He seemed nice, well educated and polite. We had nice chat over the net. Then he told he had nothing in the home to eat and silly me joked about needing to order the pizza. He wanted to meet me over lunch or dinner next day. I am no follower of the rule book - yet the invitation surprised me.

I had a polish friend in India, who used to say, that I was a good judge of human nature. Yet I admired her openness towards new people. She was never worried of them nor about their true intentions. She had huge amount of friends and she was always smiling. I still wish I could be more like her.

I myself don’t trust strange people. Part of it is probably because I don’t trust my self to be a good judge of human nature. When I was younger I was in general sceptical on cross-cultural romantic relationships and especially on marriages. Is this truly a question of being afraid of the trouble or does this belief hide something more hideous behind it?

This man was from Iran. I have heard a lot of stories about Iran as well as maybe of Saudi Arabia. Both countries have similar flavour – really old fashioned and misogynist. There is not so long time I watched the movie called Persepolis about Iranian life. I did not recognise it during chatting him, but afterwards some prejudices crept up that I was not proud of.

Maybe it was because of those prejudices people generally have that I felt his reluctance to tell were he was from. It took him a while to answer. Although as usually across the net, it is really difficult to interpret peoples feelings. But I felt the conversation stop for a while after I asked. Yet during the discussion I did not let the fact affect me, but it was after it, while the consciousness of the fact came in to my mind.

Yet the prejudices affect me and I am not proud about this. I have seen enough people around the world to know that prejudices are not always true. Some people just don’t fit in them. I don’t fit in typical prejudice about Nordic women myself. Prejudices are not people, they are simplifications we make to be able to make the world easier for us to comprehend. Yet I seem to not be able to hinder the stories I’ve heard running around my head.

Most of the second half of 2008 my life evolve around work (a lot of new and stressful things), my mother (who I’ve been worried about) and my god daughter, who will soon be half year old. I have to admit I am besotted. She is a little darling.

On top of all that the apartment building my friend is living in had a quite serious fire and she was evaquated and stayed away some days. I help her to drag back her mattress (in a tram) and that was quite funny. Some good moments after a moment of terror. The fire made me think also, how fragile the life really is and how we cannot know, when it is going to end.

There has not been much time to think about men or about being single. In fact I am a bit tired of this topic right now. My head is empty, which you may have noticed in this blog. I am sorry, but I really did not have much to say about anything related to men or relationships. I hope I would have, but I really did not.

Well there was an office christmas party and I was told I was dressed prettiy – by some of my female colleques. And I met an old (male) friend of mine, who I like a lot, and who is married and has a baby. Long time not seen and such. So no romance in the air, at all.

Somebody asked me this question in this blog for a while ago.

I don’t think it is a question of need. I can do without a mate. I might feel more satisfied with a family, but I am rather happy with my life as it is. In fact relationships (with men) usually make me feel frustrated and uncomfortable.

 It is more like I want one. I want a man to share my life with and I preferably also family. I’d love to have some one waiting me to come home after work and share my lonely nights with. I’ve always been a bit maternal type and I’ve wanted kids the last 15 years.

Yes, I feel like time is running out, but it is more because of my ability to count, than because my friends are already married. Most of them are not. In fact only one of my good friends is and another one is going to go next summer. My sister is not and propably will never be, because she does not want same things from her life. My mother has never been hinting on this.

It is revealing to see old photos. After decades one can watch them almost as an outsider, while it is otherwise impossible to dive in the past as it was. You only know it through your emotional memories. The photos are revealing a frozen past.

Just few days ago my mother and aunt were looking for a photo for my cousin of my granny’s house. At the same time she flipped through a lot of photos where I was as well. I have heard that in some therapies they use photos to raise feelings and make people look their past differently. Photos may reveal things of our past relationships we are not consciously aware of.

In my childhood I was rather bookish and not among “the bold and beautiful”. I red a lot and was often deep in the imaginary world they draw. Somehow I thought I looked like a grey mouse too. I was told in my teens by a handsome boy that I was ugly. It left an awkward notion of my self. I wonder how much it has affected to my self image. In certain age being normal is so precious, like Astrid Lingren said with the mouth of Britt-Marie, her teenage girl heroine. She said that is nice to have particular beauty, but it is less nice to have particularly ugly mole in your nose. I often felt I did not belong.

