One of the people I love best is among the bitterest, most brittle humans I've ever known. Willing and often able to write off those closest in relation, short tempered, and intriguingly interested in creating and having an effect on others. Oh, and in exerting Will upon them, too. Hm.
***
When I was fifteen, and again when I was seventeen, I dated my first boyfriend, LT. I'm not sure what drew us back to each other, but we never broke up in anger, than I can remember, and almost thirty years later I am well disposed. I do remember some of the things I got out of our relationships, though (becuase they were distinct, in my mind; the second one was in fact very strong in character, much more emotional than the first time we dated).
LT had gone to college by our second go-round, and had become, as college boys do, more philosophical with (ahem - hee) "age". And we talked about the nature of relationships; probably the first conversations I ever had of this type.
He must've been taking a mythology class (it was perhaps too early in the eighties for Women's Studies to have enough traction or presence for this to be the likely feeder), and told me about the archetypes we seek. More than having a "type", he said, men and women actually often have an "archetype". (Caveat: for the balance of this post, perspective will be limited to hetero expressions; my apologies, but if I am frank, in 1985 I was too; so, if needlessly limited, it is at least appropriate to the context of the seventeen-year-old girl I was.) For men, they seek - I remember this prase so clearly - The Daughter Goddess. They seek the woman who personifies in their mind and heart, a creature out of some psychological, subconscious soup. This isn't necessarily defined in the immediate stereotypes of "pretty princess" or "she's a goddess", but in those things that more deeply speak to an guy, from the youngest age.
My own first crush was on Mohammed Ali.
But my first "love" - anchored in the visual, and in wish-fulfillment (I never thought, even at age four, I could have Mohammed Ali) - was Randy Mantooth. Or, Emergency! Guy, as he has pretty much always been known to me. There was something about skinny white boys with dark hair (and preferably long hair, to be honest ... oh, and apologies/acknowledgements to my eminently Nordic Beloved Ex of course) that got to me from the get-go. When I got older I recognized something enough removed from my dad (the height, the thinness) that appealed to me for its different-ness, and something enough like him (the contrast of his coloring) to reassure me. My "Son god" - appropriately, certainly also influenced by the beautiful pictures of Jesus Christian girls all grow up with - was safe in his conformity to dad, AND in his other-ness as well.
Most people I know, no matter the variety of their dating history, or their consciousness of it, gravitate to some "type" or archetype in one way or another. Even if it's not a matter of looks, some "hook" or other maintains a thread through our relationships. And I have my standards apart from looks - good looking and a dork are minimum requirements for me. There's always something.
X is probably the first person I ever went out with who didn't have at least some amount of a "thing" for pale girls with dark hair and red lips. Some of them have reveled in it openly (that first boyfriend of mine was consistent in what he liked, visually; I remember, too, the time I found a picture of him and me I could not remember - and it was of him and another girlfriend!). Some have been a little vague, but definitely responded. But X seems not to have drawn a visual through-line among his girlfriends and ex wife. No assembly line of bodily features, either those I have discussed, or even those sometimes discussed in your finer locker rooms. Probably some continuity of confidence and effervescence. But a series of very individual individuals.
***
The other conversation I remember with LT was when he said I confounded him utterly.
"I am an impress person! And you refuse to be impressed!"
This surprised me immensely at the time, because of course LT impressed me pretty seriously, as a fifteen- and then as a seventeen-year-old girl. I had a *crush* on him, he was my first kiss, he was my first boyfriend - he was all the silly stuff we invest in those milestones ... and he was the first boy who repaid my interest with his own. Not impressed with him ... ?
Well, maybe I didn't want to tip my hand.
And maybe I was a sarcastic, caustic kind of kid.
Oh, wait ... I realized ... I refused to ACT impressed with him.
Which is half the battle in impressing someone - if not the entire hill one's trying to capture.
It's been my aim, though, through years of boys, to value the practical over the rose-colored. They've all known what a romantic I *am* - but few have ever seen it demonstrated much publicly. My girlish side is devoutly offscreen most of the time.
So if you want to impress me, you had better have some goods. Those things that impress me:
- humor
- dork cred - with a sense of deprecating humor about it
- intelligence
- kindness
- unique perspectives
- ease
Those things that never will:
- anger, self-importance, posturing, loudness without force of intellect
- bigotry, hatred, narrowmindedness, ugliness, blah-di-blah
- threats or bullying
- attempts to impress me
Even on those occasions threats get someone something they "want", they are empty forces indeed when considered in terms of their merit and in fact usefulness. They're little but temptations to force a hand - but manipulation is manipulation, and any desserts it earns are dusty little cakes indeed. I know of twelve-year-olds with more unique and useful approaches to problem-solving. So it's always interesting when someone actually goes in for emotional violence that cheap and embarrassing.
I know too many people not to know some who indulge this sort of thing. Sometimes, you could wish "passionate" people were capable of more maturity. Maybe I missed one bullet point on list #2 above.
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