Someday, I hope Hallmark or some entity of equal authority and importance declares an official Happy Aunties Day. Think of the revenue to be generated, the mushy commercials hawking tchotchkes, the poets plucked from the ranks of the unemployed, all penning tributes to the woman with all the disposable income. She’s been focused on spending it on the progeny of her siblings all these years. Why does no one pander to the PANKs, I wonder? Oh, that’s “Professional Aunt, No Kids” but I can’t take credit for it. I just can’t remember where I read it.

An aunt is not quite a mother, not quite a sister, not quite a friend. An aunt is an aunt. My definition of “aunt” is about refuge and breathing room.

• If I see you maybe heading the wrong way, I won’t continually harass and try to bend you to my will. I’ll just make my point and then leave you alone. You’ll give my opinion more weight because it was delivered without the dynamics of control.
• I won’t let you pay for anything; if you pick it up and admire it, I’m buying it for you.
• When you come to visit me, I’ll do your laundry, twice – once when you arrive with it dirty in your suitcase, and once just before you leave, so you don’t have to do it when you get back to your crazy life.
• I will let you sleep as much as you want. It’s your vacation.
• I will cook! I will serve only high nutrition, low-fat food but you will not notice that it’s not junk because it’s delicious.
• I will set a good example for you by running on the treadmill in your presence, expressing my hard-won, middle-of-the-road values through actions and by never putting up with a selfish man’s bullshit. Also, by demonstrating that life can be fabulous with or without marriage and children. Your life, your choice, nobody else’s.
• I will hand you the car keys sans safety lecture; if the good Lord and the State of New York both saw fit to grant you a driver’s license, who am I to doubt your abilities behind the wheel?
• I will encourage you to be better than everyone at what you do best.
• I will make it clear to you what information I will and will not divulge to your father, BEFORE you tell me.
• I won’t embarrass you on your Wall unless you flat out deserve it. And you know what you have to do to deserve it. So if you don’t want to be embarrassed, either block me or don’t behave that way in public! Your choice. I still love you. <3

There. Don’t aunts deserve their own official Hallmark occasion?

And don’t you wish I was YOUR aunt?

© 2011, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

The Kind Heart Will Triumph:
An Open Letter To A Young Girl I Know

It’s suckage when you believe that there is no one you can trust to truly have your back and never fuck with you. I think that’s what all of us want from our families, friends and lovers – the one person we can depend on not to INTENTIONALLY hurt us. I am emphasizing “intentionally” because sometimes, shit just happens. Perhaps the person does not have the necessary skills to put themselves in your place and feel what you feel. Perhaps it does not even occur to them to do so. Maybe they are not mature enough to have empathy and compassion, or maybe it was never taught to them. Maybe they are all tied up in the competition for status, for a position among the “cool” people. Maybe they are really desperate for it, they really, REALLY need it. Maybe it’s so important to their own feelings of self-worth, they cannot afford to worry about your feelings or anyone else’s. Maybe they are trying their best, but it’s YOU who isn’t being clear about what you want, what you will accept and what you will simply not tolerate insofar as their behavior toward you is concerned.

Or maybe – just maybe, they are incapable of empathy and compassion, regardless of their age or maturity level. Maybe some people really ARE just that shallow. Maybe some of them do not see anything beyond the clothes, the hair, the makeup, the number of friends they have, the things they own or the number of boys who are salivating after their insubstantial, plastic little selves. Maybe they are just mean girls; there are some kids who don’t want friends, they want worshippers. They don’t value love, they value notches on their belts (or worse, on their bedposts). They don’t hesitate to hurt someone if they stand to gain something from it – inflated sense of self-worth, status among peers, whatever else they might want in a moment of malice.

At your age, the power of that status-among-peers thing is not to be underestimated. It is so very craved, it turns even nice young people, people who were brought up to behave “better than that”, into glory junkies. It’s a rough time, the teen-into-mid-twenties years. Insecurity drives more friendships to ruin during this time than any other. It drives people to behave with unspeakable cruelty toward one another. It drives them to behave with unspeakable cruelty toward THEMSELVES. It drives kids to do things that are dangerous to their bodies as well as to their psyches, just so that others will stand in awe of them and think they are cool. It drives them to cut, to have sex before they are ready and it drives them to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and do drugs. Worst of all, the craving for status among peers can drive kids to end up, at their own hands, dangling from the end of a rope or floating in a pool of their own blood.

I don’t know how any of us manage to escape the teen/young adult years with our lives. We’re all just so fucked up and so disoriented during this time, it’s a wonder we can see straight once it’s over. Certainly we all bear the scars when we emerge. We’ve learned some hard lessons about people. We’ve maybe learned to be a little more cautious about whose opinion we value, because placing a lot of stock in the wrong person’s esteem for you can turn you into someone you never had any intention of becoming, and it can make you feel like a worthless fool when they capriciously flat-leave your ass for some insignificant supposed infraction. Or maybe just because they ceased to think you were cool. They don’t really have to have a reason, do they? They just do what they want with your emotions.