When I was watching the old photos, I wondered why I had not seen what they could tell me before. Those photos revealed a young girl, who was rather pretty, slim and above all very normal. There has been people, who have told me that I am normal, but I’ve had hard time believing.  When I saw those photos now I was surprised what l saw. Even if the girl in the photos was not a great beauty, I felt sorry I did not understand this already years ago. It could have made me understand a lot of things.

I think it was Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who said that although we understand the life backwards, we must live it forward. The revealing moments of truth crash over the reality occasionally, but always what seems too late. It is like remembering that you forgot your keys home, just after the door was locked. One cannot change the situation any more, but one can only hope to have learned the lesson.

My problem with men has been a special kind of shyness or social fear. I am afraid of sexual chemistry and behind it are my bad experiences. I know it makes me difficult to interpret, because I am not otherwise excessively shy. It often happens that men I am not interested in find me easier to approach than those that I find fascinating. It usually take time to trust and feel comfortable around them, but most men are not that patient and I can understand them.

It is hard to interpret a person, who is hiding behind the mask. Freezing of fear maybe interpreted as a turn down. I can understand this and I may even try to control my behaviour and smile more, but in the situation that I feel afraid and unsure, I am not totally in control of my reactions. The situation is hard to explain especially, if one is not sure about other persons feelings. Smile is much easier approach than telling other person that you are afraid to show them your feelings.

 (Sorry If the next part is repetitive, but I am still going through this issue).

The insecurity and fear raises partly from low self-esteem. When I am unsure of my personal attractiveness, it is hard to interpret male attention. Partly there is history of under age sexual harassment or even abuse and also repeated harassment in the adult age. The first time I was under school age and it was mild form of physical and more serious verbal abuse performed by older boy that had probably been subjected to some abuse himself. The second time I was in teens and it was group of older boys harassing me in the form of sexual propositions and comments of me.

The third time was really a sexual bullying by men of a group I had trusted and other men in responsibility I had trust even more talked it down, when I tried to explain the situation.  One of them made silly excuses and other one tried to pressure me to forgive and forget without getting any apology. Later I got out of one of the bullies that he had believed he had right to “educate” me, because he felt I was too straight-laced. The only comfort is that I was partly able to show him his error of judgement, although I did not trust him enough to open up totally.  Yet the situation made me feel like no man could be trusted and that put me totally off the men for a while.

I am not looking for a light-hearted relationship. Some times I hope that I would be, because it might be easier. I would not need to afraid that I am giving some sign of being easy woman and not to be taken seriously. I am also afraid that men could make fun of my feelings. It maybe due the fact that people (not only men) have made fun of my feelings before. It does not make the situation any easier. I am also afraid that if the man gets to know me better, he might get disappointed and abandon me. I am afraid of not being worthy of love, which can be probably trased back to my parents behaviour. Yet I am as much afraid of my own feelings as of the man I am interested in. I am afraid to become heart broken, while I know it is normal part of human life. Very few of us are lucky enough to be always happy.

I may sound pretty analytic right now, but right in the situation I am not able to tract the roots of my feelings. I am just feeling strange panic. I feel my learning curve of handling the situations, where I am strangely afraid, isn’t fast enough. The older I get, more difficult it seems to meet men I would really be interested in and less practice I will get. I feel stuck.

It may sound funny, but I truly think that I should dream less and live in reality little more. The idea came to me, when I was thinking of a man I know and like. Always before I’ve let my dreams run wild: designing the family and kids, thinking up the weddings. And sometimes I have had difficulty to separate my dreams from reality.

I have well developed imagination. In my head I write stories to please myself. They rarely come out in the reality. Sometimes they can be productive, while they make me want to know about issues and understand things. Often they are counter productive, because I spend my time in thinking and not putting things in action. The funny thing is that I often act before I think and things I think I rarely put on action. Maybe I am afraid that reality would not be as perfect as the dreams can be.

In case of relationship this usually means loosing the touch.  I wonder if the daydreams are really my escapade from my fears relating relationships and I have plenty of those. Daydreams are safe, while the reality can broke your heart.  Yet they make me passive. That I’ve never been good in feminine wiles, makes situation worst. I’ve never needed those wiles to get attention and I’ve always felt them to be somewhat dishonest, but maybe that is part of the problem: I don’t know how to connect.

