Posts Tagged ‘relationships’

It Might Be You

January 15, 2026

Please, no more computer people!

It was the summer of 1985. I had resumed the dating service and met several generally nice men. I say “generally” because a few were just “non-starters,” but certainly not harmful.

There was the divorced man who spent all of our supper date talking about his ex-wife. No, thank you.

And the one who kept calling me to arrange to meet, but could never quite figure out if he wanted to because he also wanted to go play paintball with his friends. After several rounds of this, I told him to go play paintball and stop calling.

But the absolute “best” of the non-starters was the computer engineer who worked in the same company my father had. We met for lunch at a burger place. I’d been running around all morning and skipped breakfast, so when we met up, I was ready for my burger and fries.

As we talked, or rather, I TRIED to start a conversation, I made short work of my lunch. He was rather …aloof? No matter what I asked, it was one or two-word answers. I mentioned that my father worked at the same company that he did.

No response. Oh, he did note that I had finished my lunch quickly and said, “Gee, you eat a lot.”

I looked at him, and decided to laugh off his comment. Instead, I said, “This is nothing! You should see me with a 2 1/4-pound baked stuffed lobster!

Again, no response.

The dating service told me that he was building his own house. I figured THAT at least might be something he’d be excited to talk about. One of the guys I worked with in the hospital lab was building a house. All you had to do was ask him how it was going, and you were guaranteed 30 minutes of updates. So I thought that might work with this guy.

“I hear you are building your own house.”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is it like?”

Silence. Then he said, “It’s 2200 square feet.”

I must have looked either surprised or disgusted, because then he added the absolute finishing touch:

“Do you understand the concept of square feet?”

So many responses flooded my brain all at once that I was speechless for a moment. The absolute condescension and mocking tone totally enraged me. Four years of college in advanced sciences and…dammit, yes, of COURSE I understood square feet!

Anyway, at that point, I had decided this date was a wash, and he was a jerk. So I delivered my response slowly and deliberately, lacing each word with sarcasm:

“Yes. I understand the concept of square feet…So. Is it 2200 square feet STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN, OR DID YOU SPREAD IT OUT AT ALL?!”

That knocked him back a bit, and he stumbled to answer, giving a little more description. But by that point, I didn’t care if it was a pig sty. I was done.

When I got home, I called the dating service and left them a message: “PLEASE DONT’ SEND ME ANY MORE COMPUTER PEOPLE.”

I had dated a few of them by that point, and to a person, they couldn’t hold a decent conversation. No…more…computer…people!

It Might Be You

My overall sense of well-being was getting stronger that summer. If there was anything I felt at that point, it was just a growing longing for a something a bit more involved. It was nice getting to meet different professional men and learn about them. But…I could feel things shifting in me.

It really hit me one day when I was driving and the song, “It Might Be You” by Stephen Bishop, came on the radio. It was the theme song from the movie “Tootsie,” with Dustin Hoffman. A comedy and love story. The song’s lyrics and yearning tones exuded all the emptiness I felt. If only there were someone to share all the love I had in my heart. If only…

The new “Introduction”

By that point, it was August of 1985…almost 22 months since I’d moved out of my parents’ home and into my condo. It had been a hell of a ride. So much chaos and pain. Destabilizing. Despair. Depression. Trial and error. It was a lot to absorb and process. But I was hanging in there and just kept going.

A couple of weeks after my call to the dating service, I received their familiar yellow note in the mail with a new “Introduction” for me to consider. Someone named Edward Bailey, who lived in West Hartford. That sounded interesting, so I called the dating service to learn more about him.

They shared his age, a bit younger than me, but not a lot. And then they said what almost killed things before he might have had a chance:

“He’s a computer software consultant for a Boston company.”

I gritted my teeth and sighed. Computer consultant. God help me.

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The “family-style” restaurant

I don’t know why I even told them I would agree to hear from him, but I guess it was more like, Who knows. A miracle? But I wasn’t hopeful.

We had trouble connecting with each other at first because he was always on the road to troubleshoot software problems at different sites. And I worked second shift. So we played telephone tag for a bit, leaving messages on each other’s answering machines. Yes, that was the era of answering machines.

But one night I came home, and the message was a bit different. He had programmed his answering machine to talk to my answering machine. It was hysterical. I admit, I was intrigued. THIS computer guy was actually FUNNY.

We finally managed after a couple of weeks to connect on the phone, at which point we talked FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS! I was in awe. Shock, actually.

I remember that I kept asking, “So, you’re a COMPUTER PERSON??” He was so different than any of the others. I figured he had to be on the wrong career path.

And I will simply add, as an aside, I think that in his heart, he is not “totally” a computer person. I think he’s always been more of an artist type, a more emotional, and a sensitive man. But computers were where the jobs and money were, he was good at it, so he put aside his other interests and went into software consulting. I could relate. I wanted to be a writer, but my hospital job paid the bills. Both of us came from really modest backgrounds, and our particular jobs were our tickets to something better. You do what you have to do to survive and put your dreams aside.

In any event, after talking for a long time, we agreed it might be nice to get together. And then I said what almost killed things for him before we got started. I suggested this small cozy place in Farmington to meet at for supper. I loved the place because it was like a diner-tavern, intimate, relaxed…a comfortable place to sit, eat, talk, and not be rushed.

