She Ventures Forth

In the U.S. we're obsessed with finding "The One." When we have relationships that don't end in marriage, we tend to see them as either stepping stones for our "real" relationship, or as stumbling blocks that have gotten in the way of our true path and destiny. The mindset of "The One" is what The Bachelor is based on. Never mind that the Bachelor is always sure his future wife is in the room of 25 women that the show has picked out for him, and never mind that he is (almost) always sure he has chosen the "right one" at the end of each season. This quest for perfect wedded bliss is what draws so many women into the series. We judge the female contestants based on what they do or don't do, and we try to mirror those in our own relationships so that we can find our special one. Even if we don't out and out say that we are mimicking or rejecting their behavior, I'm sure many of us sit in front of the TV screen going "Of course he rejected her," or, "What a nut case." Let's admit it, at times even the best of us can be catty bitches.

Women watch The Bachelor for the very same reason that it is criticized and made fun of. In all of its 14 seasons, only two couples have actually gotten married. One bride was the runner up swapped for the winner after the show was over, and the other couple weren't even on The Bachelor but The Bachelorette. Every other couple has split up, and often rather publicly. Not that there haven't been other Bachelor weddings, but these are made up of contestants who meet each other at Bachelor reunion events. Which makes sense. Let's face it, a room full of 200 plus people making up an equal number of men and women is much more likely to have lasting hookups than one contestant with 25, especially when the one goes around making out with multiple women at once.

As I watched the "Women Tell All" reunion episode tonight, it struck me that while the show purports to be about finding the ONE love of your life, maybe it isn't really so much about the destination as it is about the journey. What struck me today is that the current bachelor, Brad Womack, wouldn't let any girls apologize for anything they thought they did wrong. Ashley H., who had his heart from the beginning and let insecurity overwhelm her as the show went on, apologized to Brad on stage saying that she was at fault for things ending badly. He replied with something to the effect of, "Never apologize, because you are an exceptional woman. Maybe I just wasn't the guy to bring out that confidence in you." And really, can you blame her? I would be insecure too if a guy I had a great date with started kissing all these other girls. Who wouldn't get jealous? He had also sent away Ashley S. -- a girl much like myself who always has great first dates and then the guy says he's not looking for anything -- and she asked Brad tonight what he meant when he said she would make someone a wonderful wife, but not him. "Who am I to say if you would make a good wife or not?" he responded kindly, helping the girl realize she was not defective, just one girl that one guy didn't want to spend the rest of his life with. Who knows, this may all be a plot by the producers to boost women's ego and have them continue to watch the show, but it worked for me.

For the first time in a long time, my head is filled not with finding love, nor my medical condition, but with an entrepreneurial endeavor. For the past day and a half my roommate and I have been consumed with a business venture that kind of took on a life of its own. While because of my anonymity I won't go into the details of my idea, it combines my love of writing, my sappiness, my non-traditional upbringing, and my plethora of gay friends. Suddenly I'm not worried about what I will say to D or when I should say it. I write what I want, when I want, and he responds. In between his responses I'm not thinking about when I will receive the next one but am lost in my current project. Finally I have something I can focus my attention on even when in flareups, and with this quest, it's all in my hands. I do believe "The One" is out there, but making my own way is what's important right now. As is knowing that all those relationships that didn't turn into marriage (and the one that did) were not roadblocks or stepping stones but merely connections made between two people that had a start time and an end time. Sometimes things really are just that simple.

Parting the Red Sea

Every three months I turn into a different person: A giant green monster full of pent up aggression, just like the Incredible Hulk. It used to be every single month, but now I take birth control that gives me my period only four times a year. Let me tell you, I will never go back.

We all get the telltale signs of PMS... tender breasts, bloating, increased appetite for sweets.... But my biggest sign is not what happens to my body but what happens to my mind. All of a sudden I'm convinced that my family members are talking about me behind my back, saying what an immature person I am. I'm convinced that my best friend has found a new best friend and is only talking to me out of pity. I'm convinced that I am completely and utterly alone in the world and that no one can understand me and that no one ever will. The image that comes into my head is that all of my loved ones are on one side of a divide and that I am all alone on the other, and that these people couldn't cross the divide even if they wanted to, and I convince myself that they don't.

Instead of wallowing alone in my self pity I reach out to everyone in an attempt to reconcile what is not broken. I write long emails, then second-guess myself and write even longer ones to make up for what I've said. Then I'm not convinced that those contained what I really meant to say either, so I write and write until I have talked in a circle and then I am REALLY convinced that I've blown any chance at keeping those I love in my life, so I say even more.

