Sealing the Deal

It is probably evident by now that I have a psychological problem with sealing the deal. When I am falling in love with a wonderful man, I do not know how we are supposed to get from the first moment that our starry eyes meet at Panera Bread or Starbucks to the milestone where I am taking over his kitchen and calling him “hon,” which, if you go by the people that I have observed who are more successful in these situations, is, apparently, supposed to happen almost immediately.

Of course, we remain unsure whether that kitchen takeover strategy would have worked longterm if Frank’s new girlfriend had not had herpes which ended that affair precipitously before the data could be collected. And her history of five previous husbands did not portend well for longterm success in relationships. But those two were certainly acting very permanent during the Thanksgiving dinner that I was inexplicably invited to without prior knowledge that Frank had dumped me first. Taking a step back and factoring out the herpes and the five ex-husbands, I have to admit that this woman knows a whole lot more than I do about sealing the deal! I have never cooked a dinner in a new boyfriends kitchen in my entire life! And she must have done it any number of times before Thanksgiving, judging by the way she would reach for drawer handles and pull stuff out without even looking.

If I can’t even figure out how to get into a man's kitchen, you may be wondering how I ever got a guy to marry me in the first place, 30 years ago. 1.) I was younger and cuter and 2.) I threatened to move on if he did not make up his mind, hardly something that is likely to work for somebody over 50 with truncal obesity! Strong arming should be left in the domain of lithe, feminine looking girls.

What has also happened to me over many years is that I have learned to enjoy the modest love life upon which I have been allowed to dine frugally from time to time, and I forget to really mind being alone. Also, maybe I am just as skittish as the guys about getting trapped into a controlling relationship. My freedom is my wine!

Although there is a big bottle of Shiraz I am currently going through at the rate of one or two glasses each night, and that is my wine, too.

Living alone has its advantages. I eat what I want even if I had the same thing last night. I do my laundry when the pile is too high for ME. I exercise when I feel like it and let myself get fat when I don’t, and I don’t have to suck in my stomach or wear a billowing nightgown if I do. I am a very optimistic person, and I accept the good in life that is really there. If I am eating too much I enjoy the food and if I am dieting and exercising I enjoy looking in the mirror. I completely accept what life gives or withholds in a given season, and I make my own bed (or not) and lie in it or sleep in the barcolounger in front of my HDTV.

And if I want to hang around in scrubs writing blogs and avoiding having sex, I don’t get mad at me for that, either. Very often.

All in all, I think what I really want from a man is a lovely friendship that will NOT go anywhere. Mind you, I want the connection, the commitment, the trusting closeness, I want 100% of what all those crazy clingy women want, and I am guessing that I want it just as much as they do. The only difference is in the dosing schedule. After a wonderful Saturday night I just wish the darling man would get in his pickup truck and drive home. He can live in his house during the work week. I can live with cats. But we could be in love anyway. Why not?

Why do people have to take over each others kitchens and lives anyway? Does it really mean you care about each other more when you are constantly hovering around, getting on each others nerves? Those are the questions that I ask myself obsessively, looking for clues in my own spotty life and in everybody elses lives, too, at least anywhere I can nose my way in to find out the real skinny on all this intimate stuff.

So I am guessing that some men (all men?) might mistake my need for space and solitude for coldness. But I never act cold. I act like a very warm, delightful, charming person. Can’t they see that?

Maybe they really can't see it. A guy may assume that just because I don’t get upset (or notice) if they don't call me every night, and just because I don’t immediately suspect them of cheating every time they probably are, I am somehow impervious to pain and don’t need them around. Did not I get a clue in support of this hypothesis from Joe Hatfield when he said “maybe I need to be needed,” just before he ran screaming out of my house? OK, if you read that blog, posted several days ago, you know he wasn’t screaming, but sometimes I can hear things that never happened and I know that they are true.

Maybe the bottom line is that all these men dump me when they decide I don’t need them.

Maybe that’s why Frank never even bothered to tell me the two times he dumped me (we are not counting the third time since I am fairly sure now that he had no idea we might have been getting together again just before he invited me to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his new girlfriend who had herpes). Maybe Frank really believes that I have no feelings and that I am such a complete, whole, healthy person it is OK to treat me like garbage? Which is what I want him to think, of course, but why is he so clueless?

