Doomed

In the "Life" section of the USA Today there is an article which suggests to have a happy marriage "between 23 and 27 might be ideal ages" OH FUCK!

You may realize (I certianly do) that this is a big issue/fear with me. I have been unable to have many healthy relationships in my life, because I have been busy focusing on learning the lessons I wasn't taught as a young person because the my only daily resource to figure out the world was mentally ill and passed out drunk. I think it is perfectly reasonable that I don't have a lot of emotional experience with men, I had priorities, and I am glad I attended to them instead of to relationships.

I had felt fine about being usually single up until recently. I work at a company where it appears that 90% of my co-workers are married. Of my 3 best college friends, all of them are married and two of them have a child. Oh, and the friend I have had the longest just bought a house with her partner.

I figured out last night why my anxiety is up about this. I may be willing (and needing) to wait to get married, but my body is not going to wait until I am ready. No, I am not talking about my biological clock, I need too much medication and have 2 too many genetic mental illness to consider giving birth to be a good idea, its not my ovaries I am concerned about, its my appearance.

I went through puberty as "the hot girl" For a few years of my life if I liked a boy, all I had to do was talk to him and I would end up smooching him at the end of the party. I realize this is not a difficult or remarkable skill, but it was the framework I learned about boys from, I learned that who you are doesn't really matter, all that matters is that you look good, and then you get your way. I never really got my way, they never cared about me or anything that I thought, but as a desperately lonely little 12 year old I was willing to take the attention I could get.

As years passed and I got more average looking I learned that I can't just smile and have them wrapped around my finger, and I am still in the process of having the social skills and personality that will make me an attractive girlfriend. The anxiety provoking feeling now is that I am no longer particularly attractive, I am pretty blase about hair, makeup, and clothes (depression related) and since I feel that I am a few years behind others in personal skills I sort of feel like a bad candidate.

So I know what y'all are thinking, either "oh please" or "poor girl" you think that I don't think I am attractive enough to get someone. I know that I am attractive enough to get SOMEONE, but I don't want SOMEONE, I want someone great, I want to fall in love. I am sincerely concerned that the few men appropriate for me (rare- I am a unique person with a unique life) will be married soon (or already are), and the few that I have a chance to meet will overlook me, because where I am at right now I am neither remarkably beautiful nor am I any longer ambitious or enthusiastic. I wouldn't want a male version of myself, and I worry that by the time I am at the level I would want, my potential partners will be married already. Sure I will have a shot at all of them in 15 years when they divorce their first wives, but I don't want to be a second wife, I want to be an only wife.

I am aware that the answer here is work to become satisfied with myself, and that is when I will be ready. I know I will only be ready when I am completely happy without a man in my life. But writing about the pressure I feel from the world is helpful, because I am more aware of what the very strong feelings I am experiencing are. Perhaps if I was more in touch with them before I could have protected myself from being "touched inappropriately" by MacDuff (who, from this point I will refer to as "Peep" [named after his marshmallow cock])

One thing, on the way to being confident is, I need to lose some of this weight. I remember being much prettier about 20 pounds lighter than I am, I thought I was fat at the time, but I considered myself passibly attractive. I have lost some of my momentum on my "learning to eat right" program. I am sick and tired of recording everything I eat, and since I am not excercising much I am not seeing results fast enough to keep me motivated to continue (however I have lost a few pounds.) I imagine, that like my blog, I need to not beat myself up, just pick myself up again when I slip. This is not a diet, it is a "lifestyle change" so the challenges I am facing now are challenges I will face my whole life, and change doesn't happen overnight.

Having written it out I feel more in charge, and more of a sense of perspective. I do not have genuine pressure on me, I am just feeling imaginary cultural pressure, (and a body that doesn't seem to realize it's not going to give birth to children). I am BETTER OFF the way I have been throughout my life. I have prefered being alone than in a bad realtionship, and I am hella better off aging and losing my looks as a single woman than aging and losing my looks in a bad or unsatisfying marriage.

mood: a'ight, my leg is shaking and fidgeting though (burns calories!)