But in trying to convey it was not a fancy place, I described it as, “It’s a ‘family-style’ restaurant.” His impression, which he laughed about later when he told me, was that “family-style” meant it wasn’t going to be much of a fun date.

However, I guess we were both willing to put aside our doubts, roll the dice, and see what might happen. So we agreed to meet…

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So, What Next?

January 11, 2026

Time for a new mind map

After the chaos of the winter months of 1984, I’d like to say things quieted down, and I could then just proceed in therapy to full healing and live happily ever after. For sure, at the time I thought it worked that way — if I worked REALLY hard, fast, and fiercely, I could get over all of this quickly and be “normal” and healed. That statement alone indicates just how far from understanding myself and the situation, I really was.

Yes, I had stabilized and was no longer suicidal. And that was no small achievement. But it just meant I had finally landed at the bottom of that abyss, the crash hadn’t killed me, and I was now standing upright on two legs facing a mountain whose top was obscured by a heavy bank of clouds. I had no idea then just how high that mountain was or that I would still be climbing it today.

Anyway, given the rapidity of changes and experiences I’d undergone in the few months since leaving my parents’ house, this seemed like the perfect place to stop and do a status check. As a former lab person, when I feel overwhelmed by so many thoughts coming all at once, or confused about how to clearly tell the story next, I reach for my strongest talisman, and I make another mind map. Then, with all my thoughts spread out on the paper in front of me, I can see what they tell me — both about the things I was aware of then, and the things I realize only now, as I look back.

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To spare anyone the craziness of reading that map, I will distill the essence of what it told me. I think three main things were operating…driving me…in the spring and summer of 1984: Emotional issues, physical needs, and one big problem — sex. Of course. It was the ever-present elephant in the room. But first, the other two.

Emotions

In terms of emotions, there was so much whipping me around. I had just been through a meat-grinder of an experience, riding out the storm of whether to go on living or end it all. Now that I had decided to hang around, there were the issues of how to form a life for myself, especially when you have no idea how to do that.

First, it’s hard to live a happy life without “relationships.” Even for simple friendships, I had no real idea of how to do that well. For all of my life, I’d been cut off from having anyone “close” to me. There had been none of those teen sleep-overs and BFF experiences where you stay up all night baring your soul and talking about “everything.” And it would take me years to understand just how big a loss that was, how it stunted my emotional maturity and development, and how it would drive my needs and decisions very shortly, and for many years to come.

I knew I longed for someone. I FELT such a need for a “mother,” older sister, BFF, trusted confidant, protector, even as I couldn’t articulate that back then. But I’d had none of these growing up, and I FELT its effects driving my actions. I was lonely and insecure, and when I did get a good friend, I clung to them for dear life, desperate that they might abandon me. And I needed outside validation that I had worth, or even to know what was up or down, right or wrong. I didn’t trust friends. I didn’t trust me, even as I didn’t realize it then.

Regarding trust, why would I TRUST anyone after what happened to me? The very people I should have been able to trust most – my parents – betrayed and destroyed that. As to self-confidence, given that anything I had ever felt or thought, my father discredited and replaced with his own programming, I didn’t feel I could make my own choices. And since he raised me to serve him and his needs, I was not brought up to see myself as a separate person. I wasn’t allowed to have my own needs, sense of self, or personal power, much less that I was allowed to use it or know how. I was trained that to follow my own path was hurtful to others and I should always defer to their wisdom.

So I felt the effects of these things and operated from that broken core. I knew I was broken. I just didn’t know how badly or what was causing it, much less that it needed fixing.

In terms of “broken,” I knew I was not a “full adult,” yet. I felt like a baby, ashamed of who and what I was. Not good enough. I felt desperate and like a hopeless case because I was so far behind all the other adults. I was that aberration of nature. I feared that I was so far behind that any normal methods of healing wouldn’t be enough, and worse, that it would show, and others would see my brokenness.

And then, regarding fear, there was one other one…that elephant in the room – sex. I was terrified of men, and especially the idea of having sex with them. Sex seemed like this out-of-control force that caused harm. I didn’t know then that I was deeply traumatized, or that there was even such a thing as trauma.

I only knew I was like this “child-adult,” a child in an adult’s body, desperately wishing she could be like all the other “grown-ups.” They dated, fell in love, made love…were normal. And I wasn’t.

I also didn’t understand then that the programming he’d drilled into me taught me another useless lesson — that all my self-worth was measured by sex. That was all Dad valued me for, and it was the thing he risked everything to get from me. So “sex” had a HIGH value tag attached to it. And from that programming, I equated the ability to be sexual with my self-worth, and with being loved. Without being a functional sexual adult, what good was I?

Physical

And then, add to this volatile emotional stew, a lit match — hormones. I may have been immature emotionally, but I was an adult with a body that had needs. And longings.

I was tired of “waiting for love to find me.” And even if it did, worried that I’d be unable to respond because of my fear. I’d been passive my whole life, always having to just wait for something to change, or wait for someone to rescue me, until I finally learned I had to rescue myself. So I was impatient and determined to take action. Never again would I wait and settle for passive patience.

The “Problem”

So the problem was: How does an adult who is emotionally more like a pre-teen in certain areas, with a background story no one could ever understand, much less accept, and who is way behind in terms of knowing how to find or develop relationships, meet men, and have a healthy, intimate relationship?

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