Where have all the cowboys/rig pigs gone???

First of all, I’d like to follow up on the last blog post regarding some of the more “controversial” things that were written. I acknowledge that men also face similar issues in obtaining a secure financial position, particularly while we are in the midst of a market failure. I also want to say that I sympathise with this extreme pressure on men to ensure the health and needs of the family, both here and in more extreme patriarchal societies. Having been working on issues of gender the last few years, although in a South Asian context, I realise that similar gender structures still continue to exist here. In particular, the dependence of women on men’s income does still remain, albeit in a less oppressive way. In Pakistan, women are almost universally dependent on men’s income to support the household. In cases of extreme poverty, women certainly obtain informal employment as cleaning and cooking staff in rich people’s homes or in labour intensive work like brick breaking. In so doing, they bring shame upon the family and expose themselves to harassment, physical and sexual assaults.  This is perhaps a key reason for things like the tragic numbers of farmer suicides around the world who have become slaves to big agribusiness and are absolutely unable to provide necessities for their families (a terrible and problematic paradox). I suppose the one difference between the northern and southern context is that here, women actually have some agency to get out and help bring the bacon home if need be largely without fear of being raped on the way to work or from bringing dishonour upon the family. Finally, I am also acutely aware of the career benefits later in life (minus maternity leave) that come along with being a single woman with  no other obligations except herself; work hard and play hard.

Okay now that that is said, let me clear up my intentions with dating, why I have returned to the awfulness that is dating (specifically awful, in my opinion, is online dating), and tell you of my initial experience here in Vancouver with the online dating scene: it’s not pretty.

While the last post was mainly focused on trying to hunt out a partner to set myself up with a double income so I can feel more secure in taking risks like doing a phd, this is not the only, nor the most important, reason.

The discussion with my supervisor described in the previous post was described to me last night over beers by my Brazilian friend, Dais, as perhaps being the final drop in the bucket that caused it to overflow. I have been so excited and happy to be here doing what I am doing, having a little honeymoon period and all of a sudden, WHAMMO!!! One small word making me question what the hell I am doing here?? Why did I leave my friends, my family, my university??? I went home on the bus after this metaphorical drop hit the bucket, trying not to bust out in tears and be the creepy crier on the bus. I wasn’t able to quite articulate why I felt so emotional until I went home, drew a bath and put on a Tara Brach podcast dharma talk about vulnerability. In it she both acknowledges the evolutionary functionality of vulnerability but criticises our aversion to feeling vulnerable or allowing anyone else to know we feel vulnerable. As I soaked in both my feelings of utter vulnerability and my baby-soft chamomile bubble bath, I wept uncontrollably (felt AMAZEballz). Emerging from this bath of vulnerability (which I fully made the choice to sit in) was the realisation that I actually am really uncomfortable with the idea of spending the rest of my days without a man-friend.  However, I must deconstruct this last statement so it doesn’t come across as desperation, inability to be alone or as “loneliness”. Loneliness, surprisingly, is not something I have experienced in a very long time.

Imagine a world where people didn’t latch on to just one other person and then spend all evenings and weekends and holidays together as a pair, to the exclusion of everyone else. Would we then feel such pressure and desperation to also find ourselves a match so that we don’t end up becoming the one that is excluded? I suspect not! I feel that one key reason I feel so much pressure to ensure I find a life-partner (even the term kind of bugs me out) is because that is what everyone else is doing and if I don’t join the band wagon there will be no one left to spend time with because they’ll all be spending time with in their own exclusive pairing. Or pairs will spend time with other pairs and then complain about how hard it is to find other couple friends. In my life, I have been fortunate to be the single friend to a number of couples who have taken me in as one of them, even so far as to jokingly refer to me as “2^nd wife” or their “adopted adult child”. However, they still have their own intimate and real life together after I leave, that does not involve us committing to each other financial support or support in moving cities on the advent of a new career, etc. Furthermore, the permanent-ness of their own relationships is not necessarily guaranteed either, as I am coming to discover.

There’s an old saying: “white people problems”. This actually is a real “white people problem”. If we continued to surround ourselves, live with, and be intricately connected to our parents, siblings, and extended families througout our lives, would these feelings of exclusion and disconnectedness exist here?  Instead we “move away”, buy our own place to live, buy our own furniture and TVs and kitchen stuff, and are mocked by MaClean’s magazine when we end up back living in mom and dad’s basements at 30 years old and termed as the "failure to launch" generation. This is in stark contrast to other places in the world and the benefits of having one’s identity completely wrapped up in a collective identity with a larger family network, providing financial and social security.

So, with my intentions for dating being made clearer and less sociopathic, I rejoin the world of online dating.

