I will give you a reason and you will like it

So I go to a therapist. I'm not afraid to admit that. I am a New Yorker. We all go to therapy.

I started going because I had no idea who I was. I had lived the first 28 years of my life behind a tutu matched delightfully to a brazen, self-righteous, semi-sociopathic masochist.

How the hell does that work?
Well...
I thought being blunt and hurtful was a good tactic for letting people know they did me wrong. My MO was to take the punishment of being ignored and belittled for months, years, decades in a few cases, and then finally, out of nowhere, sweet, innocent, caring and loving Audrey went ape shit.
I got into an argument on the street with a guy who had treated me like I was a pet, one that he kicked when he got home from a bad day, for way too long.
We were standing on the corner of thompson and spring and i just snapped. the venom that started pouring out of my mouth was cold, ruthless, and violently heartless. Then, he shoved me, and walked away.

A 33 year old man shoved me.

This, I will sheepishly admit, was not the first time I had provoked and been man-handled, but it was certainly the last. The next morning I set up my appointment.

I had no idea what was wrong with me. Now I do.

Nothing.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt to people who take. Narcissism was a HUGE turn on. It still is. The idea that I could handle it. That I was so tough and emotionless and cool was like a drug.

I really did not care what his or her deal was because we would never have to be close.

I could "love" him and leave him or gossip, work on my snarky sarcasm with her and, at the end of our encounter, not give a shit which way they went.
But I was being false. I did want to be cared about. I did want someone who listened and told me stories, good, bad, and ugly stories, and just put themselves out on the table.
I wanted to be able to air out my dirty laundry too. That stuff has made me who I am. Who, I've realized in the past two years, is an amazing person.

The hard pill to take is that i am still drawn to people who are looking for motive.

They are not hard to find.

A person who trusts is 1 in a great many. A person who doesn't is a dime a dozen.

I like to listen. I like to be a soundboard and watch what people do and say. I can tell when they are coming from an honest place. I can tell when they are not. In some instances, even when they can not.

This gets me into trouble.

People do not like to share.

They create this storyline about the listener. Freud coined it transference.
Since I have this lovely tendency to listen and hear, this transference shows up in a lot of colorful ways.
I have been accused of thinking I am above the talker.
I have been accused of being codependent, a martyr to save them.
I have been accused of being a know-it-all.
I have been accused of pushing my agenda.

The reality is, I am just listening.

I used to give advice because I thought that was what the other party wanted from me, but I never thought my advice was any good. Another person's life is not my life and it is not mine to change or help them with.

I have no idea what kind of crazy trauma and drama and mishaps and beliefs she has running through her brain, making her need to own whatever she is saying or whatever reason she is giving for the words she uses.
All I have is a point of view. It is not my place to try and make that someone else's point of view. I do not intend for a word of mine to be heard. I am used to that anyway.

Shrinky says its my semi-sociopathy. I'm not mentally ill, but I sure as hell can detach like I am.

It is a real part of me that I am completely and blissfully content when I am completely by myself.

I can not say that I do not love company, but I do not need it. I much prefer living in my headphones and burying my nose in a book to talking to strangers. I want to get a dog, a snobby impersonal dog and walk him as far away from other dogs and people at the dog park because, well he doesn't want to talk to strangers either. That's my kind of dog.

But...

Here'a the rub: I have learned that I can not stop the conversation when it gets hard. I fight to the bitter end. The completion. The resolve. (I have suffered through 10-20 cold wars at this point).

I am trying out a new approach to that.
I am creating a possibility that I can have those conversations and sift through the resistance and the transference and just get to the nitty gritty of it all by just asking what they are gaining.

I will admit a selfish gain on my end from this: I like to watch people figure it out.

I do not want to figure it out for them, nor do I want to walk away.

I want to have relationships with people where they feel like they can trust me and see that I am not judging and that I actually do not see anything wrong with anything about them.
Even the stuff I ask them about.

It is just a question. Nothing more.

It is difficult to figure out how to do this at times. My current conundrum is someone who likes reasons, but does not want to discuss what those reasons do for him. He will likely bolt because he is mentally accusing me of one of those prior accusations I listed, or a new one...I just don't care. I'm still asking.

