Boundaries, part deux

Just for the record, before the start the hard stuff, I've had a great week.  Big shout out to my bloggy friend Happy Fun Pants, for being awesome and willing to go for a walk with me despite the enormous heat and that her dog (who we were going to take with us) sadly had to be put to sleep just a day or two before.  My heart goes out to her.  Also a shout out to my good friend Goldilocks (yup, she has gorgeous blond naturally curly hair), for inviting me to her gym's free weekend.  It's the first time I've been in a gym this century--literally.

Okay, enough with the love fest, this is the post I've been avoiding, and it's time.  I mentioned before that I have problems with boundaries--with myself, with food and with men.  Let's talk about men, shall we?  *FAMILY, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, STOP READING.  AND NEVER EVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN.  I'M SERIOUS.  I WILL CHANGE MY ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, AND DISOWN MYSELF IF YOU PROCEED.*

Okay, all parental units and family-types safely out of the room?  Then I will proceed.

I've always liked boys--a lot.  Example, I got sent to the principal's office in kindergarten for chasing boys and trying to kiss them at recess.  I can remember the first boy I liked, and I think I was four (hey David, and Alex, and Andrew, and Matt!)  You would think that with all this that I would have hit puberty, gone hormonally crazy, dated as much as humanly possible, and generally just ho-around.  You would be wrong.

I was a pudgy girl as far back as I remember, and puberty just made things worse (and even pudgier).  I was always so self-conscious about myself and my body that I was certain that no boy was ever going to like me.  Time after time, I would meet a boy I liked, and end up in the friend-zone permanently because I was too shy about my body and certain of my un-dateable-ness that he would never know that I was interested.  I constantly was pushing any kind of sexuality down because it was easier to stifle it than it was for me to show interest and get rejected.  I became so removed from it that I would have instances of guys telling me after the fact, "you know, I was really into you, but you never seemed to realize or be into me so I gave up."  Sad, right?

As I got older, I had a lot of relationships that were relations-less.  It was the ability to bond and get emotional needs meet without having to involve the scary stuff.  So I wound up dating or being friends with men who were gay, unavailable, or too damaged to ever really be in a real, adult relationship.  These were terribly unsuccessful because they were more than friendships, but less than relationships.  Boundary issues galore.

When I did date, I found that I had no capability to regulate my feelings, or even be able to recognize what they were.  I only ended up dating guys who liked me with no regard for whether or not I liked them.  Or whether I felt attracted to them.  I would get so caught up in how they felt about me and their feelings that I would lose myself.  (Hello, officer?  I'd like to report some missing boundaries.) And then, when I'd realize later what a dumb doormat I'd turned into for some guy, I'd just hate myself for being "that girl." 

So between the horrors of dating and not-dating, I gained a LOT of weight.  And the pudgy became big became obese became morbidly obese (I hate that term).  The likelyhood of repairing these issues grew smaller as my stomach grew bigger.  And it became easier just to completely turn my sexuality off.  And that's what I did, for a long, long time.  Until I decided to have weight loss surgery.

Now I'm a 30-something woman who is totally out of her league when it comes to men.  Imagine being in your late 30's and having the sexual and emotional development of a shy teenager.  Hell, men my age are often divorced with kids.  How am I supposed to catch up now?

Honestly, I don't know.  I do think that I would like to find someone, be in a relationship, and maybe even marry and have kids (although I have limited years left as far as the kids thing goes, so we'll see on that one).  But not only am I new to the party, I don't even speak the language.  I have no idea how to let my  boundaries down enough so that I can let a man in, and yet not so much that I lose my sense of self.  I don't know how to regulate my desires with my sensability.  And good god, I am soon going to have a belly that looks a bit like a shar-pei puppy (you try losing 115 pounds without getting weird wrinkly skin).  Not such a great confidence booster when it comes to getting romantic (although preferable to still having the 115 pounds on me).

So I'm going to have to play this one by ear (and find a willing partner to play with me...that sounded wrong).  If you know any single dudes who are into women that are shy with men, hesitant with their own sexuality, have issues with boundaries, and whose midsections are more "puppy" than "washboard,"  send me their number.