This is not my first foray into the throngs of the online dating world. I have tried it a couple of times before for short periods with a negative attitude and, consequently, negative outcomes: me feeling doubtful about the quality of the male species and like I am a total loser at the same time. I have been saying for the last year and a half that I will never do online dating again. I use reasons such as “It is just too goofy for me”, “I am waaaaay too good/cool/attractive for that”, “Oh it’s fine for others but not for me”, “I have never had a problem meeting people in the ‘real’ world”, etc. I always articulated these negative attitudes and how they impacted my ability to open up to the possibility of someone I met online as, “I view them as lame-o for using online dating and then remember that I am also online dating and therefore I am viewing myself as totally lame-o”. Real nice, right? Not only have I been inadvertently judging myself, but I have been judging these innocents who are putting themselves out there and genuinely seeking a partner (or a mommy for their 2 children, as in the case with a lot of the dudes in Alberta).

Here is why my attitude was changed a couple of weeks ago: In a conversation with one of my dearest and wisest friends, a mentor and an inspiration, we broke down my negative attitudes into manageable pieces. First, we are concerned with how the rest of the world views us. Secondly, we attach meaning to finding a partner in the “natural” way; that if we meet someone “naturally” it means we are desirable and if we don’t then conversely we are not desirable. Thirdly, when we go on a date with someone we meet online, we wonder about what the rest of the world thinks of us when we are out with that person, that person we met online. For example, I for years have said that I won’t date anyone under 5’9 because I don’t want others to look at us and think we are a munchkin couple. The implications of self-consciousness are an inability to be in the present moment and focus. My friend shared with me how she herself was going to attitudinally approach her own online dating experience once she starts. She said that she was going to approach each and every man she goes on a date with as an opportunity to practice mindful presence and connectedness. WOWEEEEE! Rather than view each of them as potential partner-meat, she will try to view them just as they were without self-consciousness getting in the way. We could ALL use more practice in mindful presence while in conversation with another. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who is actively engaging with you; when they’re with you they are WITH you and not checking emails/the time/texts on their phone or having their eyes darting around the room as you talk?  It is pure love, even if just for a few hours, and it is a sacred space. This was the “aha” moment.

I proceeded to reactivate my e-harmony account and was happy to have found a really cheap deal. I edited some of my photos, my location, and my occupation, proudly typing in “PhD Student”, proud of possessing this kind of cultural capital. This might have been my first mistake but I digress. I set my preferences: matches only within 20 miles, no religious types, between the ages of 26 and 38, etc. E-harmony retorts back telling me in not so many words that I am actually being too picky and tells me I should “broaden my settings”. “No way”, I think, “I am not quite there yet”. I paid the tab and then sat back in hopeful waiting. In Edmonton, during my previous e-harmony experiences, I would have 10-plus messages in the first few hours from men wanting to meet. Either I got uglier or older looking or whatever but I waited and waited and waited some more and heard nothing for two to three days. What was I doing wrong???? (It is always my fault and something I did wrong, by the way…. vestigial beliefs from previous relationship). I remembered the fact that the demographics in Edmonton are slightly more in favour of women than perhaps Vancouver is. Perhaps less young men in Vancouver are looking for step-moms for their oil-rig-two-weeks-off conceived children or maybe more young men are confirmed ski/climbing/sailing bachelors. Who knows!!??? Disconcerting and a little bit hard on my ego.

I confided in one of my new Vancouver friends about this strange revulsion men seem to be experiencing as a result of my e-harmony profile. She says “oh no one in Vancouver uses e-harmony, you have to download the tinder app, that is where all the hot guys are”. I went home, downloaded the app, had three dates in two hours: confidence superficially lifted! But this is fodder for the next post.

Next stop: the new “Hot or Not” and my newly discovered distaste of small mouths and large foreheads.

The Quest for the Holy Grail: the Double-Income

I have just begun yet another journey: the journey of dating. This one MOST likely won’t result in weird eye, nose, or throat infections or some sort of gastrointestinal cholera-like “issue” or sleeping with cockroaches… or maybe it might! Though it may appear self-indulgent, I want to share this quest for a partner, fundamentally a quest for connectedness, with the blogosphere for three reasons: 1) it is better than talking it out with a UBC psychology graduate student (all I would be able to afford) or bothering my most precious friend resources too much; 2) Because when I am experiencing fear, vulnerability and insecurity, I find solace in hearing other people’s experiences and to find that we are all going through the same shit; and 3) fun to practice non-academic writing (okay so it is MOSTLY self-indulgent but I’d argue that cat pictures are more self-indulgent).  