Hopefully, what we learn from all this is how to measure a person’s value, how to measure your OWN. We learn that what gives a person value is this and only this – your value is measured by how you behave toward others, particularly toward those who are less fortunate than you are. I don’t mean that just materially. I mean it emotionally too. If someone is more unhappy than you are, then they are less fortunate. When you throw that person some pixie dust, it will make their day and they will always remember you for that. They will remember that you were kind to them when they needed it the most.

Those who matter, the people who you really want on your side through thick and thin, will measure your value by HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL. Not by what lip gloss or shoes you wore. Not by your cool phone or your car or your status as an brainiac, athlete, whatever. They will measure you by how you behaved toward them.

I’m not saying that you should eschew material things. If it makes you happy to wear cute clothes and have cool toys , then have at it. You know that I’ve never denied myself anything I really wanted. But you also know, if you’ve taken the trouble to observe, that I have a shitload of friends; people who come running to wish me a Happy Birthday, people who clamor to be the ones I come to see when I’m home on Long Island, people who sorrow with me, hold me up when I’m down, rejoice with me when I’m happy. I would one million times a million rather have them in my life than anything else. Yeah, I’d flush my smartphone for them. I would. And they know it. That’s why they’re my friends.

You will get past this time when transient, meaningless things seem to be defining you and your relationships. It will happen sooner than later, if you let it. It will, if you can muster the courage to start choosing friends from the people who maybe aren’t so “cool” by school standards but who are smart, funny, compassionate people. Kind people. People who have a heart, like you do. You will attract these people to yourself by your own behavior. If you aren’t ready to do this yet, it’s ok. It’s a lot to ask of a person in your position, and it takes practice.

Start small. I remember one time being in an amusement park with a little person, many years ago. We looked across the street and I observed that some little kid’s stuffed animal had fallen out of the stroller and was just lying there in the street. Well the little person I was with, she saw this and she rushed across the street, picked up the stuffed animal, and lovingly tucked it into the stroller to await the return of it’s young owner.

That single random act of kindness and compassion is what I remember most about who you REALLY are underneath all this horrible but apparently necessary teen angst you’ve got to go through. I have faith that sometime very soon, you will start to collect friends who will always love you, who will always have your back and never fuck with you. I have faith that your kind heart will rise up and beat back all this meaningless bullshit, and that you will grow into the kind of woman everyone wants for a friend – smart, funny, gracious toward others.

And with really cool toys, cause that’s just how we roll

© 2011, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

I had that dream I always dream sometime after someone I know dies – the dream that tells me they are moving on. Sometimes it is only a matter of a few weeks until they are ready to go. Others take months.

I dreamed of Lisa. I believe it’s been three and a half months. She’s ready now. In my dream, she was alive again, returned from the dead. Well, not really. Apparently, we’d all been mistaken and she’d never really been dead to begin with. I knew that this would happen again, but it’s alright because the possibility of coming back yet again is always there.

She was wearing a plain dress with a skirt that would be good for twirling around. I hugged her, hoping she could forgive me for some transgression, and I was sorry I could not go with her.

I think of her each time I go to the beach, as though all oceans are connected, as though somehow she will come floating in towards me on the next wave.

I realize now that I’d been looking forward to being able to be friends with her instead of colleagues. I feel disappointed for myself that she died before the layoff happened. I miss her

Sent from my Nokia N97

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Written on Thursday September 2nd 2010

Worst. Day. EVAH.

* Drove 2 hours to Tampa. The scenery is nice, so this is not terrible, once in a while. All the way up, I kept noting to myself that this was the last time that I’d pass this way on my way to the office. There will be plenty of times that I will pass at least some of that way to get to Orlando, but I’ll never go to the office again.

* Surrendered laptop and 19-year career, the latter of which fit neatly into a 2 quart Ziploc bag. No, I don’t still look like that. You know when that picture was taken? Back in the early 90s, I went through chemo and my hair all fell out. I flat out refused to have my photo taken for a badge because I knew I would not always be bald. So after about a year and a half, that’s how far my hair had grown out, and I consented to having the badge photo taken. I’m guessing this was early 1995!
* Went to lunch with friends at favorite local hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant
* Thought often of Lisa, whose memorial service was held today. Only I could not go, on account of having to surrender today.
* Left office and no sooner did I get on the highway then I noticed – too late – a bazillion Florida state troopers lying in wait. Speed trap!

