Valentine's Day Versus This Single Female...

A week late and a dollar short I’ve decided to weigh in on this dreaded holiday that I once upon a time considered pity party trigger material. It's hard being single. As a member of the table for one club for quite a few years I have a perspective to offer to this particular conversation. Previous postings that have tips on being a single individual are I Majored In Flirting In College & Flirting 101: Continued. My roommate true to form has once again proven a major advantage, 1/2 off candy in the days following Valentine’s Day. I read in the Satanic Bible written by Anton Szandor LaVey that everyone hates lovers, couples. For me it was an envy of their happiness that made me want to eat a gun.

Like most people I assumed I should search for true love, happily ever after and the whole kit and caboodle. I assumed I could find happiness with another human being. A very good friend suggested that being single was a good thing. She said that I was lucky to be single and childless. She is still a wise woman whose opinion I value. When she told me this I finally started to shift my thinking on the single life.

In the last year I've learned that my relationship with myself is the hardest one to maintain. When I compared myself to other people I tend to place me as second, not hoping for first place in someone else's heart. It is through self placement as first in my own heart and with the help of my Higher Power that I've started to see self love as a solution to loneliness. 

I was an only child growing up. Again I was told this was supposed to be a good thing by my peers. I didn't have siblings to fight with or over who was the favorite among my parents. According to both of my parents I was it. The one and only. My bio-dad reminded me often he wished I'd been a boy. He took that a step further and mentored young men when I decided his career choice for me wasn't the right path for me. My mother showed me through example how to be both parents by being a single mom most of my young life. She was my disciplinarian, protector, best friend, and advocate until her death. When she died, my world crumbled and I spent the next few years lost without her guidance.

The yearly round of holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years tend to have me missing her presence. For the first time in a long time I tried to recreate the flavors of her soul by cooking black eyed peas and greens for New Year's Day. Okay, so I cheated on the greens and used canned. I have to say overall it was a pretty good cooking, not quite my mom's but the memory was less painful this past year than in previous years. So I'm calling it a win. 

As I look forward to this year, I'm trying to finish up the final draft of Forced to Change and publish it. My mother taught me to go after my dreams hardcore. From the grave I still feel her encouragement and unconditional love. She died while I was in college and as I move forward in my life it usually hits me hard the achievements she misses in my life. I spent a lot of time fearing and hurting that she didn't get to witness my graduation from college.

When I graduated from college it irritated me that my bio-dad claimed credit for that accomplishment. He went on to belittle my mother's influence and sacrifices. I agree that without his help, I wouldn't have made it through. We often bumped heads as he tried to iron fist me to the finish line, er, graduation day. My mother's death offered me opportunities that I appreciated more in the moment with a lower level understanding of the price I continue to pay, her physical absence from my life. 

My dad and I often had misunderstandings about who I was as a person. In my eyes he often failed to make sure I knew it was okay to be who I am. He constantly conflicted his actions with his words as he told me who he wanted me to be. He pressured me to be his ideal and until his death I continued to feel that pressure while finding that no matter how hard I tried, I disappointed him with my choices. For me it felt as if my parents were divided in their plans for me and until I found a solid religious foundation I couldn't reconcile their battle.

Today, I'm single and loving it most of the time. I try to try to be a better person and work on and own my issues. I pray constantly for my future. I use my past as a road map of who I could be with enough effort and hard work. Writing continues to be a marathon, not a sprint and four years later I still have yet to finish the work on Forced to Change.

As I stare at the finish line, publishing, I've taken a step back to reflect on the person who started this writing project with the one that I am today. So yes still single, but not as lonely. I’ve come to depend on my roommate and I've learned to be a friend indeed. For the time being I've shelved the hope of being #1 in someone else's heart as it is not part of what drives me to succeed or something by which I measure my own success. I leave this up to my Higher Power and I know that what is meant to be will be.

