Susan Hartzler - Im Not Single, I Have a Dog: Dating Tales from the Bark Side

Ive always been a good judge of characterat least when it comes to friends and dogs. Romantic relationships havent turned out so well. At age sixty, Ive learned to accept, even love, my single status, provided I have my good friends and a dog or two by my side. But thats not always been the case.

Back in the 1980s, I found it tough to be a never-married woman approaching her thirties. Well-meaning people would ask time after time why I hadnt settled down and started a family. They still do.

Self-help books imply that being single is synonymous with being a neurotic harpy with impossibly high standards. Reading these best sellers made me feel more desperate. Even worse were all the celebrations I attended for my friendsfrom bachelorette parties and weddings to baby showersalways as the token wallflower. My own family didnt help, either. Mom and Dad treated me like an incompetent child way into my adulthood. The worst part? I behaved like one.

Newsweek magazine didnt help my anxiety when they published the article Too Late for Prince Charming? According to the magazine, single women over forty were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married. That thought made me, along with other single women across the country, extremely uncomfortable.

Time and time again, I found myself attracted to the quintessential bad boy, a good-looking guy with charisma oozing from his pores, ready and willing to allow a woman to take care of him financially and emotionally. Can you spell codependent ?

Im not alone in my attraction to bad boys. Research shows men who have vain and somewhat, well, psychopathic tendencies usually get more dates than the average guy. Whats up with that?

Think about it. Bad boys are often ridiculously good-looking. Their egos wont let them look anything other than their best. A naive girl like me had to learn that a bad boys good looks and charming ways could quickly wear out. They just cant seem to maintain that mesmerizing first impression. But theyre never dull, and in my naivety, I preferred them that way. I liked feeling captivated by my man.

Plus, bad boys know how to have a good time. Sure, theyre selfish, rule-breakers, and rebellious, but those negative qualities are what I found attractive. If you do, too, dont delude yourself, as I did, into thinking a sexy bad boy will become a devoted partner and loving father. No way.

Heres the worst part: I found that men who depended on me emotionally, physically, and financially made me feel needed. At first, feeling so needed fortified my self-esteem and eased the abandonment anxiety Id suffered since childhood. I hadnt figured out yet that my compulsive giving and fixing behaviors went hand in hand with my disappointing and disastrous romantic relationships.

I now know that my giver/fix-it pattern stemmed from being raised in a home where vital and important emotional needs were never acknowledged or adequately responded to by the adults in my life. Caregiving became my way to compensate for that deficit.

Dont get me wrong. All parents fail in some sense. As Mitch Albom so eloquently wrote in his New York Times best seller The Five People You Meet in Heaven : All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Ive never heard of a school or college for parents. Mom and Dad did their best and loved me in their way as much as they knew how. But they raised a confused little kidme.