* Cop let me off with a minuscule fine compared to what he could have – I suppose because I’ve never in my 50 year life EVER been pulled over for a moving violation before. That was really nice of him. I burst into tears when he told me and confessed that I’d been laid off today. He could not have been nicer. I think I actually said to him, “I mean, could this day get any fucking worse?”. Um, yeah…
* Got home, raised garage door, was prepared to drive car in, noticed the snake was back. Yes, AGAIN – the BIG-ASS snake, not one of those little pencil snakes. This is what I get for going organic – frogs fling themselves at my lighted windows each night, anoles squeeze under the screen doors and poop all over the lanai, and snakes decide to like my house best. He wasn’t moving out of the way, either. What to do – run him down with the RAV? I did that last time. I don’t want any more bad Karma. Played with lowering and raising garage door, and he got scared and slithered off into the bushes. I bet he’ll be back.
* Got online and found that a beloved member of my cyber-parrish has died after 10+ years being acutely ill. Christi is finally free of all this earth put her through. But I can’t believe we will never pray and banter and commune together ever again. Well we will, just not here.

“Sometimes, there just aren’t enough rocks.”

I shall practice what I preach. I told a friend today that loss happens to make space for new stuff to move in. Lost my job, lost my manager and mentor and friend Lisa, lost my perfect driving record, lost Christi… that’s an awful lot to lose. Whatever it is that’s coming, it must be huge

Oh and I forgot to buy milk.

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Lisa 1965-2010

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

New York State Route 231 by dougtone via Flickr

There’s a parade coming down the main drag that connects the hamlet where I live to the village by the bay. Down here in the village, the main drag has long since dwindled to one lane in each direction. This morning, it’s brisk with traffic, each vehicle racing to avoid getting caught behind the barricade that’s going up at any moment.

We need to be on the other side. My practiced eye looks briefly in either direction, assessing the traffic for relative distance and speed. This is going to be cake. Taking off at a sprint, I easily cover the two lanes well before the oncoming traffic arrives. I look around. I see my two friends still huddled where I’d left them on the curb at the other side, faces drawn taught with thinly-disguised anxiety. Finally, they feel it’s safe, and they hurry across.

“OMG, I thought you’d be killed!” one of them exclaims.

“What?” comes my bewildered response. “There was plenty of time. Don’t you people know how to cross a street?”

I’d grown up in the city, where you take your crossing opportunities as they come, even on wide boulevards of four and six lanes of heavy, New York driver traffic. If you aren’t bold, then you’re destined to stand a good, long time waiting to cross at that uncontrolled intersection. Waiting, wating… who has time for that?

NYC Street by T. Ruette via Flickr

It’s a few years later, and I am on my way to see a friend perform in concert with his quartet. I am traveling from Long Island with the only other person I’m aware of who also has a ticket, but I don’t know him terribly well. He’s funny and nice company for the mass transit journey into the city. His eyes are fringed with those impossibly long guy-lashes that make every woman sigh and wonder, “Why can’t *I* have lashes like that?”

(A few years into the future, I would focus on those lashes while standing under the chupah, having random thoughts about anything and everything, just to keep myself from thinking about the reason we were standing there…)

Sweet by Maureen Lunn via Flickr

He pulls the cord overhead to signal the driver. We de-bus near Lincoln Center and prepare to cross Broadway. My practiced eye looks briefly in either direction… my muscles are tensing in preparation for the sprint. Although we are not physically touching, I feel him hesitate beside me, drawn taught… Before he has a chance to balk, I grab his hand and give it an encouraging tug. We have ignition, we have liftoff, running hand in hand until we reach the opposite curb. His hand immediately releases mine, but for a while after, I can still feel the shape and the weight of it in mine. How odd…

Otters holding hands by mindluge via Flickr

This had happened to me only one other time, the very first time I’d ever held hands with a boy. He was funny and his eyes were an impossible shade of blue; not even a color found in nature, I don’t think, and certainly not one I’d ever seen before or since. The first time our hands touched (accidentally-on-purpose), I’d gone directly for the interlaced fingers position, but he was having none of that and quickly shifted us instead to the palm-to-palm position. I was satisfied, pleased that he hadn’t rejected the idea of hand-holding altogether, but at random times for days after, I would suddenly experience the pleasantly terrifying sensation of his fingers filling the spaces between mine.

A moment of many by sarahpetherbridge via Flickr

I wanted to be pleasantly terrified. I wanted to be gifted with the experience of someone filling in all the places where I am blank. I’m not sure how, but somewhere along the way “pleasantly” and “terrified” became uncoupled; unchecked, terror fills the blank spaces with something that’s drawn taught, something that drives me to flinch from the sprint, to wait at the corner until the signal changes.

Oh, for my days of the practiced eye, the ability to assess, the exhilarated sprint, fully confident that I would reach the curb unscathed. Oh, for the days!

Now playing – The Fray: Never Say Never

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Gratefully, I had a very different experience in The Box this time. Clearly, 10th grade had been the happiest year of my teens – this cute boy named Harry was crazy about me, and I was enormously popular! It’s all right there in my diary. What a satisfying read, and how grateful I was to be presented with the evidence, provided in the often-breathless, always exuberant style of my inner 15 year old. Harry did this, and Harry said that, and Harry is so cute and funny… I cannot keep the smile off my face, even typing this.

