This past weekend I made my first pilgrimage to New York City. Sad, I know, that it’s taken so long for me to finally make the trip. My friends have tried to coerced me for years and with the trip finally in the works I was, in some respects, nervous and in others determined to take on the city of such greatness with a larger than life persona of music, art, theater, movies, television and business. I came to find out that it wasn’t so different than Chicago and that life, more or less, has the same challenges.
I arrived late Friday morning to my friend’s apartment and after freshening up I went to meet two friends, sisters Elina and Leah, for lunch at a chic-chic French Bistro at Madison and 63rd. I have to mention that when we sat down Leah leaned over to me and said that we were sitting right across from Eric Clapton; a major celebrity sighting! In New York for two hours and I figured it was a positive sign of exciting things to come, although not knowing what that might be.
The sisters are writers and it was great to catch up and find out about their latest projects. It didn’t surprise me that the conversation soon turned to relationships and dating, the primary subject for Elina.
Seven years ago I hired the sisters, who co-authored a dating book, to work for me as spokespeople in conjunction to a dating/kissing, quirky media tour across the country. The three of us became fast friends while traveling together and we enjoyed deliberating the trials and tribulations of dating. I suppose it was those 11 months and the friendship I built with the sisters that fueled my interest in dating and human interaction, and which brought me to write this column. Sitting at the bistro that afternoon we were three thirty something women, successfully working for ourselves, enjoying several glasses of wine and still discussing dating and relationships.
Elina was discussing her latest book for women who are commitment-phobes, the flipside of the stereotypical male. Leah has a few projects ghost writing for celebs. Nonetheless, Elina’s topic took over the conversation as we began to look deeply into our own lives but also explore the more general topics of dating.
Elina is definitely on to something, suggesting that there are seven types of female commitment-phobes including the Damsel in Distress, The Nitpicker, The Player, The Free Spirit and The Long Distance Runner. She even offers 10 signs that you are a commitment-phobe. I laughed, of course, at the notion that there is indeed such a psychology behind women who may be afraid to commit, but she made some very convincing points.
It does seems that the longer women are single, looking for Mr. Right and never finding him that we actually become afraid not of not finding “him” but, in some cases, of finding “him”.
Eventually we become happy and settled in our lives and we sabotage our dating life without even knowing it. Living a full and active life is a good thing. It does make us more well-rounded and prime for a relationship. The question is whether we, confident and comfortable women, hurting ourselves by having it all and not knowing what we’re really looking for in a partner.
We all want to date and find that special someone; we make efforts by trying new things and joining Internet sites, but how open are we really? It’s so easy to become comfortable in our world and shut out potential partners because they fail to wow us in the first five minutes. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: There comes a time when we need to stop looking at what we don’t want in a person, and begin looking for the things we do want. Turn the negatives into positives.
We become so set in our own ways, our apartments are just like we like them and there’s no extra person to pick up after. We do put in the effort to meet men but do we really want the end result? I ask this question because sometimes dating seems to be more work than it’s really worth. But does that make us all commitment-phobes, or just weary travelers on the path of life who need to take a hiatus or “dating detox”, as Elina calls it?
What happened to the ease of meeting people who were equally interested in you, like in high school or college. Is urban living just too full of options for men and women that we get caught up in looking for the more perfect, better person that we fail to see the really great one sitting right in front of us? Or are we powered by our own potential and professional success to want to give up anything of ourselves to someone else?
When I think of women who are afraid of commitment I think of all the possible negative experiences we’ve encountered at one time or another that influence our future relationships, and keep us emotionally detached from others. With men, I just assume that most of their issues come from being an outnumbered sex in almost every major U.S. city and that means lots of options.
When I went to New York I was definitely taking a “dating detox” but underneath I was kind of hoping that Mr. Wonderful lived there and that I had spent the last eight years in the wrong city. Although I met a number of interesting men none of them wowed me beyond belief. Call me a long distance dating-phobe or blame the “detox” but I almost understood what it felt like to be afraid of making a commitment of any kind (a drink, a kiss) to anyone I met in the Big Apple. The irony began to set in.
I spent most of the weekend exploring New York City and being present enough to see it with my own eyes. Its beauty, excitement and allure are all very sexy qualities, and, of course, thinking how nice it would be to have someone special to share it with. At the end of the day it was fun being a single, independent gal roaming the City. And while I appreciated the attention I received from a variety of men, including NYC’s finest, I realized that I was focusing on the negatives of a possible relationship rather than keeping myself open to any opportunity.
After all, wouldn’t you move to the ends of the earth for someone you want to share your life with? Wouldn’t you take the risk for love? I take risks everyday in business. Maybe I’m just not ready for this one. I suppose that makes me a “Damsel in Distress”, who doesn’t seem to feel any distress at all, right now. That could just be the detox talking.
• "Dating Games" appears first and third Mondays of every month, exclusively in Lumino Magazine. E-mail Jennifer at jenfort@hotmail.com.
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