in that post one time when Jason came down to visit me (I also REALLY loved doing the long distance thing, one more thing to moan and wail over) and he walked off the plane wearing cargo pants looking cute as always. The huge pockets of his pants were filled with alcohol minis that one of the flight attendants plied him with in-flight.
She waved goodbye to him as he was hugging me hello (back when you could still greet passengers at the gate). I remember pulling out of the hug, giving him a look and thinking, “I’m always going to have to wonder about you…”
There was the NY Met that I dated for an entire season. I saw him in Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego and of course, Phoenix. Basically, I had the west coast away games covered (and Chicago).
T didn’t speak hardly any English and everyone knows despite my ancestry, I speak nary a lick of Spanish. We spoke the language of love.
T didn’t really “get” American food and didn’t like much of it. He would try to order things like steaks or sandwiches, basic foods that he could make sense of in his head.
Room service was key. One thing I learned about people that are new to any country, they don’t like to appear stupid. Room service was a way for me to speak to the person taking the order, T could size up the food, pick it apart and decide if he was going to eat it.
Incidentally, after this “involvement”, it took me years to order things, bill everything to the room and not be surprised I had to pick up the tab.
One time when T and I were holed up at this hotel or that, we ordered room service for the umpteenth time. T had decided to get some soup which was different for him. I think he had the sniffles and I probably suggested it (the mother in me).
Instead of noodles in the chicken soup, it came with matzo and T was flabbergasted by these huge balls of dough floating in the broth. He finally wrangled one onto his spoon, looked at it, looked at me and said: “Maria, what thee fuck is dis?”
Nicole’s mom-in-law is a big time baseball fan (Giants) and she asked once why the relationship between T and I ended. I sighed wistfully, “The season ended.” We got a huge laugh out of that.
I wish that I could have enjoyed my 20s more, single and dating hugely inappropriate men. But I had to go and muck up a good time with feelings, angst, emotions and tears.
I think in some ways I was trying to recapture what I had with M’s father. From the time I was 18 to the age of 24, my entire being was wrapped up in his baseball career. His life, his dreams, his friends, his goals. When we divorced, I literally had no friends of my own. I lost them all along with the husband I left.
I hate to see women do that now. It’s one of those lessons you learned and you want to slap the next person into submission so they don’t make the same mistakes you did. You want your life’s lessons to MEAN something, dammit.
It wasn’t as much the baseball life I loved, but the inability to have my own life, my own friends, my own dreams and goals. I had to find the next man to do that with and for, it’s all I knew. Admitting that and coming to terms with it is… huge for me.
This breakthrough is, in actuality, only mostly true. Arizona is a pretty big sports state and if you go out to clubs with any regularity, you’re going to run into athletes. You couldn’t swing a shot glass without hitting one square in the jaw, which I wouldn’t suggest doing no matter how drunk you may get.
I never really thought of myself as a groupie, because I never sought any of those men out or camped outside any hotels. They were there, I knew some of them from when I was married to the ex, they’d introduce me to more men (ballers, shot callers) and my roommate was also huge groupie slut at the time. (No really. I’d walk out of my bedroom to go to work and a random Suns player would be sitting on the couch - “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Robinson?” Kidding! About the autograph, Mr. Robinson was most definitely posted up on the sofa at sunrise.)
I guess I thought of myself more like Annie, sticking with one man per season, only less organized with it all. I talked to plenty of people, my speed dial was full, I was single and only in recent years am I realizing just how fun it was and appreciating it for just that. Fun.
I’m not telling you all of this to give the impression that I miss it. I don’t. While that 6 year age difference between R and I represents something, it has less to do with the actual age but the maturity level I had to get to in order to attract a mature man.
To put it simply, I had to grow up. These past 4 years with R I have grown more than I have the entire decade (and change) I was single.
My single friends that I have met post-R only see the relationship me. The settled down version, the “okay to be home on a Friday night” person I’ve become. Like I’ve always been this way. Not unlike how I can’t see my coworker that I met while pregnant as anything but pregnant.
My friends pre-R are ecstatic I’ve finally found - wrong word - grew up enough to appreciate a truly good and decent man.
And the icing on the cake? I can always tease R on our birthdays that he’s older. That is, if I remember.