Remember last month, when I wrote about not wanting to be around when people were playing with a Ouija board? Well, something I read in the diary that I had not remembered had to do with Ouija and the softer side of Harry. At the sweet 16 party my friends threw for me, which the boys had crashed, someone dragged out a Ouija board. Despite my protestations, the lights were dimmed and they started playing. I got up and left the vicinity until it was over, and a few of them laughed at me for being scared. Not Harry. He abandoned the game and planted himself close to me, never saying a word. Looking back, I find that so unusual for a boy of his age; one would think he’d be prone toward leveraging a teasing opportunity, but he didn’t.

I read the diary up until the part where my family moved away, and put down the book feeling very certain that no subsequent developments could possibly detract from any of my fond memories of him and our good times spent together. We were buddies, we had fun together, and we had progressed to a point whereby we were happily devoted to one another in a carefree way that only people who have not yet been hurt by love can be.

A very clear picture began to emerge of what had been bothering me the most. It was the thought that their love for me had been a lie; that because they were gay, these young men could not possibly have loved me like they said they did. I’d been laboring under the false notion that a guy is either gay and loves men, or straight and loves women – there was no spectrum, no bell curve, no shades of gray. It had especially bugged me where Harry was concerned; my memories of our brief time together were very happy ones, filled with healing laughter that helped to displace the grim realities of home. The black-and-white thinking I’d been indulging in had threatened to invalidate what had arguably been the brightest period of my otherwise miserable teens.

Putting it all together – the wisdom of “mah sistas”, the experiential knowledge shared by Spencer and especially, the diary entries – it all reinforces something I already knew but apparently needed to be reminded of. It’s something akin to what we learned in science classes back in school. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. It’s the same with love.

To quote myself, “…love is infinite. Which means, not only does it abide into the future, but it abides into the past, with no alpha or omega. Kind of like God.”

And so it happens that when we love, we are like God for one another. Love heals, love transforms, and love never fails.

My inner 15 year old smiles, and whispers, “I will always love you, Harry.”

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

In the meantime, I’d also done what all women seem to do when such life questions arise – I took it to “mah sistas”. I am fortunate enough to be a member of not just one, but TWO private online communities of amazing women who gather daily to hold one another up in both joy and sorrow. The most resonating answer I got was from a wise woman who likened sexual preference to a bell curve. On the one end, you have your hard-core heterosexuals, and on the other end, your hardcore homosexuals. And then, there are those who can and do ride the curve, often but not always leaning discernibly toward one side or the other… how far can they go, where is the line, and how close to it can they dance?

I now understood it was not only possible that I had been genuinely loved – it was also very probable. There was once place left to turn in order to validate that – my diary from 10th grade.

I began keeping a diary when I was about 13, and did so with a very deliberate purpose in mind. I had the distinct impression that the adults in my life had forgotten what it’s like to be a kid, and I wanted to always remember. In those days, I had yet to arrive in the place where I’d challenged the validity of moving unquestioningly from childhood into the traditional wife/mother role. At that time, I had still believed that someday I would have children, and if I didn’t want to fuck them up and make them hate me, I’d better set about documenting everything. This way, I would never forget, never belittle their fears and aspirations, or disparage any of the other things that were important to them. As it turns out, I am childless by choice, and my nieces have been the primary beneficiaries of having an aunt who has remained close to the emotions of her inner teenager.

Fetching my 10th grade diary necessitated a foray into The Box. The last time I had visited The Box was sometime in April; spurred on by the rekindling of old acquaintances on Facebook, I actually removed the yellowed packing tape, opened the lid, and started reading for the first time in some 30+ years. My choice of reading material on that occasion had made me incredibly sad. I was hoping this wouldn’t be a repeat…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

“First of all,” Spencer replied, “what do PEOPLE see in you?”, whereupon he rattled off a number of my finer attributes that would be appealing to anyone of any “cognizance, originality, coolness or forthrightness”. OK, this is good, I thought. He’s made me feel better already In typical Spencer fashion, he then proceeded to inject a little levity into the situation. He joked that every gay man wants to be associated with a “diva”, and reminded me how attractive he’d found my “Peggy Lipton hairdo” back in the 80s, when I was going through my long-and-screamingly-blonde phase.

Finally, he got down to brass tacks. He first pointed out that birds of a feather tend to flock together; that I’d been reared in a household with a very specific family dynamic that included a “very present, difficult, and perhaps even hostile mother” – as had he, and many other gay men he knew. He pointed out a commonality; gay men tend to grow up as “minorities” against whom discriminatory practices have been perpetrated, and hadn’t I grown up under similar conditions, as the only daughter in a very strict and traditional household that afforded the sons far more social freedom? He pointed out that even though he self-identifies as gay and has been in a long-term relationship with a male partner for quite some time, he is still occasionally sexually and romantically attracted to women possessing certain attributes. Finally, Spencer said, “TRUST ME, he still thinks about you from time to time,” and urged me to make contact.