Bumping Uglies Used To Sell, Now It’s Abuse & Dysfunction

Yes, I read all three of the books I shall not name (there’s a blog post about that). I read the Twilight books. I want to write a best-selling novel, so I read a lot. I read what sells in hopes of figuring out what appeals to a mass market on a grand scale. I freely admit that is my goal. I also watch an insane amount of television. I go to the movies by myself a lot too. I listen to a ton of music, and not just heavy metal or folksingers, but every type of music. I love the stories, I love the beats. That form of storytelling is two-sided, music and words, they both evoke emotions. Some days I consider myself an observer of human nature. I create characters in my head to work through my own demons. Rising From The Fire is a story that was born from attending Catholic school from first through fifth grade.

(The entire time) I struggled with religion versus spirituality. My mother was married to an abusive man, my stepfather, and he was a deacon in a Lutheran church. He would drag me with him every Sunday morning. So I was bombarded on both sides by religion. Eventually my mother opted out of church attendance. As my mother’s child I was also given a reprieve. That still left school, where every time I read passages from the bible, I found the entire thing confusing from the language to the stories. Add to that, those bits in conflict with the bible and my stepfather’s actions caused me to seek my spiritual guidance elsewhere.

Personally, I felt God had a lot of explaining to do while I was growing up. What kind of God allows sexual abuse of a three year old? Or lets a teacher’s entire family die in a fire? Those answers were in no bible I ever read. Growing up was hard, scary, and lonely. I had no siblings, and there was a time when my relationship with my mother hadn’t quite hit the level of friendship we shared toward the end of her life.

As much as I loved my mother, when I was younger spanking was an acceptable form of punishment in our home. As I got older there were times when it turned into physical abuse. Again, I had times where I got contradictory messages. I wasn’t allowed to be physically abusive, yet I was abused in my home. This is why I struggled with my temper and anger, and sought out abusive and dysfunctional relationships as a young adult.

It took two years after my mother divorced my stepfather, for me to do something to break the cycle of abuse in our relationship. The catalyst of the final physical fight I had with my mother was when she hit me with a broom for refusing to take out the garbage. I refused because I was in my underwear. She demanded I do it immediately before going to bed. I yelled I would get up early enough to do it in the morning, but since I was supposed to do it the night before and she was angry about something else, that fight happened instead. The night after my mother threw me out of the house in my underwear for an hour, I went to my school counselor and reported the incident.

I made the choice to seek help for what was happening in my home because of what happened between my mother and stepfather. At the time I don’t think she could see that I was in a similar situation, and although the movie Irreconcilable Differences opened the idea to me of a kid divorcing their parents, I didn’t feel that was an option for me at the age twelve. We entered therapy together, and separately after my school brought my mother in for a conference.

My mother grew up in a physically abusive household, just as I assume her parents did, and so on and so forth. I heard story after story from my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side, about how their mother would discipline them. A well thrown wooden spoon incident created a lifelong scar between my uncle’s toes; he’d  snuck a peek at what was in the pot for dinner. The burn marks on my aunt’s upper arm by a fresh off the stove hot comb from when she wouldn’t sit still to get her hair straightened. All I could think after hearing these stories for the first time was I was okay with the fact that my grandmother had passed before I met her.

I think I had a fear I would abuse a child and that is a huge part of why kids ain’t for me. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, but this way I’ve never had to test the theory out. I’ve had enough therapy, and Nike, my cat, who I love and adore. Nike is not declawed. Even when she scratches me or hates on me for turning over when she was so comfortably resting on my leg, I do not abuse her. I love her so much that there’s nothing she can do to make me angry. Sure she annoys me, or amuses me, but she never does anything to spark a feeling of anger. I guess that’s the biggest difference between a mostly defenseless pet and a child.

I’ve written quite a few pieces with a non-consent/rape as their genre/theme. Some are posted, some are not. I know that I write those kinds of things, not to glorify rape or non-consent, but to work through my own demons on this subject matter. It is therapeutic and since I choose to write erotica it is easier for me to make my characters rape victims rather than molested children. It’s a way to conquer my demons. I think with Forced To Change I’ve finally been able to gain closure on my need to work through that particular issue.

