Judith Sills - Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When Youve Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted

Copyright 2009 by Judith Sills, PhD

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Springboard Press

Hachette Book Group

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Hachette Book Group, Inc.

First eBook Edition: February 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-54411-5

Personal Evolution

Reentry
or
Would I Sleep with Eisenhower?

I t was all very unlikely. She was standing in the hallway of the Marriott Marquis Hotel, wearing cute wrinkled Nick & Nora cotton pajamas, the white ones with the cherries printed on them and the small ruffles at the wrists and ankles. She was deciding whether to knock on the door of a friendly colleague who, earlier in the conference, had patted her calf in a suggestive manner but allowed her to retire to her hotel room alone. He had seemed interested, definitely interested, though he had done no more than extend an indirect invitation and wait to see if she would RSVP.

But she was fifty-six years old, and it was more than twenty-five years since she had responded to a calf rub offered by a man other than her now ex-husband. Still, that husband had been, for the last two years, rubbing someone elses considerably younger calfand wasnt it ever going to be her turn again? That was the question that got her up, out of her hotel room, and into this awkward moment of indecision in a hotel hallway. Apparently, if it were ever to be her turn again, if she were ever going to kiss someone again, smile up at, hold hands with, not to mention the rest, well, something would be required of her. The new lover, new boyfriend, new companion, new man was not going to be delivered effortlessly into her life. At some point, she would have to knock.

So will you.

Because, however it happened, youre back out there floating in single space. Whether you have been cast back out by painful circumstance, or you are finally back after years of hiding out, at this moment you are romantically unattached and on your own. And, by whatever process that has brought you to this brink, you are considering a return to the game.

That game would be the timeworn, thrilling, and terrible drama of flirtation, sex, and love; of courtship and romance; of getta-guy, getta-girl, or get gotten. How consciously and therefore how successfully you replay the game is the subject of this book. First you have to decide to knock.

You may be, at this moment in your life, very far from that hallway. Perhaps you are still frozen in the grip of a loss, staggering after a death or a betrayal. And even if your recovery from these wounds has brought you as far as this door, you may still be paralyzed in its face. The sexual and emotional experience available across the threshold is still far outside your picture of yourself. But you are considering a move in that direction.

On the other hand, had it been a different version of you in the hallway, you might never have retreated to your room to think it over. You may be one of those who threw herself over that threshold and out of those damn pajamas twenty minutes after your last relationship ended. (Or, to be on the safe side, twenty minutes before.) You are trading partners, changing stories, and eager to avoid a hole in your heart or in your life. You have leapt headlong into courtship, perhaps without some of the strategies youll need to make it turn out better this time.

Most of us are somewhere between these two positionswishing to reconnect in some important way, longing to have a little fun or a lot of sex or a great companion, but anxious, discouraged, or cynical about the possibility of happily ever after. Much as we have not given up on the fantasy of romance, affection, and love, we are undone at the prospect of reengaging in the tiresome and hurtful dating game that carries with it these rewards. Eventually, though, most of us wrestle with the reality: Its the only game in town.

All of us who are singlewhether widowed or divorced, dumped or thankfully detached, or just newly resurfaced after the distractions of motherhood, career, or bothstand at the same anxious precipice. Must I, will I get back into the game of courtship? Would I want to? Can I bear its rigors? Is it worth it? Am I still a contender? Can I do it any better this time? Or at all? And, since it definitely requires two to play, where do I go to find someone with whom to get up a game?

These are legitimate questions at any age, but they can be showstoppers after, say, forty-six. Thats when we add the fretful salsa of age to our always conflicted feelings about dating. True, an amazing number of thirty-two-year-olds have been known to convince themselves that it is already too late. Old is not a belief confined to the mature woman or man. Too late is a destructive thought, whether at thirty-five or at eighty, but an awful lot of us over forty or fifty run it through our brains anyway.

For the moment, you are at your tennis club contemplating the decent-looking retiree across the dining roomsingle, sixty-eight, wearing whites and a knee braceand you think, Jeez, wouldnt that be like sleeping with Eisenhower? Its a thought that could send you right off to babysit full-time for your own grandchildren, confining yourself to book groups and community serviceall perfectly fine occupations if they are satisfying enough for you. But some of us stop to recall that, as it turned out, Eisenhower had someone on the side after Mamie apparently lost interest. We take another look across the dining room and see past the knee brace. We decide to knock.

Woman in Transition

Whether you are poised hesitantly at this brink or youve thrown yourself relentlessly, determinedly into the online, blind-date, hookup bars middle of the middle-aged dating world, you are at a life stage you might think of as reentry. Reentry is a tricky time, and it requires more preparation and self-awareness than merely how best to market yourself with a great computer profile. (Though such advice helpsno question about it.) If you are looking for a safe and happy landing, reentry needs some solid-state understanding of the process and a damn good heat shield.

That is the purpose of this book. For one reason or another, you unexpectedly find yourself in the untethered universe of single life. To move from that romantic free fall toward a loving connection, you will have to navigate an intensely emotional, uncertain, and unsettling period of time.

The internal forces that will drive you during this period your own individual fears and longings, your lifelong romantic patterns, and your acute reentry needsare powerful, unexpected, and erratic. It would help to have some meaningful self-knowledge to steer a safe course. Yet your capacity for introspection and self-awareness may well have atrophied during your marriage or motherhood, when you focused so much on taking care of other people that you lost close touch with yourself.

Now here you are, thrown back on that self you may no longer know well, negotiating your own mixed feelings while you are recovering from emotional loss. Just catching up with your inner life could be a full-time preoccupation. But many of us are tempted to skip this inner step entirely. The outer drama of e-mail flirtation, social competition, and actual foreplay can be so compelling, confusing, or aversive that we miss a clear picture of ourselves because we are too busy watching the show.