After digesting his email, I came to understand what Spencer was trying to tell me; if empathy is compelling enough, then it can metamorphosize into an attraction that is not only agnostic of gender, but strong enough to transcend sexual orientation as well.

Spencer’s email gave me much fuel for thought, and I eventually realized that being gay was probably not the only thing Harry and Mark held in common. There was probably another similarity between them. I’ve joked in the past about “Peter Pan – he’s every man I’ve ever dated”, but it’s really no joke. There IS something about me, but it doesn’t attract gay men; it attracts the “motherless lost boys” of the world. As luck would have it, some of them happen to be gay. I’m still not sure WHY this is the type I attract; I’m playing with a theory, but it’s not well-formed just yet, so I’ll leave it for another time.

I was not at all sure that contact was appropriate. Harry had changed his name for a reason, maybe because he did not want to be found. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted contact, either…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

The question had haunted me way back then when I’d found out about Mark, but other boys had been waiting in the wings and I was soon distracted enough to put such thoughts aside. Now that I knew about Harry too, it seemed really important to find the answer.

It is very difficult to explain what it feels like to know that you have fallen for not one but two guys who, as it turns out, supposedly “don’t like girls” – at least not THAT way. When your understanding of the sexuality spectrum includes only black and white, you can walk away from such an experience feeling as though the person you fell in love with was someone you’d made up. You experience an uncomfortable epiphany – it’s possible that his declarations of love had been lies. You vaguely suspect that you’ve been used unwittingly as the implement of some sort of deception, but you’re not quite sure if that’s entirely accurate, or who it was supposed to fool – himself, you or the world. And finally – you hope this is not the case, but you sort of dread the thought that maybe this whole thing might be a commentary on your own feminine allure, or lack thereof. I’m not the girly-est of girls – all those brothers, you know, plus a sense of justice that does not allow for the notion of freezing to death in a skirt when the boys get to stay warm wearing pants. So, my fevered and panicked brain reasoned, maybe the straight guys don’t find any of that as appealing as the gay guys do? WTF?!?!?!!!

I needed an answer to this question. There were two places I could go to get some clues. One of them was my 10th grade diary. The other was Spencer.

I have known Spencer since we were both in our early 20s and he was still dating women. I don’t recall exactly when or how he came out, which may simply indicate that it was sort of a non-event among the people close to him. He didn’t make a big announcement or anything. He just kind of slid out. We had studied voice with the same teacher, and we did get to perform together once in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana, in which he took great and gleeful pleasure in flinging me to the ground during the lovers’ quarrel duet. Spencer now lives and performs in Europe.

I was convinced that he’d truly been crazy about some of the women he’d dated, even contemplating marriage and children with one of them. If anyone could help me to understand, it was Spencer. Shortly after my googling spree and subsequent discovery about Harry, I fired off an email to Spencer, which explained in brief about both Harry and Mark, and asked the $64,000 question…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Truthfully, my outer 49 year old wasn’t doing so well now, either. This was not the first time I’d discovered that a boy I’d loved and thought loved me was, in fact, gay. During my senior year in high school, I’d dated Mark, who was two years older (sorry, no cougar story there). Mark ran hot and cold about us to extremes. He was crazy in love with me one minute, but then he’d disappear for a couple of weeks. He would return all in love with me again, and kiss my ass to get back into my good graces, or else he’d pretend he’d never been gone and everything was fine. He swore to me that he was not seeing another girl; I guess I should have asked a less gender-specific question.

At one point, Mark had me so convinced that he loved me and that we were meant to be together forever, he became my “first” – a much more significant first than just kissing. But he just kept disappearing periodically, and I didn’t know why, or what I’d done to alienate him, or why he kept coming back. At some point, I was prepared to go to my senior prom with someone else, but then he swooped back into my life and declared that HE was taking me and no one else.

He broke up with me that night. He broke up with me forever and for good at my senior prom. That really sucked. I think the only people with prom memories worse than mine are the ones that inhabit Stephen King’s Carrie.

A couple of weeks later, I ran into a mutual friend who knew the truth and had the compassion to tell me. That’s how I found out Mark was gay, and that all those times he wasn’t with me, he’d been with some guy named Angel… he’d been confused, he couldn’t make up his mind which way to go, so he kept bouncing back and forth between the two of us until he wasn’t confused any more. (Excuse me? You were confused, so you decided to relieve me of my virginity? )

My inner 15 year old stood up at this point, yanked at my sleeve, and demanded to know, “What is it about me that attracts gay men?”

I had no idea what to tell her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

So, here’s what happened to Harry. Harry apparently grew up to become the owner of a talent agency… an adult entertainment talent agency… an all-male, adult entertainment talent agency.

