(Approximately a 26-minute read)

3. Setting High Standards (..and then living them yourself.)

Random Guy story #2.

So the following night I was out at another mixer when I happened to meet two more amazing women AND another amazing man…(oooh imagine that?) I will be honest, I wasn’t initially attracted to Aakesh but when he walked up to our little girly group and joined in our conversation with such ease I was slightly impressed. (Mmmm…brave…not to mention he had the sexiest Jude-Law-like accent ever!) At some point during our little group chat, he said something about feeling really ready to settle down, commit and start a family – and I just blurted out:

Me: Oh Baby YOU can have MY number!

Aakesh laughed and said: Really?

Me: Hell yes!!

We all laughed…the banter continued and then funny enough a few minutes later our little intimate circle was yet again infiltrated by another gorgeous, Barbie-doll-like Indian woman who was clearly also into MY MAN! (I swear it was like groundhog day!) She flattered those beautiful eyelashes at him and then literally pulled him off to chat in another group. I couldn’t help smiling at the similarity to the previous night but I just continued my night chatting with my newfound girlfriends. Around 12.30 am Aakesh came up to us to say goodbye. I was, again, intrigued to see if he was actually going to ask me for my number, after my little verbal outburst. (I mean you don’t get more blatantly obvious that than that do you?😂) Before he could even open his mouth one of his really drunk friends just blurted out:

“Oh for heaven’s sake will you just give Aakesh your number!!”

(Unfortunately, my little social experiment was foiled… but at least he had my number.💪)

He messaged me the next day and we actually ended up having a date. Not just any date….a pretty amazing date at that. (It was so amazing that I actually WANTED to get a good morning text the next morning!!) Seriously this man just ticked so many of my boxes.

He was 50 (so older and wiser), he was a city banker who was also a qualified life coach, NLP coach and hypnotherapist. He was funny, sweet, confident, so easy to talk to, a great listener and quite frankly, as I joked with my friends, he just seemed ‘cookie-cutter’ perfect. It literally felt like the Gods had designed him just for little old me. (My secret thought was I was being rewarded for my strength of character the night before – Thank you, God! I’ll take him!🙏) The only downside of the date was that it was a school night so we had to cut the conversation short. As we walked to the tube neither of us could stop smiling and he even commented that I was ‘glowing’. (I couldn’t even blame that on alcohol). He messaged me on the way home to ask if I would go out with him again. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” We spent the next couple of days chatting via text but no mention of the next date was made. On dropping a, not so subtle, hint that I would love to see him again he did ask me when I was free and I gave him my available times the following weekend. His response was that he would “get back to me”. Um ok?…I had a brief wonder why he couldn’t just check his damn diary then and there? But I stayed cool. ( I did, truly🙄). Unfortunately, by the time he did eventually ‘Get back to me,’ I had already made plans with another girlfriend. I tried to call to apologise but he messaged to say that he was at a football game and we could try to sort out a date for the following weekend. Um ok (again.) I all of a sudden found myself starting to feel really anxious. My happiness these last two months has to a large extent been because I have been so active and so busy. (My newly bought calendar, which is stuck on my wall, will pretty much put Brett Kavanaugh’s calendar to shame.) Most of the events and seminars that I book, need to be booked in advance…..and I am usually out most of the weekend.

Dammit, I really and truly like this guy…I want to be able to see him again. But I also don’t want to be putting my life on hold and not making plans just so that I could be free when (or if ) he decides to call. It was becoming eminently clear that this guy was not a big planner. Unfortunately, I am a planner. There I said it: “I AM A PLANNER!!!” (Damn that felt good!) I wouldn’t have cared if he wanted to book a date for 2 weeks later….just let me know so I can plan accordingly. I suddenly had visions of us going months without ever being able to coordinate a time to see each other and it petrified me. It might seem a little excessive for me to get anxious over something so trivial…but let’s not forget I am a self-confessed anxious-avoidant (almost 44-year-old single)…..I didn’t get here by accident!

How to explain? For me, those initial stages of a relationship have never been much fun. Imagine someone tying a 50-pound weight to your feet and then throwing you into a lake. I literally feel like I am drowning as I watch myself slowly lose sight of everything that single Gayle is. (I am not over exaggerating – I swear😒.) Ask any of my very patient ex-boyfriends and they will back me on this. Luckily most of the men that have dated me (mmm..for longer than 2 months) have all been persistent, resilient buggers who somehow saw the real me through all drama and angst that I brought in my neatly packed little suitcase. (Bless them they need a medal!).

