Right vs. Right Now

Why do women always want unavailable men?

This question, regaled at me as a statement, were the last words I heard with a certainty, as both my temperature and siren song began to rise within. I don’t remember how the rest of that conversation went, only that it didn’t go on for much longer. I inhaled slowly, deeply; exhaling a low breath of ‘serenity now,’ a long-practiced technique that both helps to calm me and brings a smile to my face in the way that cherished sitcoms from my youth usually do.

My friend continued to list his, unrequested, examples of the things that women want, but men are unable to give, with an ever-manly, ever-condescending, “it’s simple,” in conclusion. You see, at the barely ripening age of thirty-eight, I had finally had myself a “hawt-safe-girl summah,” unleashing a confident, self-knowing, self-serving, goddess within. A version of me I had never leaned into before, but recently I had become quite unapologetic about. This I shared with him in passing which inadvertently sparked this topic choice, over lunch, an hour later. I wasn’t, personally, offended by the rhetoric but it droned on in my brain at regular intervals, like buzz words to subliminal programming. “Why do women want unavailable men?”

I’m sorry, but I beg his pardon.

It’s been weeks, and I am still shocked that he said that to me – a perpetually single, unsustainably entangled, delectably desirable, thirty-something – with no relationship prospects on the horizon or at any dog park nearby. Because who said that we wanted you anyway? Yes, I’ll be the first hand-raiser. I admit that my claim to fame is being consistently in situationships with unavailable men.

If you are unfamiliar with what might be an UM, you may just be me – 3 years ago. There isn’t always space to identify it when you are clearly the protagonist in, what will obviously become, the most exciting love story ever told. Just try to leave room to forgive yourself when you look back on those moments from outside of them later. When I got out of there, I realized that I was only there because I am still an unavailable woman. When I saw that and then owned it, the empowerment that followed clarified things.

I never wanted them anyway.

What bothered me the most about what my friend said, wasn’t that he was implying that I am the man-chaser in this scenario, it was the implication that I had no reason to be uninterested in one of any, suddenly available man; should they make themselves known to me. I couldn’t put my finger on why that bothered me for a few weeks, but it suddenly clicked – I am the one who is not quite ready.

I’ve been proposed to three times and found that I was the one who couldn’t make any promises. I was promised love for a lifetime by smart attractive men with furniture, no roommates, real jobs, and bank accounts not in overdraft, that I did worse to than turn down… I ghosted. I had no reason to say no, and so I didn’t. It took a comment like that to realize that I wasn’t chasing guys who were likely to go, I was avoiding the ones that wanted to stay. No need to let a good, sweet, ‘eligible’ bachelor believe that I am ready to be loved by them when I am not.

Instead, I stayed on the move, ever elusive; I focused on the impermanent. Going away to school next year? Sounds good. Only here for the summer? I’m down. Curfew, cause you’re on probation? Apparently. It wasn’t until lunch with my ‘man’ friend that I finally paused to connect the dots and look at the pattern in my own life. I am not a woman that wants an unavailable man, I am one who selects relationships that suit where I’m at in my own pursuit of happiness and who is intelligent enough to know that I don’t have to have love to have intimacy.

I don’t want to end up with someone who wants to pay all my bills and take care of me. That story, where a woman falls in love with a man and his promises, only to have that man move on with someone else and leave her to start over 5, 10, 20 years down the line? I’d seen that balloon pop multiple times. I also don’t want to be with someone who is patient and grounded who has no demons, because if they aren’t distracted by their own, they may start to notice mine.

I have carefully crafted the perfect temporary girlfriend persona. I appear to men who are on the precipice of their come-up but need a little push and polish. They get to confess to me their innermost desires and I help find avenues for them to explore those things. When the relationship ends, they generally get to leave with improved sense of style and a solid confidence boost, while I get to pretend that I don’t need a therapist to help sort through years of varying traumas. As soon as they notice I have my own problems, it’s time to move on. He moves on to the one who usually turns out to be the actual leading lady, for whom I was just the understudy. I go on the search for a new security blanket. Works every time.

So please, I insist, keep talking about yourself and your problems and never ask me about mine! The longer I stay away from the right man, gives me more time to become the right woman. Maybe one day I’ll even meet someone who is the right one for me and who I am the right person for. Until then, I remain an unavailable woman who seems to be irresistible to some truly smh* men who definitely shouldn't plan to stay.