Nothing You Could Call a 'Relationship'

Years ago, a friend gave me a tape of a lecture on relationships by a self-help guru. I think the lecture was intended for recovering alcoholics and ACAs, but I'm not sure of that.

Anyway, among the bits of advice he gave was this: “Don't try to make connections with people you're attracted to.”

That seems sort of nonsensical. What are we supposed to do — hook up with people we're not attracted to? In a word, according to this guy, yes.

His reasoning was that those of us who grow up in alcoholic families can't make intelligent choices about relationship partners. We're drawn, at some subconscious level, to recreating the atmosphere that existed in our childhood homes.

I've had discussions on this subject with friends, and most agree with the premise. Where we disagree is on the subject of whether a person can reprogram himself or herself to be attracted to a different kind of person. My position is that we can't. I believe we can be educated to recognize when we are attracted to an incompatible person, but I don't think we can change the attraction.

This brings me around to my response to blogblah!'s comment to a previous post:

If by "successful" you mean only a relationship that's filled with laughter and dancing, great sex and lasts forever, we're all failures.
On the other hand, if by "successful" you mean any relationship in which you had some good times, a few laughs and a bit of snogging, you've had some.
The only relationship I know of that you've had that's been a bit of a "failure" is the one you have with yourself because you spend so much time with him even though you don't care for his company, which is a shame because you're really a pretty fun, smart guy and rather pleasant to hang out with.

First of all, thanks for the compliment.

But actually, I wasn't talking about relationships at all. None of these ever reached the relationship stage.

I think I've mentioned this before, in conversation if not here, but my tendency has always been to suddenly fall for someone after I've known them awhile — like a couple of years or more.

This rarely works out. In fact, it so rarely works out that I saw a cartoon about it on the web back in November. The guy makes his impassioned confession of adoration to his long-time platonic friend, and she responds with a sweeping condemnation of the guy's whole life — based entirely on his inability to provide conflict and drama — that I swear is an almost word-for-word recitation of what I had been told, and told more than once.

Part of the cartoon guy's problem - and mine — was that the guy's friend was a drama queen. She didn't want a 'relationship,' as I understand the word. She wanted some guy who would keep her life in constant upheaval so she could dish to her girlfriends about how dramatic it all was.

This, unfortunately, is the kind of woman I always fall for. Sometimes it's evident right from the start, and thanks to therapy and accumulated life experience, I can keep myself out of harm's way. But once in awhile, the signs are so subtle that I don't see them consciously until after I've already formed some emotional attachment.

So, here's what I know: if I find myself strongly attracted to a woman I've known for awhile, I've made a bad choice and I need to walk away. Once in awhile, I decide, ‘to hell with it, let’s see what happens.’ And the results are always the same — nothing you could call a 'relationship'.

I am too old for this stuff now.