It was this slight issue that sent me into therapy when I turned 35 and I suddenly realised that I might actually need to start dealing with this shit. I have learnt a lot about myself during that time. (It’s been enlightening, to say the least)

a) I am absolutely petrified of feeling responsible for another person’s happiness. You see the problem has been, without a strong base of self-love it becomes almost impossible to accept what another person is holding out to you. How could I possibly even attempt to reciprocate the hope, passion, and potential love someone was intent on offering me if my own reservoir of these was completely empty? How could I possibly ever make anyone happy? Vital lesson learnt and repeated to me on numerous occasions by my therapist: “Gayle YOU are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness – only your own!” The number one obligation that I owe myself is to feel good and feeling happy. Nothing else matters. That might sound selfish….but believe me, it’s not. When a plane is crashing and those oxygen masks come flying down you are continually reminded to put your own mask on first. Once you can breathe…then and only then, will you be in any shape to help others. Learn to breathe Gayle!!

Check ✔ GOT it👍

b) In relationships, strong confident single Gayle just disappears completely and magically loses her voice. My fear of speaking up in relationships, saying what I want and expressing what I need was so entwined with my fear of being rejected that I just ended up saying nothing. In my 20’s I used to constantly feel like I was just stuck in my head. Eventually, I would feel so completely lost and frustrated that I would simply break-up. (The anxious part reacts and the avoidant part just runs.) And so the cycle continues. These last 8 years or so I have really been working hard on breaking this cycle and learning to speak up – not only in relationships but in friendships too. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s a testament to true friendship when your friends embrace the new you and allow you to start speaking your truth. (You soon learn to let go of the friends that don’t value you having your own voice).

I am also hugely grateful for the platform of online dating that has been invaluable for me, helping me to finally start standing up for myself and evaluating what my standards are for a relationship. (From the safety of my computer, it has been a learning curve.) A few years ago I hadn’t even heard of the concept of dating standards. Having high standards sounded to me suspiciously like being high maintenance and picky. Of course, we all have dating standards. If you are willing to date married men or men who continually message you after 11 pm for bootie calls then those are both standards. (Granted they are not very high standards, but you get my point). The problem with setting high standards is that they are associated with judgement. As an individual, you have to start discriminating what you need to feel safe, loved and connected in a relationship. Once you know what it is that you need then you have to start speaking up and making your standards known. (Apparently, men aren’t minded readers?). But here in lies, the problem: Simply making something known…(and then complaining when you aren’t listened to) DOES NOT A STANDARD MAKE. (It makes a whiny, high-maintenance girlfriend). A person that values themselves enough will learn to simply walk away in those early stages if they don’t feel like their standards are being met. Unfortunately, so many of us see things in those initial stages that just don’t sit right in our gut…but we end up ignoring them or making excuses simply because we like the guy and he likes us!

Let me give you an example from my own life. Smoking!! Urg…I have been an on-off smoker for 20-plus years. (One of my first-ever boyfriends told me if I EVER started smoking he would break up with me. He LIED…I started smoking and then I STILL had to dump his controlling arse. ps, He absolutely DOES NOT get a medal!!!) So I have always been adamant that I don’t want to date a smoker. Why? Because every time I date a smoker I end up smoking again. (🖐🖐Hands up I am that weak!) Low and behold 4 out of 5 of my last relationships have all been with smokers. I have repeatedly told them I can’t date a smoker (umm…usually while sucking on a cigarette with them)…they have all at various times pointed out the hypocrisy of me setting a standard that I wasn’t actually living up to myself. (Damn, Damn, Damn them). So my standard is: ‘I will only date non-smoking men’ but I never actually allowed myself the right to enforce it…why? (Well besides the fact that I was a weak-willed-anxiety-driven-closeted bloody smoker?)…. because I liked/loved my ex’s, they were great guys and I didn’t want to miss out on a good man simply because he smoked. I didn’t want to be high maintenance and I most certainly didn’t feel like I had the right to make a judgement on their lifestyle choice. (I will admit I also harboured this secret fantasy that just maybe their love for me was deep enough that they would decide to stop. Haha. – This is called living in denial). What I never seemed to understand was that I was denying myself my own lifestyle choice.

My right to live without constant smokers headaches. My need to be free of the anxiety and worry that I was a walking cancer target. My desire is not to smell like an ashtray! Why did I never put any value on what I needed to be happy? I haven’t smoked a single cigarette in almost 6 months and to be honest, I haven’t had a single craving for one either. After 20 years of being hooked on that habit, and trying to quit more times than I can possibly remember it is such a relief to finally be a non-smoker. Now I know for a fact that from this point on I will not even consider dating a guy who smokes. I can’t expect a man to ever change himself for me, but I do have the right to know what works for me…and living a life surrounded by smoke absolutely does not. So my new standard is if he chooses to be a smoker then I will simply choose to walk away.