What is this drive for connectedness that drives us into the arms of another, or multiple others? I have caught glimpses of this connectedness, feeling true freedom, while in moments of meditation or while in the throes of debilitating “love”. I recall a moment of freedom from a little over a year ago, meditating outside at my parents little northern Alberta acreage. I experienced a fleeting second of knowing that I am made up of the same “stuff” as the rest of the universe, the rest of the earth, the other animals (my earth brothers and sisters, as I refer to them while at the same time being shit-my-pants scared of wild animals), the trees that were around me, the wind, etc. I remember thinking, “if I am all of this and this is all of me, how can I ever actually feel like I am alone???”. We are soooo not separate from the universe but rather embedded in an infinite network of energy and intertwining cosmic fascia. Like I said, it was a fleeting moment of feeling fully connected. At the time, I was voluntarily not employed and being cared for and looked after by my mummy and daddy in the forest in northern Alberta where peace and quiet (and Mormons) abounded. To say that maintaining this sense of connectedness was challenging upon re-engagement in society a couple months later is both a euphemism AND a paradox.

For those of you who know me well (and perhaps those of you who do not because, evidently, I am “cool” with telling anybody anything), one of my intentions for the last year and a half has been freedom. Freedom from thinking that my life “should” be different, that I “should” be different, that I “should” be “further along” on the life road map laid out by our culture (think Hasbro’s board game, Game of Life where we were either pink or blue little stick men driving what appeared to be Sebring convertibles). These “shoulds”, according to Buddhist philosophy, are the source of all desire and therefore the source of all suffering. By coming into mindful presence and a peaceful acceptance of the universe unfolding imperfectly perfect we can detach from the concocted story of how things “should” be; each of our lives is exactly how it is, perfect in its imperfectness. No “shoulds”. However these “shoulds” are the product of our culture's value system and are imprinted and profoundly embedded profoundly in our psyches. They are no joke. 

In particular, over the last year and a half, I have been seeking freedom from the paralysing belief that when I find a partner, THEN I can do all the things I want to do. I experienced a traumatically disappointing breakup in the spring of 2012, the kind that causes you to actually leave your body as a self-preservation mechanism with the resulting emptiness being first filled with fear, doubt and bitterness before light and wisdom re-emerge to displace these poisons. One of many pieces of innate wisdom that emerged was that this belief in a partner being a priori to me achieving my goals was a belief I had held for my entire life. This belief manifested in my behaviour as I sat and waited for someone to choose me all the while acting incredibly desperate as I just wanted to get my life “started”. This insight has indeed made the last year and a half the most positive, productive, exciting, and confidence-building chapter of my life thus far.

An event occurred last week triggered my old friends, insecurity and vulnerability and perhaps desperation. I moved to Vancouver a few months ago to begin a phd program. I rent a nice comfortable one-bedroom apartment, I cook nice meals for myself, have some savings for a holiday next year, some savings for retirement, do some yoga, swim lanes at the community centre, sit in nice coffee shops and work, plan my garden for next year, etc. You know, a nice single 31 year old existence as budgeted for in accordance with the increasing income that comes with more and more training. I have yet to be awarded a grant for my studies so I work full-time in 3 separate wonderfully invigorating and challenging academicky part-time jobs. In a meeting with my supervisor last week she first asked if “isn’t just working 2 of the 3 jobs enough of an income for you (2000$/ month)?”. I responded confidently with resounding  “no”. She then tells me that “theoretically you shouldn’t be working so much”. I respond by telling her “I don’t know how to respond to that comment. It is what it is”. This event  may seem like “so what’s the big deal, Adrienne???”. It shook me. It did not sit well with me for two reasons. First, it forced me to remember how vulnerable and insecure my position here actually is right now and then of course I proceeded to dwell on the accompanying worry. Of course, as I often do in times of worry, I totally neglected to remember how insecure and vulnerable my position has been for the last 7 years and how it has ALWAYS worked out. I began to panic, to feel homesick for the security of Alberta and my friends and my family, and even my university there; homesick for connectedness and grounding. Secondly, as I asked around to other graduate students I work with about their experiences with working and supervisor expectations, the majority of them had not had to worry about earning less income while in school. This majority had partners. These women have or had partners in their life during graduate school. These women had a double income household to buffer the insecurity. They then almost all solidified their security by having a baby while writing their dissertations. Babies equal relationship cement (debateable?).  I am simply trying to make a life for myself that does not assume I will ever have a double income. I am very honest about this, but one of the reasons I am doing a phd is not only because I have tended to be good at academia and I find it incredibly stimulating as a potential career, but also because it could one day allow me to earn an income as a single woman that might facilitate me in buying a piece of land in rural Alberta where I can grow a food forest.

All of this has triggered this strange desire to find a partner, as if that will make me feel more secure financially. Ha. Crazy right? Nope. While I am no victim-blamer, I am fairly certain I, along with a number of beautiful, intelligent, still- single friends of mine, am wrestling against a long history and deep-seated ethos of women as the helpless dependent. This historical ethos is perhaps not so historical and, I would argue, still influences the mechanics and structures of our present institutions. This event that has retriggered my fear, doubts, insecurities, and vulnerabilities is the first time in my life that I have ever felt like I may not be able to succeed at what I am doing not because I am a woman, but because I am a single-woman.

Next stop, travelling to the beginning of my online dating/prowling in Vancouver: The crap, the crappier, and the crappiest.