In a nutshell, those reasons HAVE to be doing something for him, otherwise, what is the point of having a reason?

If I say I can not go skiing because I'm afraid of hurting myself, I have a reason. That reason keeps me safe and my knees intact. Maybe I am missing out on a real high in "nature".

Eh, I hate being cold anyway.

I have a reason. It is a silly reason but I have it and my safety is the benefit there.

If I said I can not learn Italian, because I do not want to know what those sleazy guys who sit at my morning coffee shop are saying about me, I gain by not having to know and being able to pretend they are complimenting the intelligence I exude, despite their obvious gestures towards my ass.
Ridiculous. But I gain something from that reason.

If I said I will never date a blonde man because I'm not attracted to them, I gain nothing from my reasoning. I cut out a whole slew of men who are likely tall enough to compliment me in 4" heels and probably have a place to take me on Nantucket this summer.
No gain keeping this reason up.

These are silly examples but they are real, humorous reasons I actually operate under. I've kicked the last one out because I want my options wide open (though tall dark and handsome is surely going to be where it's at...I jest).

I'm on that trip this week. I am trying to examine my reasons, and see where they bring me and what it is I actually gain from them. If there is nothing of value, I am dropping them. At the end of the day, they are only holding me back.

Over n out!

XO Aud.

IaMuNoRdInArY: Swing open up your chest and let it in

IaMuNoRdInArY: Swing open up your chest and let it in: I have had a dream for years but I didn't realize it was a dream until last night. I have woken from my rest with my arms reaching for the ...

IaMuNoRdInArY: I'll listen for you not to you and we will learn t...

IaMuNoRdInArY: I'll listen for you not to you and we will learn t...: I've had a lot come at me of late and it's triggered some serious reflecting. It's not really about what's right or wrong because there is ...

I'll listen for you not to you and we will learn together

I've had a lot come at me of late and it's triggered some serious reflecting.
It's not really about what's right or wrong because there is no right or wrong.

It's about listening.

I'm sure it's something we can all attest to at one point or other, thinking that opening our ears to someone who has something to say and then thinking our words of wisdom will help.

I've learned that sometimes the best wisdom we can bestow is to listen differently.

We listen TO each other but we don't listen FOR each other.

Listening to requires being present and hearing and trying to give our own two cents.

Listening FOR means we are hearing not only what is being said but also who the person is who's saying it.

It feels good for ME when I can impart wisdom.

That's about me.

I have to get me out of the way.

When someone is asking me to listen, he is telling me HE wants to be heard. Not just his words but WHO he is in saying them.

I can spend all day rationalizing what I think will be helpful to someone else, but that's what I think.

Again, that's about me and my agenda and my trying to run someone else's life.

The best kind of support I can give is seeing him and listening to where he is coming from.

An attack will never create resolve.

My judgment and opinions are an attack.

It's better to come from this place:

"what I see from this is this (insert example), help me understand what YOU see".

Even the closest people I can account for in my life are not 100% obvious to me. Just like I am not 100% obvious to them. If I spend all my time trying to get what they are saying and stick it to them, what the hell is that going to do? Where the hell is that going to get me?

Nowhere.

And it isn't going to make them budge either.

To support a breakdown is to listen FOR.

For the person who's hurting.

For the person who needs my support.

For the person who wants so desperately to find his own resolve and happiness.

Not for me.

Not for my way of "giving".

Not for my own abilities.

Because that makes me a know at all. It makes me a person who sees herself as actualized and ahead of the game and in it, not watching it.

That's what it's about.

Listening FOR gives me the chance to be in it and one with the person who's asked that I lend that ear.

It's not about me.
It's not about them.
It's about happiness and finding it in others to foster it in ourselves.

IaMuNoRdInArY: Hello Ted

IaMuNoRdInArY: Hello Ted: There's a man seated across the way from me on the 4 train right now. He's unassuming. He wears a suit. His hair is brown, receding, but...