As for Will, I have been coming to grips with how that scene where he dumped me while rubbing my feet played right into my underlying psychopathology. Since I do not have herpes, would that situation have had a happier outcome if I had begged and pleaded? We had such a nice relationship, Will and I. Maybe if I had cried and acted like Frank’s girlfriend (who after five husbands must obviously know more about these things than I do, despite the unfortunate genital handicap) the outcome might have been different. Maybe Will needed to be needed.

What did I do when Will dumped me? Did I act like I needed him? Did I behave like any kind of real, warmhearted human being? And did he have the good sense to read between the lines? No, no, and no. I somehow twisted his well-rehearsed fond goodbye speech around to get him to do all the begging and pleading that we somehow keep a connection going, while I said all of the calm finality lines, as if I was doing the dumping.

In case you need instruction on how to do that, refer to my column from November 2009entitled “Take Charge When Your Man Dumps You.” If you use my methods you are unlikely to get the man back, but he might admire you while he runs screaming away, whether or not you are imagining the screaming part. Especially if it is true.

After Will left, he tried to email me a few times to apologize for his heartless behavior and I did not answer him.

After about six months, he came up with a better strategy and started emailing me from time to time to ask for specific, limited, prosaic advice. So that it would be unreasonable of me to ignore him. So that he could break the ice. But he did not know who he was dealing with.

Example: He emailed me, “Dear Della: Remember that old laptop computer of yours that you gave me? How do I get it to have sound?”

I emailed him back: “click on the little sound icon on the right hand corner at the bottom of the screen.”

He emailed me back: “I miss you, how are you?”

I did not answer.

Another time he emailed me: “Do you remember the name of the little place where we got those fantastic hamburgers?”

I emailed him back: “Kathy’s Burgers at 2091 Western Boulevard.”

He emailed me back: “Are you OK? I just want to know if you are OK.”

I did not answer.

Maybe I won't speak to him because he betrayed me with another woman. Maybe I am afraid that if we get into any lengthy conversation he will ask me for his barcolounger back, the one I like to sleep in that is parked in front of my HDTV. It is an old, ratty chair, from his parents farm house in Hobart Oklahoma, but that's not the point. It has my bodily grooves in it now, and when I turn sideways it supports me to perfection in all the places where I need something lumpy under me for perfect, blissful sleep.

You may be wondering how come I forgive Frank so many times when I won’t even speak to Will? That’s easy. Frank may be clueless, but Will humiliated me. You don’t rub somebody’s foot while you are dumping them, and if you respect a person’s dignity it is impolite to assume that you need do ask if they are “OK” six months later. What kind of personal space invasion is that? Whereas Frank did not seem to notice each time he dumped me. So I was in a fair position to pretend that I didn't notice it, too. And of course Frank never brought anything as valuable as a barcolounger into my house. Maybe I feel I have less to lose by letting him back in my life.

But if I keep rewinding and rewinding these men in my mind, does that not prove that I am, in fact, a vulnerable person who is quite capable of being as badly hurt as you are? I think it does, no matter how impressively I behave from my point of view (or how defensive I might seem from yours).

Despite my recognition that I am losing these men to women who are far better than I at reaching the finish line, being dumped by these two men three times in a row (four if you count Thanksgiving which I would, but admittedly Frank may not have known that we were on our way to getting together again when he invited me to dine with his herpetic new girlfriend) and experiencing these dumps with no warning signs did nothing to improve my skills at sealing the deal.

If anything my recent history, despite the insights I might be gaining into showing more vulnerability to men, has made me even more paranoid about displaying weakness than I was before, so much so that it has been very difficult lately to seal the deal with any new guy, even for a second date.

Of course that, too, is open for interpretation. Couldn't it be that the cringing mad man in Panera Bread, the momma’s boy in Starbucks and the cowboy in the parking lot were all creeps? Which of course should not count! Or should I try to face reality and begin to suspect that it is me that is the problem, afraid to give anybody new a chance. I am not 100% sure that I know the difference these days between a creep and a possible relationship, any more than I have the confidence to tell the difference between a foot rub from my true love versus a foot rub from my untrue love, who was about to dump me.

