Tracy Strauss - I Just Havent Met You Yet: Finding Empowerment in Dating, Love, and Life

Copyright 2019 by Tracy Strauss

Public Service Announcement for a First Date first appeared in the Huffington Post in 2014.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Paul Qualcom

Illustration by iStock

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-4292-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4293-2

Printed in the United States of America

I might have to wait

Ill never give up

I guess its half timing and the other halfs luck...

Michael Bubl

It is not talking of love but living in love that is everything.

A Yogi tea bag

I am brave, I am bruised

I am who Im meant to bethis is me.

Keala Settle,
The Greatest Showman ensemble

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ONE DAY, I found myself, a forty-something-year-old single woman, urgently seeking, within the shelves of my local bookstore, solutions to what I saw as my lifelong problem: my inability to meet Mr. Right. I knew that my plight wasnt unique, but as I picked through book after book on relationships and dating, I didnt find anything that really spoke to me: the cookie-cutter how-to manuals; the sociological research about the cultural origins and present-day conundrums of the spinster; the bitch-and-moan dating escapades of a twenty-something who perceived the age of thirty as a line of demarcation between the chance to attain a lifelong relationship and never attaining one at all (not that I hadnt once also thought that way); and the colorfully packaged love advice of celebrities who had the privilege of fame, fortune, and makeup/hair artists (along with a very photogenic partner) on their side.

I searched high and low for a book written for and by someone who was like me, a regular woman who was working her ass (and heart) off to conquer challenging circumstances in the pursuit of love and life. I was looking for a book written by someone whod gone through deeply personal struggles and whod surmounted big obstacles. I was looking for empowerment, for an honest narrative with real life lessons that could teach me how to find success and happiness in love, pages that would show me, through someones intimate journey, the way out of the single woman hole in which Id spent decades residing in duck-and-cover mode. I needed someone to reveal how (and if) it was possible to find the love of my life, one arduous and courageous step at a time.

I was looking for my life partner, and when I didnt find him in the traditional manner in which my peers had found their significant others, when I thought Id exhausted all options, I decided to write to himand so this book was born.

I Just Havent Met You Yet is my open love letter to my future life partner, chronicling my dating history, similar to yours or to someone you know. Each chapter begins with a letter, followed by narratives that portray my path to break free of destructive relationship patterns and overcome my fear of truly being seen by the world, sharing the transformative lessons I learnedfrom following the advice of friends, to figuring out how to listen to my gut, to knowing when might be the best (or worst) time to share my deep dark secret, to changing my troubled self-image, to finding what love truly is, and morewhile confronting each hurdle along the way to meeting Mr. Right.

In the words of Vincent Van Gogh, I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.

CHAPTER 1

I JUST HAVENT MET YOU YET

Dear Future Life Partner,

I thought I knew just how wed meet.

Wed be classmates in college, or colleagues on the job. Wed meet in the office copy room, or onMatch.com, or at an acquaintances wedding at the table for guests without a plus-one.

Wed find ourselves on a hike with the Appalachian Mountain Club some late spring morning, or on our bikes on the Minuteman Trail when we both stopped at Spy Pond to take in the view.

Wed never meet at a bar, because, disliking loudness coupled with drunkenness, we never go to bars.

Wed introduce ourselves to each other at the caf we both went to every Sunday with our laptops, early, when I was writing my first book and you were answering what appeared from the expression on your face to be some very serious email. You were the guy with his gaze glued to the computer screen, until you took the chance to look up, at me.

You were the one at the adult education class who came over and asked, Is this seat taken?

It wasnt. I said, Its yours.

I thought a mutual friend would set us up. Wed hit it off.

I thought wed meet in the waiting room at the doctors office when I tore a ligament in my wrist during a boot camp class at the gym and you broke your arm in a bicycle accident on Massachusetts Avenue.

I thought, when I flew out west, wed be assigned the same row on the plane. Id have the window seat, you the aisle. Wed say a brief hello. At takeoff, Id turn my back so you wouldnt see me becoming airsick, or hyperventilating from my flying phobia. Youd tap me on my shoulder and ask if I was all right.

I thought wed meet on a crowded Boston subway, our bodies pressed together in the summer heat, the train stalling during rush hour, or on the commuter rail, like that couple profiled in the Boston Globe, who talked day after day on their way to work, falling in love. Three years later, he proposed. She said yes.

Yes, I believed wed meet. Sure, I was being idealistic. I was conjuring up a future that relied upon stereotypical storybook circumstances, which do happen for some lucky singlesbut such scenarios were my own magical thinking.

Love wouldnt happen according to my plans. So, when I found myself over a certain age, when my friends had found their mates, but my life wasnt the coupled way Id once imagined it would be, I had to keep the faith. I had to stay optimistic. Though I sometimes felt discouraged, I wouldnt give up hope, because you were out there, too. The truth is, Im a romantic, and I always thought that if I took the chance to put myself out there really put myself out thereId find you.