Hello Ted

There's a man seated across the way from me on the 4 train right now.
He's unassuming.
He wears a suit.
His hair is brown, receding, but thick and well-kept, definitely cut every three weeks.
He has a deep furrow in his brow and subtle crows feet.
He sits like he's tired.
His nails are short, bitten. Not in a bloody, nic-fit/nervous/need a fix sort of way. Just bitten.

There he goes, chewing his right thumb.

He's got a watch on his left hand.

Watch is nice, shoes are nice, shirt is pressed, tie doesn't match all that well, but it's kind of sweet that it doesn't.

I could give him a story.

He could be an attorney. The kind that sues people.

He could be a banker. The kind that does private equity or investment banking. Although, it is only 6 pm. Kind of early for an investment banker to be heading home. Definitely not a trader. The market closed hours ago and this guy definitely hasn't had a drink.

He could be a copywriter, worried about a deadline on a campaign for Gillette that's better than "the best a man can get". Maybe one where the girlfriend steals the gel to shave her legs and it runs out and he goes to use it and is mad for a second but then he touches her leg and realizes this is still the best a man can get.

Good one.

He could be out of work having just spent the whole day interviewing and trudging around the city trying to get a break.
He could have been at a funeral, his eyes are looking a little worried and sad.

I could use my creative genius to turn him into a womanizer, tired because he went home with some girl he met on OKCupid last night and went straight to work this AM, bolting before she woke up.

Or I could make him a poet, full of brooding and beautiful words that he could recite to me as a drift off to sleep. That is, after he courts me for months trying to make things perfect and comfortable enough that he can show me this side of him.

He's probably Jewish though. That thick hair.
That means he's got a overly involved mom and he adores her. It also means he's the marrying kind, but it's off limits here because I'm Shiksa.

His brow's probably furrowed because his boss is a jerk and he just wants to stick it to him and start his own hedge fund.
It's in the works.

His eyes are puckered because he's single and he doesn't have a woman to show him how to use eye cream.

Men do it if you tell them about it.

His watch on the left means he's a righty. Probably really stiff and calculated. No imagination there. And his clothes are so together that its boring and annoying. His tie doesn't match because, come to think of it, he probably still lives at home with his mom and she laid his clothes out for the day when it was dark in his room and accidentally grabbed the hunter green instead of the navy.

We wouldn't last two weeks.

He just caught me looking at him.

He just smiled.

He just said "what are you doing over there?"

Turns out his name is Ted. He's 32 and he's an accountant. His week was really long but the overtime is worth it because he's saving to buy his girlfriend a ring. She's angry he comes home so late, especially tonight because she's going to Massachusetts for the weekend to visit her best friend. She just had a baby.

I told him what I was writing. He laughed.

He's going to read this.

He told me what his story was about me.

That girl is pretty. She looks like she's about 24 (yahtzee) and is probably married to some rich asshole because she is in those LuLu Lemon workout clothes that my girlfriend likes and it's 6pm so she obviously didn't work today. I feel bad because she seems so interesting. I wonder why she picked a jerk like that. Maybe the money?
She's reading Viktor Frankl. Whoa, existentialist. Maybe she's a lesbian. The lipstick kind. I bet her girlfriend is hot. Or maybe they're married now. They probably own a yoga studio.
Her hair is cool. And she's not wearing any makeup.

In NYC? Definitely a lesbian.

Whatever, she still looks good. I think lesbians are cool.

What is she doing? She keeps looking at me. She just looked and then wrote something in her book. She's chuckling about it. WTF? Bitch.
-No thoughts for a few minutes-

She just looked again, damnit. Eh, it's cute, I'm asking...

It's amazing what we come up with without asking. It's amazing how much we judge without knowing.

It's also amazing how easy it is to get to know something about somebody and to make someone smile.

Ted gets off at Atlantic av. I get off 2 earlier.

I could imagine where he lives or what his girlfriend looks like. Instead, we exchanged numbers and I'm going to I to his cookout on may 6th in prospect park.

Just thought I'd share. and Ted, I want to check out that place on union. Sounds pretty cool. You aren't square at all are you?

IaMuNoRdInArY: I shan't introduce you as an acquaintance. I'd li...

IaMuNoRdInArY: I shan't introduce you as an acquaintance. I'd like you to be my friend