So now onto the next, I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been in a few abusive and dysfunctional relationships. I brought up the books I shall not name and Twilight because both series are bestsellers that glorify very dysfunctional relationships. Then to further the issue, both heroines not only allow this abuse, but go on to forgive, much too easily, the assholes and call it love.

Neither character addresses these issues or even acknowledges that there’s a problem with their love interest’s behavior. Okay, maybe a little bit from the books I shall not name. Either way this trend started so many years ago and recently a posting on Facebook by Laurell K. Hamilton got me thinking about the fact that this issue isn’t new. The glorification of abusive, dysfunctional relationships has been going on for years. Ever notice that it’s easier to eliminate sexual content from viewing on your television than violence?

Don’t get me wrong, I rather enjoy reading LKH, she’s one of my favorite authors. I even found the recent posting interesting and agreed with some areas of it. One thing I cannot condone is her assumption that abusers cannot change. I agree that loving someone hard enough will not get it done, but therapy is only one path to self-growth. I don’t condemn therapy, I’ve found it quite useful for myself. The bottom-line is an abuser has to want to change, and then make every effort to change.

Not a single change is ever made in your life without your participation. It could take forever, and therapy is a tried and true way to do some self-discovery, figure out who you are and who you want to be. But to suggest that it’s the only way doesn’t leave room for those who find help in support groups or church or whatever it is that people do to conquer their issues.

We’re all on a life journey, I call it a divine path. As individuals and together. To suggest that your way is the only way to enlightenment is to say that there is only one way to love, live, and be. Therapy worked for LKH. It worked for some of the people in her life. But what drove me nuts about her posting was therapy doesn’t work for everyone. Religion isn’t for everyone. We don’t all learn the same way.

Personally I’m a hands on learner, I have a friend that has to read every manual to figure out how to do something. I like tutorials that I can do at my own pace. He reads a how-to book one time and he’s mastered the craft. He didn’t grow up in an abusive household. I did. So yeah, I had a real fear of passing my issues on to a child and opted not to have children. He can’t wait to have kids. He’ll probably make an excellent parent. I’ve been told by a lot of my friends and family that I’d make an excellent parent too.

I think back to my own mother and there are things that I found sadistic and twisted about her parenting style. Crap, I’d probably pull pranks on my kid, too. Some of it sorta walked the line, like when she used to lock me out of the car just to watch me chase after it, tears streaming down my face because I was four and thought she was really leaving me. Now, looking back, can’t say I wouldn’t do that shit to my own kid, cuz today, it makes me laugh my ass off retelling the story. Some of it just made me grow a thicker skin and trust me when I say, I needed one growing up.

Kids Ain’t For Me

A woman I used to hang out with had two little girls, one with spina bifida  (four years old), the other is going to be a superstar (six years old). I haven’t a clue what career path this bright little light in the world is going to play in the future, but she and I had the following conversation one night when her mother didn’t feel like cooking. We met up at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that served amazing margaritas:

Cute Superstar (CS): Hey, Simone! Why don’t you like kids?  We’re totally adorable and cute. What’s your problem? (she gave me her money-making, ‘works on everyone else but never on me’ smile and raised her eyebrows up and down a few times to really sell it)

Me: I’m allergic to kids.

CS: Oh, I didn’t realize. I’m allergic to peanuts. I’ll scoot over further so you don’t get sick.

Some of you are going aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwweeee. Simone, how could you not want to be a mother with conversations like that? Um, sorry folks, kids just ain’t for me. Originally, I had a fear of getting pregnant for a couple of reasons. One might think it was because of my mother. As if she saw this as some huge failure in life and pushed me towards college and a career.

She did do that (see the contract I signed at eight years old in an earlier blog post), but mostly I had a lot of female cousins who thought getting pregnant before they could drive was a good idea while I was growing up. My peers at the time saw my cousins as ghetto, welfare moms making life choices that none of them would ever consider. In other words, I looked down on my family. I decided I would be better than them when it came to getting pregnant.

My mother and I used to have deep, informative, hard hitting fact conversations. She was as open as open could be on every subject matter. There was not a single question that could pop out of my mouth that she wouldn’t answer. Some people felt she overshared with me, but she rarely treated me like a child and I was grateful for it, especially when I consider how young I was when she died.

