some esteem issues included

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2003
some esteem issues included
1
Fri, 10-06-2006 - 12:58pm

It's been several years since I divorced and tried with so so results to date. The problem initially was I returned to art school after the breakup (in computer animation) and in my mid thirties felt the youth culture (my only connection after) to have values less holistic and mature than I needed. A couple guys I flirted/dated with were so hot/cold gamey as to put me off. I expanded to dancing and theater and the cliquish (sort of a japanese influenced cabaret) sub-culture I was drawn to was cutthroat at a time I still felt vunerable.

One dance intensive I went to the teacher had an affair with one of the girls. This may of been none of my business except the girl kept reminding me of my marriage failure/desire to have a family as a competative tactic which blew my esteem for months after. A year later I've learned the teacher/student have married are expecting. One dancer from that event kept trying to bullying me into noticing him in further classes. Presumabley because he "liked me" long after I told him to go away. I dropped the class. And finally, the dance teacher's rock star friend, the one whom I really liked, kept showing up in cafes as I sat with friends. This lured me to attending his rock show in which he flirted then at the end of the show held me at a distance and told me to blow. Dont know if he meant it, but essentially publically humiliating my sexual awardness in front of his friends.

Plenty of nice guys have approached me at a distance but I'm afraid I'm gun shy now...and flirting (which is easy and is one thing) dating I find is another. I really just want to meet someone healthy, nice, a little quirky off key but grounded and this must be possible.

What suggestions are there? Craigslist sounds a bit of a circus, online dating? My dance groups (now a bit more for safety, are mostly women). How does one put oneself out there but filter the toxic ones?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 11:19pm

Hi there.... I think that you filter the toxic ones by talking to them... watching them... and being smart about what you see and feel.


Just remember, for every toxic one that you encounter... you learn from it, if you choose to do so.


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~