Shocked, I sat quietly for a moment, allowing what I’d just learned to sink in. And then I laughed. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. Harry always was a little bit on the outrageous side. OK, a LOT on the outrageous side. My friends always said three things about him. Well, four, if you count, “You guys look great together!”. They said he was funny, they said he had beautiful baby blues, and they said, “But my GAWD, he’s totally OBNOXIOUS!”.

My 15 year old self agreed wholeheartedly that we looked good together; we were around the same height, so we just kind of fit together walking down the hallways at school, arms wrapped around each other. I also agreed that he was funny and that his eyes were a wondrous shade of blue (it is worth noting that I love the color blue so much, I coveted a blue suede sofa from Crate and Barrel for years, and finally bought it last spring). However, coming from a household with three brothers, I had a high tolerance for “obnoxious” and barely noticed it. I just took it in stride that when dealing with teenaged boys, a certain quantity of “obnoxious” comes with the territory. When we were one-on-one, Harry was just a funny, sweet boy with a wicked – but never mean – sense of humor. However, when a wider audience was available, that’s when he was “on”. I still wouldn’t call it “obnoxious” – more like “outrageous”. He didn’t just entertain, he “shockertained”; the more off-beat and out-there he could be, the better it delighted him. It was like he was testing us – how far could he go, where was the line, how close to it could he dance?

I broke myself out of the reverie of distant memories. I wanted to know more.

It wasn’t long before I’d amassed a fair amount of information regarding what Harry had been doing with himself for at least the last 5 years or so. He’d left a fairly easy-to-follow breadcrumb trail across the internet under his new name, and I soon came to understand that he was a fairly big shit deal in the gay community in his area, well-respected for his contributions to adult entertainment industry practices, and for his donations to charitable causes as well. As I continued to learn about him, I was startled to realize that my 49 year old self could look back in time, see the signs, and fully accept what everything I was reading about him implied – but my inner 15 year old was having a really rough time with it. She flat out would not accept mere “implications”, and kept pushing me to search for something concrete that spelled it out in no uncertain terms.

OK, here we go; MySpace. Harold A*****, age 40-something. Same logo from the business, instead of a head shot.

Status: In a relationship.

Orientation: Gay

My inner 15 year old deflated and crumbled into a crestfallen heap…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

I hope you will all excuse me for taking a little breather. I needed some processing time. I’m going to interrupt my intended “cougar” series to tell you all about it. After you read what I’m about to tell you, I think you will forgive me; it was a little difficult to wrap my brain around it.

I ended my last post by recounting whatever became of the “engagement” ring and the tiny, perfect, silver cross. Not long after posting, I started to wonder whatever became of Harry. And so, I took my madd googling skillz to the interwebz and launched a quest to locate Harry, long-lost bestower of first kisses.

I started in the logical place – Facebook. It’s like the village green of the entire planet, or maybe more like Tevye’s dream in Fiddler On The Roof – eventually, everyone you ever knew is going to pass through there. Unfortunately, a search for “Harry M*** “ came up nil; likewise “Harold M***”. I googled around a bit but kept coming back to Facebook, looking for people we’d hung out with back then, to see if they knew how to contact him.

And then one morning over coffee, I remembered Harry’s sister Jennie. She and my older brother were in the same graduating class, and we’d had an elective together – History of the Occult, where the only thing I remember learning is that Dracula’s real name was Vlad the Impaler. I found her profile easily, and cruised through her friends list in search of her brother. The only “Harry” I found on her friend list was a “Harold A*****”. Disappointed, I abandoned the search and started my work day.

But something kept nibbling at my brain about this. It was not improbable that he just wasn’t on Facebook – after all, none of my own brothers had signed up. Still, something nagged at me about it. I could not get it off my mind, and then halfway through the work day, it dawned on me. I remembered teasing Harry about his initials, but being a theater geek, he was quite proud that they spelled H.A.M. …..

Before I knew it, I found myself wading through Jennie’s friend list again, clicking on Harold A*****, whereupon I was faced with the typical “Harold only shares certain information with everyone. To learn more about Harold, add him as a friend.” Well, I wasn’t about to do that until I was sure. His profile picture was no help. It was not actually a picture, but the logo of some dot com. I plugged the address into the URL bar, and…

Oh.

My.

GAWD

I hit the “back” button on the browser, fast.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

What a ridiculous term by the way – “cougar”. Where the hell did that come from? I’ve been googling around to find out how a woman who pursues relationships with younger men has come to be known as a “cougar”, but no one seems to know. I even looked up some facts about the actual feline known as “cougar”, also known as puma, panther, or mountain lion, depending on if you live in Texas, Florida or Wyoming. I found no evidence that the female cougar prefers younger male cougars for mates, but did find reference to adults being more or less solitary and meeting for one reason and one reason only – mating. Perhaps this is the basis for the terminology – hunting for a mate, then going home alone. I know, it’s a stretch, but aside from that I got nuttin’ !!!