Her view on my getting pregnant was, “Feel free to come home pregnant. I reserve the right to scream and yell. But you can always come home. Pregnant or not.”

My mother said this statement to comfort me. We’d just learned the news that my fourteen year old cousin had committed suicide. My cousin, Tracy, had gotten pregnant and was too afraid to tell her mother the information. She choose to end her life. Tracy’s death cut at me, mostly because we hadn’t spoken since my mother had moved us back to Michigan from Ohio. I was twelve at the time of her death.

Tracy’s suicide lead to the second conversation I’d ever had with my mother about abortions. The first conversation on this subject matter came about before she divorced my abusive stepfather. In hindsight, although she never said, and I never asked, she was trying to decided what to do. I’m assuming my mother was pregnant at the time because she asked me how I would feel about a sibling.

I thought it was great. I was a lonely only child. I wanted a minion, another person to blame besides my imaginary friend when something got broken. This tactic didn’t work in our household and resulted in the murder of my imaginary friend. So to me, an actual person to blame for the busted lamp caused while I jumped rope in the living room was “Yes, yes, yes.”

No siblings every appeared in my life. My friends continued to be jealous of my lack of mini-terrorist in my home. I didn’t get that special someone to bully. The abortion part of the conversation happened because my mother admitted to me [on the car ride home] that she’d had one before I was born. I got quiet, thinking about what she’d said. I asked why she didn’t abort me after awhile. She answered the same, because she’d had one before I was born. When she got pregnant with me, she’d regretted that choice so much she promised herself she wouldn’t do it again. Her words stuck and resonated with me for years and years.

So while having the second conversation, she made sure I understood that if I ever got pregnant and came home, once she finished her screaming and yelling, she would take me to have one if that was what I decided. Only this was all theory and ended up my shaping my position on the pro-choice/pro-life debate. I was pro-choice but I figured if I should become pregnant, no matter what age, I would keep the child. To insure I never had to make that choice the moment I became sexually active I asked and obtained birth control.

Even before I became sexually active, my mother checked my wallet for a prophylactic, while ignoring the rolling papers tucked down behind it, I mean, er, uh, anyway, before I left out the house on a date. She didn’t embarrass me fully by showing my would-be suitor what she was checking for, that was between us. She did however rapid fire questions at the guys waiting for intelligent answers. When I returned home I got their review.

From the purple haired boys to the real life ‘Where’s Waldo’ I used to date, my mother always had something nice to say about the young men. She did fall in love with my beard (I dated a guy twice my age at sixteen. Nothing sexual, he really did enjoy my mind and was more of a mentor than a love interest). The beard was a great guy and today we’re even Facebook friends, he’s happily married. Though in high school he missed the function of a beard a few times, and actually brought a date with him when he picked me up.

Even though I’m in my thirties today, I don’t really see kids in my future. I’ve had plenty of friends take the plunge so there are always young minds around to warp if I get the urge. Although I claim to be allergic to children, I think I enjoy the freedom of being responsible for only my cat, Nike. I’m actually allergic to her, but I love her enough that I’m willing to be her mother, even if she did destroy a pair of Nike tennis shoes which is how she got her name.

Flirting 101: Continued...

First things first. A little warning before practicing flirting. Know yourself and to your own self be true. My opinion is purely made up of a lot of observation of myself and others and my drawing conclusions. As I’m not always the lit wick in a room full of burning candles, I could be wrong.

If you are a single person (or in an open relationship) and shopping for someone to add to your bed, the first step before flirting is to figure out if your sign reads ‘available’ or ‘victim’. The difference will determine what kind of relationship you find yourself in, should you be using flirting with a relationship with the new person as a goal in your mind.

Personally, I use flirting to put new men (M/M or M/F couples) on my sexual playlist as I don’t do relationships currently. I’m ‘single and loving it’ by choice. So if you’re only playlist partner shopping, by all means go read the 3 tips below.

