Resolved: I am going to welcome opportunities to be more
flexible with my time.
I loooove to schedule things, both from the necessity of,
like everyone else, having a million things going on, and as a way of staving
off insecurity, especially when I really like someone. It’s as if I think that
writing someone’s name on the calendar means they’ll automatically like me and
stick around.
Last week, after Mr. Hazel Eyes texted on Friday to see if
we could hang out Saturday, (Um, alas? Sweetie and I already had awesome beach
plans.) I started to examine the anxiety that I have about spontaneity. It
seems that in the course of my life, all kinds of sexist, sex-negative, pop-psychology
nonsense snuck its way into my brain. There’s a cultural norm against being too
available if you’re a lady—I did get worried that he was into more of a booty
call thing than a..something else, but he was kind enough to reassure me that
it wasn’t. (He earned major cuddle-points for that.) (Also, booty call? Thank
goodness I did not use that actual term when asking him.) (And! Points to me
for asking!)
Back in my early twenties I read The Rules more out of curiosity than for actual advice, but somehow
that “make him really ask you out or he won’t want you” thing really stuck. Ten
years later I learned that “If he’s not asking you out, he’s just not that into
you.” I’m not sure why asking-out only counts if there’s advance notice, but
one thing’s for sure: I’ve got to stay away from those dating-advice books. Even
if I’m just reading them ironically, they seem to have power.
Bill and I had a real tug of war about the calendar. He kept
asking me “Why do you always have to know what’s going to happen?” and I never
had a good answer. My now-self is like, “Um, because I have a life?!” He made
such a point of dragging his feet about day-choosing, and it was just one of
the things he did that made me feel like he didn’t care. He’s a pretty bad
example, and probably the source of some of the anxiety. Everyone else I’ve
dated and/or played with has been great with planning, so I have no reason to
feel self-conscious about preferring it.
I remember hearing somewhere that submissives like to be very
oriented, and that is certainly the case with me. I like to be able to picture
the time in front of me, to have some idea of what it looks like. It makes
things seem more manageable, less hectic. Plus, over the course of this Poly
101 kind of year, the importance of calendars has been emphasized by absolutely
every advice-giver, to the point where it’s maybe a little over emphasized in
my head. Trying to be a good student as always, I guess.
MHE’s spontaneity triggered an embarrassing fear. For whatever
reason, part of me believes that if I let men into my life, it will somehow
become unmanageable, that I’ll suddenly be less smart, capable, organized
because there’s a dude around. New relationship energy does make me a little
scattered and distractible (just ask the midterm I’m glacially writing…) and it
makes me feel like I’m going wildly out of control.
It’s time to let go of that control a little. though I am
comfortable with preferring to plan, I really need to make room for
spontaneity. After all, it’s the dream to have somebody to just be with,
without having to plan anything, so, yeah, a little playing it by ear seems
like just the thing.