My friends and family have become intimately aware of this pattern and know not to take it too seriously. They even actually don't seem to mind it but accept it as part of my lovely personality. However, in the dating world such paranoia does not go over well. No one wants three drunk phone messages in the middle of the night asking you to love me (or to at least just give me sex if not love), or to be chased down the street by a lovesick me with bags full of groceries as you pull away unknowingly in your pickup truck. Ironically, my problem isn't actually paranoia -- the problem is paranoia that I have paranoia. Or it's paranoia that other people will think I have paranoia. It's this feeling that they will see the "real" me, the one lurking under the surface, or that the one lurking is the fake me and that they will mistake it for the real me. It all creates a cycle in my head that I cannot break until the "crimson wave" stops and my serotonin levels rise again.

I write about this on a fibromyalgia blog because FM and PMDD often go together. In fact, many of my issues, however seemingly unrelated, can be traced to the presence of my FM. It's nice to have something to blame it on, or at least attribute it to. Luckily I have a roommate now and a plethora of women's advice books, all of which help me to curb my incessant texting and emailing of potential love interests during that tender time of the month. Luckily I'm on enough medication that only half of my brain is convinced at the moment that my best gay friend is leaving me for another girl while they sit with a bottle of wine and laugh about how boring I am. Only half of my brain writes this best friend letters of concern. The other half keeps this half from writing twice as many, and the friend himself seems as unfazed by it all as he was when he met me seven years ago.

Ever since I started getting fibromyalgia flareups they come during my period like clockwork. I'm sure being stuck at home with a fuzzy head doesn't help the paranoia about paranoia. But at least I get to stay home and watch girlie movies with a box of Kleenex, crying over lost love, found love, and the elusive creature that will hold me in the middle of the night, on my side of the great divide.

Let's call him K

The question comes with dating: When do you tell a potential suitor that you have fibromyalgia?

About three months ago I met a man. He was perfect. Cute, hard-working, sweet... Even before our first date he knew I didn't have a car. And what did he say? "If you ever need a ride anywhere, even to the grocery store, I will drive you." I wasn't fishing for this offer and I wouldn't have taken him up on it anyway, as he lived across the water in another town. But man, I said to myself, if he is so understanding about me not having a car, he will be super understanding about fibromyalgia.

Jump ahead a couple weeks. We've now had three dates. On date three we check out a neighborhood both of us have heard of but have never been to. As I'm planning to move to his side of the water, he suggests I go into a rental office of an apartment building I like and ask how much the studios are. We get a flier for me, and he takes one for himself as well. "I may move sometime," he says.

We spend our date doing the infamous "While You Were Sleeping" lean. We say, "We should do this. We should do that." We go to a chocolate factory where he invites me to pick out a bar -- any bar I want. We walk through a Sunday market and we get pizza, drizzle hitting the tops of our heads as we listen to live music. We take pictures with a famous statue and search for another famous statue which we don't find. On the way back to the car, I decide to come clean about my fibromyalgia. "I don't let it keep me down," I say. I paint it in a positive light, even showing gratitude for the way it helps me stop and smell the roses. He admires my strength and perseverance. He has the exact response I'd been hoping for.

He drives me home, and then silence. I send him an email: "Thanks for being so understanding about my fibromyalgia," I say. I hone in the fact that I do not have the widespread pain or the depression, thinking that if he googles my illness I may come across in an unfavorable light. He sends me a statement of purpose for graduate school that he wants me to proof. I proof it and send it back. A week goes by and I hear nothing. I send another email, the infamous, "I like you / do you like me" confession. This is not completely out of left field. Before our first date he wouldn't go three days without calling. After date one he set up date three. (Date two was a game party at my house.) "I'm really busy," he writes back. "I want to be friends."

Now, I have no proof that the fibromyalgia doomed this possible relationship, but I have my suspicions. (If he isn't a closet homosexual, as most of my love interests are.) The question I'm left with is: When do you tell someone about your illness? Do you write it on your online dating profile, to weed out the ones who will reject you once they find out? Do you wait until you're in the phone stage, or after the first date, or after the third? Do you trick someone into liking you so much that once they find out about your illness they feel like they can't back down?

Contrary to the way I usually work, I didn't spend a lot of time moping over this potential lost love. Instead I jumped back on the bandwagon and asked someone else out. "Yes," he says, "Once I get back from traveling for work." So now we are "facebook friends" and I don't dare write anything about fibromyalgia. To him I am just some woman he met at a bar through a mutual friend... One of those gay men I love so much. "I teach online," I say across the table. I bat my eyelashes. I take off my coat. I leave him hanging because at this point I am still seeing K. One week later I am not seeing K, and two weeks after that I ask for and have his yes and wait for him to return from his travels. His journey continues, and so does mine.