Available sign - I’m a mentally and physically (and spiritually) healthy individual looking for someone to enter into a relationship, possibly long term (LT). Or a one-night stand, or temporary. (sign’s necessity applies to LT relationship seekers.)

Victim sign - I think I’m putting out an ‘Available’ sign, but I have a lot of self-image/self-worth issues I need to work on. I’m desperate not to be single and lonely anymore. (This sign should NOT be up if you’re looking for a LT relationship. Short term/knock off an illusion of intimacy need/one-night stands this sign is okay to fly).

Desperation is the world’s worse cologne, which means most likely you will NOT attract a ‘good for you’ person while your ‘Victim’ sign is up. You get hit on a lot when your ‘Victim’ sign is on. You’ll find that person (people sniffing around) charming and attractive. You’ll feel swept off your feet and sure you’ve found the one.

The only problem is the people attracted to ‘Victim’ signs are predatory. They see the sign as if hearing a siren’s song and will immediately manipulate you and take advantage of your mindset. Every relationship I’ve seen started while the person had their ‘Victim’ sign flashing instead of an ‘Available’ sign was a dysfunctional, unhealthy and often abusive relationship.

As you may have guessed, this was the self-defeating behavior I had to eliminate from my life when applying it to romance/relationships and me. I chose to stop getting into relationships altogether. I came up with my sexual playlist partner rules and this works for me and my lifestyle. So, yeah, back in college I learned to flirt. Only as you may have guessed from the above a lot of the time my ‘Victim’ sign was waving and I kept finding myself in abusive, dysfunctional relationships.

Okay, warning over and now onto the good stuff. The three tips on flirting as promised:

Number 3 Tip: Display The Twins! Sorry my loyal 3 male followers, I don’t know what the boobies equivalent for a male is, however, I’m a backside, junk in the truck kinda gal. Trust me, if we’ve met I checked out your ass and you never caught me doing it.

Ladies, these sweater puppies, no matter their size are the feature most people sexually attracted to you will check out first. Most heterosexual guys don’t even make eye contact for looking at your jugs. So push-up bra and cleavage showing top away whether you have large or small ones. Doesn’t matter, cuz your breasts always enter a room first if you’re walking forward.

Number 2 Tip: Best Feature Flaunting! If you don’t know what your best feature is, figure it out with a quickness and then just like the girls, bring attention to it (usually something you’ve been complimented on a lot). Mine are my lips/mouth so I apply a lot of chapstick when man shopping. Or I lick my lips which has the added bonus of bringing attention to my #1 attractor to my mouth, my tongue piercing.

If I like the looks of someone I subtly and sometimes unconsciously now, reveal the piercing, as if I can’t think without having it peek out from between my lips briefly. I learned my mouth was my 2nd best feature (chest melons 1st) when I heard CSL’s (cock sucking lips) as the most common description for my lips. They are full, soft, and often wet from licking, so I guess it applies.

Number 1 Tip: Compliment The Person! Duh! If you find someone attractive and you’re brave enough to do so, tell them. It’s so damn simple but so many people don’t do this when flirting and uh, quite stupid really. You won’t know, if you don’t try. As my mom used to say, “You will survive any failure in your life except skydiving!” You’ll get over the rejection, trust.

I only recently discovered this one myself, which is why, I’m like, idiot, idiot for not thinking of it sooner. I recently started going to a gym because I want to wear a dress one size down for my book signing for Forced to Change. Well I decided to hit the gym on the regular because sooooooooooo much yummy eye candy to be seen there.

Someone on Facebook suggested I sneak a camera in so they, too, could see all the eye candy I was scoping. Arriving at the gym the next day, I whipped out my phone and mentioned I wanted pictures of the eye candy I’d seen to the staff. The first guy to hear what I was up to, went into the back and changed shirts so he could having his abs and guns captured.

I quickly had several pics in my phone while saying, I’m looking for pics of ‘eye candy’ and until I ran into a brother so fine I couldn’t admit it (I creatively edited what I was doing and told him I was working on a ‘project’) I was having so much fun, I actually missed the fact that this was a compliment to the person whose picture I took. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, yes, I know.

