The View From My Pedestal

“The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.” Betty Grable

Many years ago when I was a divorced mother of two children, I worked for a computer company. Interestingly, I discovered after some years there that I had a reputation as a fun party girl. That seemed odd to me given the fact that in a good year I might go out on an actual date a couple of times. Apparently to the male population, a happy outgoing divorced woman equals a good-time floozy who does things they can only imagine in their techy dreams. The male logic still eludes me.

I did have one fellow in our department who would sing to me at our Friday afternoon beer busts. He also told me one time that he had had a vasectomy. I thought that was a good thing given that he had thinning dirty hair, watery blue eyes, crusty particles on his eyelids, and a belly which protruded nicely to hold up his baggy pants. But it wasn’t a piece of personal information I was particularly interested in knowing. And what do you say when a man tells you something like that? “Oh great. Now I can have unprotected sex with you and not worry about creating lizard-like children.” It isn’t easy being a single woman.

I was at a party one time and discovered I had an amazing talent for tuning out one conversation from an incredibly boring man, to another conversation of a much more interesting man. Floozy traits I guess. I could actually look at Mr. Dull with a pensive considering “I’m really listening to you” face when all the while I was tuning out everything he said so I could tune into someone else's conversation and at the same time consider my options for extricating myself to join the more interesting fellow. It was an out-of-body experience.

The best memory of this party was the conversation I had with yet another boring fellow who declared he was going abroad to “find himself”. Personally, I think if you lost pieces of yourself you’d do well to look for them right at home in a dusty unused corner thereby saving a lot of money and wasted conversations with strangers who don’t care a wit about your losing or finding yourself.

Apparently this fellow saw some very secure, grounded, and admirable traits (I was in a good “space”) in me so he said (and I quote) “I put you on a pedestal”. I thought that was such a novel notion so I tried on my newfound position on top of that pedestal to see what the view was like. I found out something very interesting from up there. The man down below took on aspects of a doormat...sort of a weenie kind of guy who brought out an untapped desire in me to walk all over him in an attempt to kick his fanny into an upright manly position. Sadly, it didn’t work so I climbed down from atop the pedestal and sought out the food tray.

Ah, the life of a good-time, divorced, party girl. You meet people who make you happy to stay home.

Alexina and The Young Man

Alexina is a woman who fits in everywhere and with everyone and always has something interesting to say because she does interesting things. Men love her because she’s beautiful in an exotic mysterious way with long auburn hair, sky blue eyes, and a figure toned by 24-hr Fitness. She also cooks like a Cordon Bleu graduate. The combination is deadly.

She calls herself an ex-serial marry’er. She’s 30 and has been married twice, which she considers more than enough for any woman. She’s taking time out to reassess her criteria for serious relationships.

She had a date last week-end with a 22 year old college student who works part-time in a restaurant she frequents. The young fellow is tall with the wiry muscular build of a long-time surfer. He has sandy hair and a cute lop-sided smile that brings out a dimple in one cheek that makes our feminine fingers itch to reach out and tweek that cheek. And more.

Alexina decided to approach dating in a more scientific manner by developing a working laundry list of good and bad attributes in men so that she can control her impulse to “help” every downtrodden, weak, needy, fool she meets. I told her that the instant she even thinks the “H” word, she should run screaming to the nearest phone and call me. Or suggest he call a professional who can “H”elp him.

She said when the young man showed up at her door, she had second thoughts. He had a beat up van--as in paint missing in several spots with the base metal showing through, and several dents on both sides. He was wearing orange baggy swim trunks and a wrinkled shirt that said “Ride the Wave to Freedom”. She thought his mother should have educated him on the value of an iron.

She asked him into her livingroom so she could get her things, whereupon he apparently mistook the polite gesture for an invitation to grab her for a kiss. She figures that youth disobeys any laws of formality, manners or timing. She also figured it was going to be a very long day.

They spent the afternoon at the beach, which considering the beautiful weather we had over the week-end should have been quite nice. Except the young man spent the whole time surfing. She thinks he planned it so she could admire his expertise in the sport, or surfing is his life and everything else comes second. Not a good sign for a sharing relationship.

Alexina spent the afternoon feigning interest, searching for seashells, and talking with the older couples on the beach. Her laundry list on the negative side had reached the end of the first page. She tried to come up with some emergency illness that would cut his water time short and get her back home, but gave up and took a nap in the shade. The thrill of dating a younger man was waning.

At the end of the day, the dear fellow took her to his apartment so he could change clothes. Which he did. He changed into another set of wrinkled attire. As a matter of fact, Alexina thought his whole apartment looked wrinkled.

He cleared the sofa so they could sit down and watch some TV. He clicked on the set to the sports channel where, to her surprise, was a tractor pulling competition. Did people actually watch this stuff? Apparently people do.

Oh, look at the time. Early appointment tomorrow. But it’s Sunday tomorrow. Right. Early church service.

I asked her if she had anything in the positive column of her new list. She said she’d have to give it some thought and get back to me.