In fact, the problem has been escalating, spilling over into my work life. Lately I have become so skittish about the possibility that I might be misreading bad news as good news in any social situation, that I have had to instruct my staff in the clinic specifically how to approach me when they have important news to tell, in order to protect my heart. From going into atrial fibrillation.

"Do not butter me up when you have bad news," I keep telling them. "Start with the cold, hard bottom line and then fill in with the flowery ameliorating phrases afterwards."

Listen up, students! The order in which you convey information is very important when you have scary news. A lot of people assume that you should prepare people gradually for bad news, build up to your real purpose in incremental stages. I know there is widespread belief that this is a sensitive and kind approach which spares people some of their grief. In my opinion it is really mean to trick soembody into thinking there might be good news if it is bad news.

Example: Once Rhonda came up to me in the clinic and she said, “you know everybody here respects you and admires you, don’t you?”

My heart was already sinking. I read the tea leaves well. “Maybe on a good day one or two of you respects me,” I replied. “What do you really want?”

“Oh no, Dr. Sugar,” she insisted. ….Every day, we all look up to you and...”

“Oh my God!” I screamed. “Tell me what horrible thing I have done now!”

“No, no, Dr. Sugar, you didn’t do anything, its not like that.” Rhonda pleaded soothingly.

After about ten minutes of arguing about whether I was a good person or a bad person, while I became increasingly desperate to know what was really coming at the end of this, fantasizing awful possibilities such as maybe the secretary I had screamed at that morning might be quitting or there might be a patient in the waiting room with a gun (some of them get pretty upset when they find out I don’t write narcotics prescriptions)....the truth finally came out.

My secretary was quitting. In my paranoia I had hit the nail on the head, and while Rhonda was wasting time preparing me to hear the news with unnecessary(and suspicious) flattery, Carol was already halfway down the underground tunnel that leads to the garage, carrying a big box of her desk accoutrements.

I only barely made it to the garage in time to grovel, apologize, hug her and build her self-respect back up so that she would come back to work and save our Department from a looming grant application deadline. At that late date there was no way to train anybody else to navigate the NIH website. How could she not realize how important she is to us? OK, me.)

The fact that my stupid tantrum ought to mean nothing to a person with an ounce of self esteem is another adjustment problem that we have been working on here in Oklahoma for the last eight years, ever since I left the rough culture of New York City behind me, stopped cursing like a sailor most of the time, and started trying to be a sensitive and caring boss. But nobody is perfect.

Here is the take home message: what Rhonda should have done was to walk right up to me and said: “Dr. Sugar get your butt back to the office, Carol is leaving.”

Later, when the danger was past, she could have told me how respected I am. Then I might have believed her, even if it wasn’t true.

On the other hand, I keep trying to explain to my staff that if something really scary happened but all danger was averted, please do not tell me the pieces of the story in consecutive order. Give me the happy ending first, for heavens sake. Then we can dissect the problem and the solutions as much as they like.

Example: Carl comes in to my office. “Dr. Sugar,” he says, “are you sitting down?”

“Don’t ask me if I am sitting down!” I scream, heart beating in throat “You can see that I am sitting down! When you say stuff like that, it is really scary!”

“Well get scared,” he said, “you have good reason to be.”

“Don’t tell me to get scared!” I choke, clutching my chest which is now going 120 miles an hour (or beats per minute if you prefer the medical terminology). “That's really REALLY scary! Just tell me exactly what horrible, horrible thing you are about to tell me. IMMEDIATELY!”

“OK,” he said. “I will be direct.”

Then he sat down, eyeing my filter drip machine. “Want some coffee?” he says.

“TELL ME NOW! NOW! NOW!” I yell, face purple, pounding the desk.

Sometimes people walking down the hall at the Ardmore Medical Research Foundation overhear me having a private discussion in my office, and develop the mistaken impression that I am abusive to my staff. But what’s a little screaming when you have a secure and interesting job that pays well and you can go home early on Friday afternoon without getting docked?

“The refrigerator room was down for 13 hours this weekend and the temperature got to 37 degrees,” said Carl slowly. All our investigational medications were in there for eleven different studies. They got ruined.”

“OH MY GOD!!!! And what about the 136,000 dollars worth of reagents for the BOLD study?”