I’d gotten several pictures and proof of such visual goodness for the person who asked, so I did my little workout, returned home and posted the pictures to FB. The very next day I learned that while eye candy picture taking, if I had admitted what I was doing to the fine ass man from the gym, I might have gotten his digits. So yeah, if you like the looks of someone, you find that person attractive, TELL THEM. You never know what might happen.

I Majored In Flirting In College

Some of you read the title of this post and went, really there’s a course for that? How did I miss that one in the college curriculum? It wasn’t offered in the books, it’s just a lesson you learn while trying to figure out how to get people you are attracted to, to your bedroom. Personally, I think this is just the right age and environment to start exploring your sexuality. 

Before entering college, you’re still transitioning from childhood to adulthood. You’re borrowing your parents ideas and words and using them as your own. You’re awkward about your appearance and developing your view of the world. It’s already a time of a lot of pressure, growing up is hard. So yeah, let the sexual exploration wait until you’re mature enough to handle it. This is just my advice, and something that I would have done then if I knew what I know now.

Why do I think college is the best environment to unleash the hot monkey, kinky, freaky dealio phase of a person’s life? Well, it’s probably the first time you’re out from under your parent(s) thumb. If you opt to move into the dorms rather than living at home consider yourself free. That’s right, you’re free. The parental shackles are no more. Most people take this time to experiment, figure out who the hell they are instead of who their parents have been telling them they are. Parents are well meaning, completely loving in their intent, but this is probably the leading cause of teenage rebellion in my opinion. 

Anyway, so you’re out, your free, go nuts, run with scissors and leave that mini-fridge wide open. Stay up until six am talking with your roommate about who you think you are and listen to them tell you who they think they are. You may think you know from their Facebook profile, but trust me, that’s only part of their story. So get to know the first person you’re going to live with outside your family for the next 7 to 8 months. This will cut down on that useless and overly dramatic inevitable argument that occurs where she said, he said and you two change rooms with a quickness to find someone else more to your liking to live with.

Back to Flirt 101. So you’re out there, living in the world away from home for the first time...Exxxxxxxxxxceellent. You’re dumped into a group of people that are just as awkward and socially stunted as you are, now what? Well, statistically 75% of  college students meet their first spouse in a college environment. 

I learned a long time ago, quite by accident that I don’t like being in relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I love sex. Yes, please and thank you. But all that boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband and all the kinds of relationships in between are not for me. When I announce to people I’m single and the other person is in a relationship of some kind they tend to want to feel sorry for me. Thanks for your pity face, ‘oh you poor dear and what the hell is wrong with you' face, but I’m a single lady by choice, so no need for concern.

I guess when you say you’re single the person remembers when they were single and probably spent a lot of time feeling lonely and depressed about that status. I’m not depressed about it and in fact I enjoy alone time a lot. I tend to isolate, shut out the world and crawl into my head. It can be unhealthy if I let it go on too long or if I’m hosting hourly pity parties about crap that really shouldn’t matter and stuff that just happens to be a part of the living experience.

I guess my perspective would never of come about if I didn’t have a truly amazing woman in my life, K.D., whose first reaction to my single status was, “OMG! Lucky you!” about 10 years ago when we first met. She envied me my status and assumed it was my choice. At the time I was in the mindset, but I just haven’t found my Mr. Right. I was fresh out of college, in my twenties, isn’t this the time in my life where I’m supposed to be settling down and getting married?

It was her assumption that I choose to be single that kind of tossed me for a loop and started me down a path to question my thinking on my relationship status. Was it my choice or was there something really wrong with me? I mean, I showered and everything, shouldn’t men find me attractive? Yadda, yadda, yadda. 

K and I would often hit the bars on the weekend. She hosted single meetup groups in her spare time and gave me every opportunity to check out potential mates. At the end of the day, I sat back and watched and listened at these gatherings, some participation but mostly doing what I’ve done all my life, observe human nature. Numbers were exchanged, pelvises were pressed together, but as a whole I never walked away in a relationship for the most part. Friendships, sure that happened, but I didn’t find my Prince Charming among any of the men.

