women's relationship with other women
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 08-27-2005 - 8:18am |
I don't have close women friends. So what does this have to do with dating? I think there's a connection and thought I'd ask your ideas.
I was the stepdaughter of two rather cruel stepmoms and also have had issues with my mom's own criticalness and jealousy towards myself. I have developed somewhat of a "fear" of women, fear of their competitiveness and harsh judgements. I think one way of dealing with this has been to isolate myself from women. I work as a professor and am mostly in the company of older men. I sometimes feel I am isolated from some of this stuff because I am only around other women who have also sacrified a lot for career or the young women I teach. But I do feel cut-off, and lonely.
Being a shy and awkward child, I didn't get into dating until well into my 20s. I'm well into my 30s now and I continue to struggle with moments of feeling betrayed and hurt by my own gender in certain situations, especially when it comes to dating.
I'm described as down-to-earth i.e. don't do a lot the typical female things to attract men such as high-heels, much makeup, or revealing clothing, which I'm most comfortable with. Do I just need to learn to be competitive myself? Change my appearance? I find trusting women (especially other single women in my age category) in a friendship can be difficult like trusting a man in a relationship. But I feel that if I don't play the game that I'll be single for ever.
any thoughts?

Pages
You say"
"I find trusting women (especially other single women in my age category) in a friendship can be difficult like trusting a man in a relationship. But I feel that if I don't play the game that I'll be single for ever."
Let's wrap this up into a bundle....you have trouble trusting people in general. There are many wonderful trustworthy people out there in both sexes. I'd probably work on your trust issues first, and figure out why you feel people are suspect.
I have never looked at wearing revealing clothes as "competitive", but rather a personal preference by someone. My guess is that your lack of trust is holding you back more in the dating field than your physical appearance.
Many men are attracted to warmth, common interests and a general sense of humor in a woman more than high heels, make-up and clothing. So my suggestion to you is to work on your outlook rather than changing yourself physically. If you find it helpful, enlist the services of a great therapist to help you with the process.
I see that you mentioned in another post that you've been in therapy but you didn't indicate whether you are continuing. You might want to focus on this specific issue for a while.
It has not been my experience that women are competitive and harsh. I'm sure there are some that are, but in my experience, most are not and I just avoid the ones who are. I have wonderful friends who don't judge or compete with me...they just love and support me, as I do them.
And I don't wear any of the things you mention...I'm not sure why you think those are necessary for dating.
Sheri
Thank you for your insight. I will look into counseling (*sigh*, more counseling...) about the specific issue of trust. I can see how it has blurred my vision.
I might have a warped sense of what I think men are attracted to when it comes to dating. Maybe from what I see as the norm, TV and the movies, and also from just observing men. I know that attractive women that dress flashy are attractive to men, pretty much all men. Even though they might be attracted to the woman they're with for what she has to offer, it doesn't change the fact that they will find an attractive woman, ...well attractive. And I guess that's just human nature.
Have you ever been out with a guy and you're walking down the street telling him a story, he's listening, you glance over to look at his face and see that his attention is focused on a beautiful woman walking down the street who is younger/more attractive/dressed sexier than yourself? And even though it's just a flash of a moment, I find that I always stumble on my words, forget what I was saying, and end up feeling a little bit sad. Do you think this is a trust issue or am I nuts? or both?
No, I can't say that I have had that happen. Your reaction, though, sounds to me like more of a self-esteem issue than a trust issue.
Sheri
Are you saying your mistrust of women comes from your experience growing up with jealous and mean stepmothers? Or have you had other actual negative experiences with women your own age?
Start
I think I can relate to what you're saying, but I don't know if I can offer much if any insight. My mother was very cruel and I also have trust issues. However, I have learned that trust is about who one trusts. If it's an untrustworthy person, they're just going to confirm one's belief about people's untrustworthiness. So one needs to be selective.
I haven't had very many close female friends, either. I tried to make a couple over the past few years, one wanted to get me into partying and the other just used me as a glorified baby-sitter. So it's good to be careful. However, I did have girlfriends in college that were very good friends.
I also relate to what you wrote about men. I think it's just plain rude when a man can't stay focused on what you're saying to him, especially if he gets distracted by a beautiful woman. I think you probably just need to date more intelligent, focused men.
I think that what you're getting at is that you need to get your feet wet, so to speak, with women before you're comfortable getting into the more serious "dating arena". I know that for me, my bf at the time being distracted by my friends was a serious concern for me. In fact, I usually have never had both at the same time, which is pretty immature of me but sometimes it was circumstantial. Anyway, seeing how your guy interacts with female friends, whether they might be potentially threatening or not, is a good way of judging a man's character. I think that maybe the best way for you to become comfortable is to just get out there more and see what people are like. If we're going to have a social life, at some point we're all going to have to come to the realization of how we "measure-up" to others. Some people have strengths in one area, some in another. The trick is, I think, to find people who complement us and they us. I know it's scary to see how one measures-up when criticism, jealousy, envy, etc., has been one's daily diet, especially in childhood. However, if we don't get out there, we can never experience the richness of total living. Humans are social creatures afterall. So my advice would be to take some calculated risks and see how it turns out. Best of luck to you!
Thank you so much for the reply. I think there is a core distrust of women from the negative experiences I had with the women in my life as a child (mom and stepmoms). As an adult I have had a few bad experiences with women my age. My ex had woman friends that were very brazen about trampling all over me -- one even to the extent of giving my bf her sex toys and porno collection to "hold" because she was under some sort of house arrest. Crap like that. I worked very hard not to blame her, but to see what a schmuck he was for not being protective of me. Another example; a friend was very flirtly with my bf in a certain situation ...I think I was really maybe feeling vulnerable myself at the time. But it still hurt me because neither her nor him seemed to care about me in that moment and were just caught up in being into each other.
OK, so all this might just say more about my own past relationships, not knowing who to trust and letting untrustworthy folks a little too deep into my life.
Sorry to go off about that. But you're very right. I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people here at the college I'm starting at this fall. I will be looking for those opportunities to meet other women and take the initiative.
Thank you for the support, golightly. I think you hit it right on the nose about making friends with other women while I go about dating, or even before. It's really a huge trust issue for me and I know it's really quite ugly in some way. I don't like to talk about it because I feel like it's really a bad trait I have -- not being able to trust other women, that is.
I'm going to try to find some 'venues' to start meeting women with similar interests and similar ways of being.
I'm glad you're going to reach out to new women at your university and elsewhere.
Start
Thanks...
I just have to clarify though...the woman with the porn was one of HIS friends, not mine. Oh boy, I can be clueless about who I let in my life but not THAT clueless... ;-)
Pages