“Yeah we keep all them in there too.”

“OH MY GOD!!!!” I scream. “OH MY GOD!!!!”

It is happening, I am converting to atrial fibrillation. I seem to be standing up on my feet, teetering over my desk, pulse irregular, feeling faint. Maybe I am having a heart attack. I am in my late 50's and I have been eating too much cheddar cheese lately. For my emotinal health. I am whimpering now. Am I going to die now? Broke?

“Calm down,” says Carl. “We already called all the companies and they are shipping us new drug, we only had to slightly delay the dosing visits on four patients, Rhonda and Carol made all the phone calls this morning and it is all under control."

"Money?" I gasp

"No loss of money. We are going to get paid for all the patients. No money lost!”

“What about the 136,000 bucks worth of BOLD reagents?" I sob.

“Would you please calm down now?” Carl repeats calmly “I called all the vendors this morning and made them double check the specs and all of that is fine. A little temporary ambient temperature did not ruin any of that stuff. No harm done.”

"COFFEE!!!!" I yelp and he jumps up and pours us both a cup.

So while I did some yoga breathing and gulped the thick black elixer of life to get my heart back into normal sinus tachycardia, I tried my best to explain to Carl (but I was not sure whether he was listening or wondering whether to call 911) that he could have avoided giving me a huge anxiety attack if he had simply come into the room and said “Everything is OK, we just fixed a big problem, thankfully no money lost, everything under control, and here is what happened….” IN THAT ORDER!

BOLD stands for Biomarkers of Lupus Disease. We are spending gazillions of dollars to figure out how the background medications might be altering the immune systems of our lupus patients and ruining clinical trials of new investigational drugs. People have been speculating that this might be a problem for many years. I talked a great big drug company into giving me the money to find out about it.

The problem is that we only got about $130,000 in start up funds, the rest to be paid at certain milestones. We had to buy all the stuff we need to do the laboratory experiments for the entire study in advance, because I believe it is scientific to run all the tests with chemicals that have the same lot number. So we completely spent the first installment of the funding on laboratory supplies, and we are now stuck with very little money to pay our salaries until we finish recruiting a hundred patients into the study. (40 down, 60 more to go). Which is why the CFO of the Ardmore Medical Research Foundation has been yelling at me. You may be wondering what this has to do with romantic advice.

Everything.

Normal people do not care if the chemicals they are using in a $650,000 project all have the same lot number, so they do not jeopardize their Department by purchasing everything in advance and risking bankruptcy if a refrigerator room goes down (which fortunately, it turned out, was not much of a risk since it did go down and the chemicals were fine, but you can imagine my emotional state when I thought it might have happened).

Normal people are not so obsessive compulsive and high strung that they have to instruct their staff how to talk to them so that they will not experience a heart attack every time there is a glitch in normal operations. Normal people allow their emotions to ebb and flow with the tides, and reserve judgement about which way it is going until all of the information trickles in. Even if every member of their staff is so thoughtless and insensitive that they report events in consecutive order.

Normal people are calm when they should be and display emotion when things are really going wrong. Normal people cry when they get dumped, and show vulnerability when they are ready to start dating again. They might be as scared as I am to get hurt, but they do not think they are in control of that. So they move on.

Normal people can seal the deal.

Of course, in case any of my ex-boyfiends might be reading this so that they could get some romantic advice about how to seal the deal with me, perhaps they should read this column very carefully.

I am wishing that if a guy was unhappy with me, he would warn me, in the following order “I am not dumping you tonight but you are not acting like a person who gives a damn whether I go or stay, and now I will tell you exactly what you can do to make things better.”

On the other hand, if he was fed up and ready to dump me, I wish he would just walk up to my house and say, “Unfortunately I am going to break up with you tonight, but I will be happy to discuss this if you care to.” And then leave immediately if I don’t.

If I was completely sure that he would turn on a dime and walk out the minute I was done with him, maybe I could muster up a few tears and treat myself to one last hug. And who knows, it might work.

And do you know what I really want? I want a guy who will say, in the following order: “I love you and I want a committed relationship with you and now I will tell you why.”

Because just in case any of them tried to do it the other way around, I probably interrupted them and drove them away before they got to the point.