I received my first comment to one of my blogs and the comment was interesting. The opening line was "To me the perfect date would the perfect mate." I will tell you that this comment did come from a man and I was intriqued.
Why would the perfect date have to be with your perfect mate? Personally I do not want a mate and when I use the word "mate" I feel like I am talking about the animal kingdom. But, I have no desire to have a "mate". I know this is hard for some people to understand. Because they themselves can not be comfortable living without being permentaly attached to another person. To them the thought of not waking up with a spouse next to you is unbearable.
Up until a few weeks ago I was one of those people. Then I realized that I have had a boyfriend in my life since I was 14 years old; that is 26 years of my life that has included a significant other. 26 years of thinking about another person and what they feel, think or would want. I think I am ready to live without that. I am ready to live with thinking about myself first and not worrying about what my significant other would want to do.
One thing I found out after leaving is that I can live alone just fine. I was always under the impression that I would not do well living alone. I thought I would have a hard time sleeping alone but I found out not only can I sleep alone, but, I sleep better alone. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you living alone is the most wonderful thing in the world, it does get lonely at times but I deal with it.
We live in a world where are lives are created for us by television, books, newspapers, magazine, etc. We are told that in order to be happy we have to do what they are doing on tv, we have to look like they look in magazines, true romance is what is written in the pages of the romance novels; and we fall for it.
Little girls grow up dreaming about what their wedding will be like. I don't know what little boys grow up thinking about or if they think about what type of wife they want. But, we start our kids out as young as 5 years old thinking that in order to be happy they have to have a girl/boyfriend. I watched my relatives ask my son when he was in kindergarten "Do you have a girlfriend yet?" That really upset me, of course he did not have a girlfriend he still did not know the difference between boys and girls.
As my son grew up I realized boys do not mature as fast as girls, he would have girls calling him when he was in middle school and all he was interested in was cars and video games. He had no desire to talk to them and I asked him about it and he said they were weird. All they did was giggle and talk about silly things. I remembered when I was in middle school and I was already staking out the cute boys I liked and that was all we girls talked about. He was well into high school before he finally started talking about girls, he just turned 20 and has no desire to settle down or have kids anytime soon. Which I think is great.
I am sure somewhere down the road I may want to settle down again, I do not think I will ever get married again, but I may find someone who fills the spot of making me happy. But for now I am very content knowing that when I go home tonight only my kids will be there. And for the first time in 40 years that is okay with me. It is more than okay with me it is what I want for me.