Leave it to the esteemed Kevin Kim to see right through my bullshit and slap me in the face with reality:
Well… that’s why I privately suggested someone ugly—or a guy—as your caretaker. If you truly are done with the love thing, then it shouldn’t matter to you whom you hire. If, on the other hand, you really are looking for the potential for romance, then you’ll have to be honest with yourself about that fact and include it as a possibility in whatever writeup you create for your online profile. My intuition is that, if you’re still looking for a good-looking woman to be your caretaker, you want much more than an employee. In terms of breaking the samsaric cycle, I see two ways: (1) be honest that what you’re really looking for is a life-companion who can offer you love along with support, or (2) be true to the idea that you’ve sworn off the love thing, having been hurt too many times—and really stick with that mindset. Either of these paths is better than the one that leads right back to the same pain.
I’m reminded of the hilarious foot-massage dialogue between Jules and Vincent in “Pulp Fiction”: Jules tries to argue that foot massages don’t mean anything, that they’re perfectly innocent, but Vincent traps him by asking, “Would you give a guy a foot massage?” Jules has no argument, so his response is, “Fuck you.” No matter how much we fool ourselves, foot massages mean something every time we give them.
But when I read this:
“Truth is I’m really not ready to engage emotionally with anyone until I’ve worked my way through the betrayal of Loraine.”
—I get the feeling that “emotional engagement” is indeed the thing you’re looking for. For whatever reason, you’re convinced that you can’t hack this life alone, that you need a companion, not merely an assistant. If that’s the case, then you CAN’T stipulate that your next caretaker needs to understand there’s no potential for love/romance because there obviously is. So whatever you’re looking for will not be a strictly employer-employee thing, and whichever woman you finally select will need to know that. The lady might end up being a Machiavellian gold-digger, but she still deserves honesty.
My two scents, said the skunk.
Damn. I see that I simply replaced one four letter word, “love”, with another, “care”. Bottom line is I do want to be loved and cared for. To have that, I’m going to have to risk feeling this way again in the future. Is it worth it? I don’t know yet.
Thanks, Kevin.
Just want what’s best for you, man. If I insulted you in any way, I apologize.
No, I very much appreciated this comment. It really puts things in perspective.
It is worth it. Like the saying goes – better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
To play a bit of devils advocate on Loraines behalf – while I dont think she handled it correctly, I can see where she is coming from. Like you (or me or pretty much everybody), she did not want to be alone. So yes, she could fool herself that she had no problems in being a caretaker and that was all the relationship had to offer, but the reality is that she did have feelings for you and looked into her future and did not like what she saw if she was truly remained a caretaker.
While maybe not the “biological clock” in this case, it was something similar.
Thanks, Brian. Actually I have had a couple of my female friends/co-workers also take Loraine’s side in this. So yeah, not expressing my feelings and not allowing her to express her own was a big mistake on my part.