So what the hell was my problem? What was I doing wrong? When a pattern arises in my life, situations that feel similar to one another, but are slightly different, I take a long hard look at what it is I’m doing to find the fault, so I can correct the behavior and break the cycle.

For example, I got fired from a lot of jobs in my early twenties. Over and over something would happen and my temper would explode all over the nearest authority figure. It became so commonplace, that my friends loved to call me up and ask for the story of why I got fired.

They had to know what pearls of snarky sarcasm landed on my ex-boss’s ears. How had I told the person off? How exactly had I told my former boss to kiss my ass as I walked out the door? I told the story, sometimes creatively edited versions, but mostly what had happened to my audience of friends and family.

There was laughing, heated debates of what a bitch or asshole my boss had been and this went on for quite a few years until finally one day I had an epiphany. The only thing these many firings had in common was me. The cast may have changed but I was the only player who’d been in the same situation over and over again. So maybe all my bosses weren’t the tools and douchebags in my tired repeated scenario, but in fact me.

As I identified this pattern in my life that was a painful repeating cycle that I was probably making happen over and over again, I asked for help to stop it. Enter my aunt’s suggestion that I take the adult extension class offered at LCC ‘Eliminating Self-Defeating Behavior’.

What I took away from that class was yes, indeed I was the common denominator in my holding down a job problem. I'd had a successful interview and had been offered the job the week before I started the class. I was determined to keep that job, no matter what. I was fresh out of college and things like rent and food were kind of important to me. So I listened, learned as I started breaking my bad habit.

The first item, the hardest one on that list of things I was doing wrong, was my temper. I’d been rewarded for going off, blowing my top, by my friends and family ever since the first time I’d done it. When the situation was retold from my perspective, people in my life often laughed and gave me positive attention for doing it. That’s how I formed that particular self-defeating behavior in the first place. And the consequences for that action, had to get too high to pay for me to continue.

So I learned to control my temper. Those beautiful snarky remarks that would have flown out of my mouth at a moments notice remained behind locked lips and never found their way to my new boss's ears.

Guess what happened? Consequences I rather enjoyed, like raises, and sideways promotions. Hey that was new and I rather liked it. Awesomeness. I liked those results even more than unleashing my angry little comment that would have landed me on the unemployment line. I wanted more of that. So I continued to control my anger at that job for a full year.

It was a first for me. I didn’t exactly hate my boss, however, it wasn’t like everything was so perfect and heavenly with that secretarial job. There were things I really disliked about corporate settings in general. Office politics and in that situation there was a ‘good old boys’ mentality. One of the men in charge said to myself and few other secretaries, “Well, sure you can attend the golf outing this coming weekend. What are your beer wench skills like, darlin’s?”

That’s almost verbatim to what this dickhead of a boss said, I shit you not. He wasn’t my boss, thank Goddess. Then to add insult to injury the bosses invited the part-time admins who only worked the weekends that happened to be male to attend the golf outing. Guess what? They got to play golf, not fetch beers. My boss was a female, she supervised all the secretaries in our office, so when that whole thing went down and even though she played golf she wasn’t invited on the outing either. That was the beginning of the end for me and that particular job.

It took a full six months later and I maintained my temper almost fully on my way out the door. I kicked a door open on the day I decided I was done. I didn’t take off my boss’s head in the process. I ended up handing over a letter of resignation (granted two seconds before I would have been fired) and did an exit interview, another first for me. 

The beauty of this was my year and a half reaped another unexpected and new to me reward. I had a previous employer that I could put down on resume and a supervisor willing to do a letter of recommendation. Oh my Goddess, it was so much easier to find employment when those things happened. Consequences of  handling the situation better was an even better reward that telling off my boss. Wow, who knew it could be that way.

So you would think I just needed to identify what self-defeating behavior I was doing in my relationships to fix the problem, right? Find it, shut it down and then my world would be perfect. Surely this great knowledge could be applied to relationships? Well, yes and no. Not to be a big old tease, but I don’t want this post to get too long so I’m going to save the rest for next week.

To Be Continued...