Check ✔ GOT it👍

Mmm…where was I in the Aakesh story? So I have had the best couple of weeks of my life, I have met my cookie-cutter-perfect guy (who God sent from heaven just for me😂) and all of a sudden I feel my usual anxiety start to creep up….(and I HATE it!!!). Except the difference is, these days, I am more able to step back from it, observe it and figure out what my feelings and thoughts are that are fueling the anxiety. Well, #1 is the blatantly obvious truth that I REALLY like this man and waiting two weeks between dates just felt pretty sucky! #2 I realised that I was feeling frustrated because I didn’t feel like I had a voice…(BUT I now know that I DO have a voice) and so I decided to send him a message that admitted I was a little bit of a planner. (No I did! Really!!) I’ll be honest it wasn’t an easy thing to do…

Sending this text in my mind felt paramount to admitting I was a crazy, manipulative, needy, unspontaneous, boring control freak. I was absolutely petrified that I would scare him off. What if I never ever heard from him again? But here was the thing… I literally felt like I had but two choices

a) Say nothing and continue to feel anxious or

b) Use my voice, risk losing him and then go back to my happy, busy, well-planned life. A little voice inside me kept asking “Who’s happiness do you care about most? His? Or your own?” Needless to say, I chose option B. If he found my need to plan too excessive and he wanted nothing more to do with me then that was fine. For one of the first times ever I didn’t feel like my value hinged on a guy liking me. My value hinged on ME liking and accepting me. I might be an annoying planner but hell, there are so many good qualities about me.

I suppose it goes without saying that I didn’t hear back from him that night.

Or the next day. Or the next… Or the next… By then, however, I was actually, completely over it. I sent him a message just saying it was fantastic to meet him, that he is a great guy and that I hoped he found what he was looking for. I decided a few years ago that I would never EVER allow another man to ghost me again. They can certainly try…but I will always message to say goodbye and have the last word. Frankly, nowadays, simply falling off the radar every time a difficult conversation comes up tells me all I need to know about a person.

Surprise, surprise he messaged back. (mmm…they always do) He apologised for his late response as he has just been “SUPER-Busy” (To busy to send a single text message in 4 days?) he admitted that he was more of a spontaneous type of guy and based on what I had said about me being a planner it could be a while between catchups. (Interesting. So there was no workable compromise that we could maybe come up with – somewhere in the middle of spontaneity and planning?) Then he suggested that maybe we should just be friends. (Ahhh yes, the beloved friend zone!) He told me what an amazing person he thought I was and how he really wanted to continue seeing me as a friend.

Ummm ok so I will admit at this point I am a little confused? We haven’t kissed, we haven’t had sex, hell we haven’t even held hands yet…as far as I am concerned we are just friends. The issue for me had absolutely nothing to do with defining ‘what‘ our relationship was and everything to do with how we were able to communicate and discuss our differences. So yet again I had a choice to make. Option A: I could accept his offer to just ‘be friends‘ and quite simply ‘hang in there‘. Maybe if I was a little more patient, loving and more understanding about his fears then he would one day come around. Maybe he would realise how awesome I really am and eventually confess his undying love for me. I mean why not? It worked for Harry and Sally. right?

Here lies my problem with option A. On Saturday I am going to be 44-years-old. Quite frankly I don’t have an inch of patience left for any man that can’t decide what he wants. Relationship or friendship? Pick one and then stick to it, please. I also have even less patience for people that go AWOL every time they are confronted with an awkward conversation. I am soooooo over that the ‘silent, hope-it-will-blow-over’ treatment. These days I am more leaning towards yelling like banshees and then having mind-blowing make-up sex!! (Yes PLEASE!) And finally, my friends accept that I am a planner and they make plans to see me. (It kinda works well for me). I feel valued and cared for when someone takes the time to pencil me into their diary rather than just expecting me to be free at their whim. It doesn’t make me feel like they are just hedging their bets to see if anything better comes along first.

So my answer was a bit of a no-brainer (I don’t care how truly orgasmic that man’s voice sounded). I completely respected his need for spontaneity. However, I respected my need to be open and honest about who I was. I realised that this actually had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me creating a relationship on my own terms that felt safe for me. (Something I have never allowed myself to do in the past). And so I was able to let my cookie-cutter-perfect mango (in love). It was the easiest decision in the world to make because now I know that the world is full of amazing, incredible, passionate men. One day (soon) I will meet one who is ready to commit and simply can’t wait to make plans with little old me! 😊🤗

Told you it was a looooooong post.😂 To be continued.