A survey conducted by AARP asserts that 34% of women surveyed responded indicating that they were dating younger men, thereby fitting the definition of “cougar”. The survey is 6 years old at the time of this writing. Spurred on by high-profile romances such as that of Ashton Kutscher and Demi Moore, I imagine that statistic has only grown in the intervening years.

Guess what? There was a time when I fit the “cougar” definition, too. Yes, ladies and gentlemen – I was cougar before cougar was cool I once calculated it and came up with a startling statistic – I am older than 80-something percent of all the guys I’ve ever been involved with. Age differences have ranged from 3 months all the way up to 8 years.

(As an aside, I also calculated that 80-something percent of all the guys I’ve ever dated and/or married were also Jewish. Yes, we detect a pattern here. No, I haven’t really tried to analyze it. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Queens, so I’m not shocked that I’ve got an affinity for Jewish guys).

I began my auspicious career as a cougar circa 1975-76. Harry was in 9th grade and I was in 10th. He was exactly my height, sandy brown hair, blue eyes, with freckles. A class-clown type, Harry really knew how to make me laugh, and he was just adorable. Soon after we met, he got his braces removed, a fact which relieved him no end. I’d privately thought that they only added to his adorableness factor.

We were both in the high school chorus, and both had 5th period free, during which time we ran errands for the people working in the guidance office. One day, the student body decided to stage a “walk out” during 5th period over some (no doubt) burning, socially relevant issue, and Harry and I decided to walk up to McDonald’s instead of hanging out in the guidance office. I guess that was our first “date”.

Soon after that, he proposed to me amidst the melee that occurs periodically each day at every high school across America – otherwise known as the break between classes. We were passing on the staircase. I was trapped in the throngs heading up, while he was heading down. There’s no stopping when you’re in the crush of humanity on the staircase in an over-crowded New York City public school. He was looking for me; he saw me and thrust something rather sharp and pointy into my hand. As the crowd swept him away, he hollered over his shoulder, “Marry me!”. I opened my hand to find a copper-colored paper clip, bent pretzel-style into the likeness of a ring. Despite the fact that the ring eventually left a greenish tattoo on my finger, I was da shit for the duration of the school year. A boy, a CUTE, nice Jewish boy (all my friends were Jewish – I was the token shiksa) had proposed. With witnesses! It seems like half the school was on that staircase during the first (but not last) proposal of my life. This is how I came to be the sensation of the 10th grade that year.

I received my first-ever kiss – with tongue! – from Harry. I suspect it was his first as well. We were riding in the back of a car driven by the senior boyfriend of one of my pals, on our way to a party. The sun was shining on a fine spring day, and the Beatles crooned All My Lovin’ as we practiced our exploratory maneuvers, entirely neck-up, on each other. Thereafter, just walking down the halls or ambling hand-in-hand down the street, one or the other of us would spontaneously burst into All My Lovin’, while the other harmonized. To this day, when I hear that song all I can think of is Harry and soft, first kisses in the warm sunshine.

When my friends threw me a girls-only Sweet 16 party, Harry and some of the guys from our crowd crashed. The hostess was my friend Denise, God rest her soul. She was rather put out, but I was delighted. They came bearing gifts. One of the boys gave me Wings At The Speed Of Sound and another Endless Summer. Only, they were LPs! You actually needed a record player to play them! These remain staples of my music collection. Harry, however, chose to come bearing jewelry. He’d petitioned his grandmother for funding and presented me with a tiny, perfect sterling silver cross. This was a grand gesture coming from a nice Jewish boy and his bubbie! I treasured it and wore it always, even after we moved away, which ended our relationship.

Fast-forward one year, which can seem like a thousand at that age. I was a junior at my new high school and a senior asked me to accompany him to his prom. The day after the prom, we went to see a show on Broadway in NYC, and who should we bump into outside the theater but Harry. It seems a senior had asked him to the prom too, at our old high school. We were ecstatic to see one another, but that made our dates antsy, so we had to be brief. A year had made a huge difference – I could tell he was now officially WAY taller than I was, and he was even cuter, if that was possible. His parents had relocated him, too – to California. We wrote to one another a few times, but as often happens with young love, one or the other of us stopped writing and that was the end of that.

I don’t know what became of the “engagement ring”. It probably disintegrated and went to paper clip heaven. But I do know what happened to the silver cross. Fast forward another year, to the magically golden summer of 1978. Our town sponsored an outdoor summer theater workshop, and during rehearsals for a dance number, the chain I wore the cross on somehow got caught on someone else. The chain snapped and it all went flying into the night. Several people helped me look for it. We found the chain, but the cross was lost forever. I probably would have been inconsolable, had it not been the magically golden summer of 1978 and That Boy.

Oh, and the show we were doing? Fiddler On The Roof – OY!