So while I daydream, the relationship that was in the bud starts to dry up. I end up noticing that only thing I have left are my dreams. I’ve jumped ahead before anything really happens and I stand there with only empty dreams. Instead of being more cautious in my head and seeing were it might be leading. I feel heartbroken  whit out a reason. My problems raise partly from the fear of passionate relationship and that fear is I think the root of my dreaming, because the dreams are safe. 

Yet the older I got more I’ve realised that however safe the daydreams are, in the end they are just that – only dreams. The man of the dreams is never a real person. He is just mirrow of my own hopes and dreams. He lacks his own personality and his own will. He acts as I’d hope him to act. In other words he is just puppet of my imagination, who looks like the person I am interested in. He is boneless, fleshless and cold.

Dream man is easier to get along than a real person only because you don’t really need to get on with him. What makes him safe is that he cannot make real decission about me nor turn me down. But because he has not chosen me, he cannot really love me either. Little by little the excitement starts to dry up.

Dreams don’t stand by you, when you’re hit by reality. They don’t give you support nor real affection. While they may give you pleasure, they don’t really give you passion. Especially they are empty in the form of respond, because they are just my imagination. They are not responsive and the interaction with another person is in my eyes one of the treasures of human relationship and the root of true passion.

I am unofficially a God mother (- it will be official only after the babtism of course). The baby girl was born couple of weeks ago and after it we had a slight worry with her blood sugar levels, but now everything is fine. I am happy for them and part of me wants to throw a party and another part of me wants to pamper her to rots.

I was almost sure it was a boy, before it was born. Earlier during the pregnancy I was thinking it was a girl – I just had a feeling, but later I had almost convinced myself it would be a boy as its daddy thought it would be. I had almost bought a skull & bones pacifier (for a joke) cause I knew its daddy had asked for skull cloth nappies. But it was born to be a most beautiful little girl possible.

One of my collegues commented on me that somehting happens on the brains of women, when they see babies. I don’t know if that is true for them all, but for me it is I suppose. I am over the moon – and it is not even my niece nor my own daughter. The whole summer I we been feeling like there is some kind of population rush as it seems that every third woman you see (of fertile age) are pregnant. I was thinking I was little nutty, before I red an article that the maternity wards are in trouble as there are so many babies expected in the best holiday season. Everybody is working overtime.

And no wonder – just couple of years ago my cousine gave birth to her second about this time and now my friend too. Yet both of them was not so much planned as my cousine and her hubbie had given up the hope for another. And my friend and her hubbie had decided that one could come when it would come. They had counted that as neither of them is very young anymore, the baby might take some time. I just red about this few weeks ago as the researchers have found out that also male fertility slumps after they turn to 40s. So its not only women, who should get the babies early enough but also men should not leave it too late.

I’d love to get a baby of my own, but I just don’t think I am ready yet – and I don’t have that much time anymore.

Ok, first a warning: there are not even vague scientific grounds on this.

I have noticed the growing acidness on my temper. I wonder if it has anything to do with absence of men from my life (or maybe of absence of sleep lately, but that is not as fun to wonder). I once red a theory that male fragrance – or should I say sweat – makes women relax. Now this had something to do with getting girls on the mood after guys coming from the hunting trips and before going for another. Now ladies that are fussed are usually hard to get on the mood. Yet I have been lately wondering if this has something to do with less mellow attitude of many spinsters.

What I mean is that we (the spinsters) never get a good portion of closeness with men – that is cuddling – and so we never get to smell their sweat enough to mellow us. The women who are staying with their men, are the opposite. Maybe a woman on her own has needed more spunk. This might also be the reason, why so many women close their eyes on their mens imperfections. The sole presence of their men calms them down. Not necessary a bad thing, as long as you don’t let yourself to be treated badly.

It does not need to be fireworks nor has it have to be any crazy thing either, but I’d still love to have some electricity in the air – at least a little. I we grown wise enough to understand that fireworks don’t guarantee happiness, but I don’t want it clinical either as it felt like, when I was for short while active in the Internet dating world.