NEXT TIME: His name was Jeremy…

Further reading: Here’s the article that inspired me to explore my inner cougar

Click to read The Cougar: Progressive or Exploitative? on BlogHer

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

We ended yesterday’s post with:

My first installment of insight from K is advice designed to enable me to judge a person’s character. I should first observe how a person treats service people like drivers and waiters, even if they are not nice to him. Two, I should observe what the person says about people who are not present. Third, and I need to quote this because he put it so succinctly – “money or time, which is more important? Would you rather have the gift of company, or just a gift?”

Now, the first two things are just common sense things that I already do. I am all about observing behavior to determine what makes someone tick. But number three, this gives a girl pause. With number three, we not only observe, but we measure too. Number three is all about the scientific method, all about believing in that which is observable and measurable.

Women are socialized to value the showering of gifts. We learn this from other women – our mothers, sisters, friends – and we start doing it basically from the moment we start dating. It becomes important to us because it is important to them; that is to say, I don’t think we’re born this way, I think we’re socialized this way. Everyone is judged by the value of the gifts. We judge the man by the gifts he gives us for our birthdays, Valentine’s Day, or “just because”. We judge each other by how good the gifts from men are. Remember the girls in HS who wore ankle bracelets on chains around their necks? Remember how much the other girls envied them? There were also girls who had “his ring” on a chain around their necks (I was one of those briefly, but not in high school). Or the girls who wore the guy’s letter jacket, how about those? Oh, I have another good one, from later in life – the parade of flowers in the office on Valentine’s Day. The women who don’t get any are envious and curse the sight of all those 1-800-FLOWERS vans parked outside the building.

So, the jewelry, the flowers, the branding of her with his letterman jacket – these are all outward signs of his esteem for her, which in turn contributes to her own self-esteem. It also elevates her status among her peers, which is another boost to her self-esteem. Later on it’s engagement rings, cars, houses, vacations… things, always things.

You know what, I think this is a throwback to the times of dowries. A dowry is money, goods/property that a woman’s father would provide so she could establish her marriage household with her new husband. The more “stuff” that was associated with her, the more valuable it was to marry her. See, it wasn’t the woman herself that was valued – it was the stuff. No stuff, no value!

In some cultures, there was even a tradition of the groom settling a monetary gift on the bride the morning after the wedding night. This gift would help to ensure her future should something happen to him, and it was also an indication that she’d proven satisfactory and that he intended to keep her.

A woman’s worth to herself and to others has probably been all tied up in the tangible, the material, basically since the invention of patriarchy. Some man – either her lover or her father – was always either giving or receiving STUFF in connection with her. To this day,we women still seem to be measuring ourselves and each other by the baubles he brings. I want to make it clear that, although I think without a doubt that patriarchy was initially responsible for this, it’s we women today in 2009 that are perpetuating it, foisting it upon ourselves and each other. We need to cut this shit out, and start walking the talk of self-worth.

For many women, having a man – ANY man – is the ultimate proof of their own worth. It’s proof to themselves as well as to the world at large. On a certain level, I get how seductive this is. I’ve been single a long time, and I know that there have been situations whereby my lack of a man – ANY man – has made me seem “less than” in the eyes of those around me. It’s worth so much to some women, they have actually expressed sympathy for my “plight”. Some of those times, I’ve wished fleetingly that I had a man – ANY man – to make me seem “more than” in their eyes, to wipe that smug, pseudo-sympathetic look off their faces. I get over this feeling pretty quickly. It gets replaced with the desire to kick their asses for making me feel that way – even fleetingly.

Well, it IS lonely sometimes. But you know, lonliness is not THEIR reason for not wanting to be manless. Many women, some of the very ones who have pitied me – these women are sometimes the ones that see a man as a means to an end, not as the end itself. They want the THINGS, the candy and flowers and jewelry, so they can feel like they are worth something, and they believe this is the ONLY way they can feel like they are worth something. Stuff, things – these are tangible proof of his esteem for her, and therefore of her worth.

I make a good living and I can buy STUFF for myself. Those who have known me for a while know that this is true – I deny myself basically nothing. Veni, Vidi, Visa I don’t need a man to give me things. His gifts will, of course, make me feel good, but my self-worth comes from different places. It comes from accomplishments. It comes from going back to school and getting another degree while in my 40s, and from having a successful career on Wall Street. It grew from all those operas I memorized and performed in foreign languages, and all the applause and praise that resulted. My self-esteem comes from knowing that my friends and family think the world of me, and from knowing when I’ve done the right thing.

Now mind you, I would not turn down the gifts; I would appreciate him a lot for gifting me with them, but really, that’s not what I would need him for. ‘Way back then, when I was a teenager, and even into my thirties – yes, I wanted the ankle bracelet and the esteem that went with it. But now? Yeah, it’s the gift of company. Here and now, in 2009, that’s what I want. And it can’t be just ANY man, either – but I think this is long enough, and that’s a post for another day.

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.