When I was 16 I was already labeled as romantic and I suppose I am, although one that has two feet on the ground. Does it matter then if ones head is occasionally in the clouds? Maybe that is my problem: I want both – feeling comfy and giddy with a guy and it does not happen often. In fact I think I can count only couple of times it has actually worked that way. Other times either quality has been lacking.

Oh, I’ve been in love (and not just once), but it is some years ago now. My biggest romance was hurtful and humiliating and I spent long time licking my wounds. I don’t just blame him, although there was fault in him too, but I mostly blame my self. I was silly and did not know how to put end on it, even when I knew I should have. And after few more or less unfortunate events I really wanted to be on the self for a while. It just felt too frustrating. (This was long story made far too simple, but it is more or less how it felt). Yet I was not totally able to do it.

But for some years now I’ve truly been on the self. I would love to step down from it, but suddenly it is not that easy. The older you get the more difficult it gets. I don’t even know where to start. And in the mean while my friends have found men and some of them have even got married. And even those, who have not are in the stable relationship. There are some singles left, but those who I’ve walked most of the road with me are now taken.

I know I could go to the Internet and make my pick of the bunch of guys (I tried this in the spring), but it just does not work for me. The pictures don’t tell the personality and yet I don’t want to raise expectations by meeting men, I might not like. One of my pen pals had experienced this in first hand and told me that we should meet asap to see if we could click and not to waste time in the potentially meaningless writing. I did not believe it right away, but now I think he was correct (although he lived home, “creeps”).

So I came to conclusion that how romantic it sounds to meet man through pen pals (as one of my colleagues has), it is still not thing for me. I believe in first impressions and reading people and through static photo you don’t get any feeling of them. Even a film would probably not tell much. You just have to be present and view their reflection of you. By just looking photos I’d propably pick all the wrong guys (the good looking,  but not animating). Usually folks are just not that photogenic and in real life they are something more.

It has been ages I’ve written. “Nothing has really happen”, I think in my low moments and yet, when I talked to a friend she commented that I am having more bustle than years before. Maybe I have, but I still consider it nothing. I feel like being properly on the self, if you could call it like that. I’ve been feeling hopeless for while …

I am wondering, if I got an attitude problem. This particular friend of mine told me that I’ve been telling for years that now I feel finally spinster. Maybe by considering myself as a spinster, I am creating a self prophecy. I cannot come out of the self, because my expectations have glued me there. I am stuck.

If everything is just depending on my attitude, how do I disconnect from those unwanted attitudes? I don’t know. I wonder if it is so difficult to let go, because I feel safe hiding behind them. They guard me from disappointment, because no failure cannot be bigger than impossibility.

Kids can be gruel. I think I carry with me my childhood fear of been made fun of behind my back. Sometimes when men approach me, they make me feel that they are not serious. They make me feel that I am some short of cruel experiment or that they are like cats toying with mouse. On my conscious level I know this is not true, but on my deeper level, I feel lost. How could I change my emotions?

I am sorry, if I’ve told this story before, but I remember of being in the high school level and we had this emotionally sadistic history teacher. Usually I was safe, from his teasing, because of my fondness of history, but this time he made me one of his marks. He but me and a very beautiful girl in my class in short of “pageant”, Where three boys sitting beside us were judges. Two of them voted me and I felt so humiliated. At that time I felt even not being voted at all would have been less mortifying than them giggling when they voted me. Of course I knew I was not as pretty as she was. I was the brainy girl.

It's Summer

The other occasion was when I was about 13 and one pretty boy in my class told me I was ugly. I wanted to ask him, what business it was of his, but I was not brave enough. At that time I was generally well liked among my class mates, if not the most popular girl. Most of my classmates still thought about me in friendly way. At the age 13 being told you are ugly hurts really badly.

It is funny how little insignificant moments can create big scars. Probably neither my former history teacher (with his bear blurred brains) nor my former classmate remember these occasions. They lasted less than ten minutes at the time and yet they are bothering me some ten-fifteen years later. I loved to be able to dig up this dirt and burn it. Yet I don’t know how. Even digging this dirt hurts, but how could I would love to get rid of it finally.

Today is too beautiful summer day to stay in these thoughts for long. It is time to enjoy the season, while it is here.