I don’t want to be another sourpuss female in Los Angeles who moans about how hard it is to meet men except that it is really hard to meet men. I’ve been here a while and I can tell you I have managed to single handedly assembled the worst group of ex-boyfriends since landing on these shores at 30.
First there was Patrick, an obsessive, damaged, paranoid control freak who managed to manipulate me into cutting ties with my friends and family within weeks of knowing me. Looking back, I needed to get mad at my parents - more on that later perhaps in another post for it opens up an entirely new can of worms. I’m still not sure how he did this. Those that need to have their loved ones isolated are clever. He would need to be. I’m no dummy. Luckily I got out within a year.
Then there was Gavin, a film director I met at an industry event in Santa Monica. We spotted each other in a bar moments after I had just ceremoniously quit working for a notoriously crooked producer. He was scheduled to leave on a plane 2 hours from the time we met. He stayed for 4 days. We never left his hotel room. From there he would come into town after shooting his latest movie and promptly whisk me away for sex and romance fuelled weekends. It was just like the methods used by courtiers of yesteryear – he’d get in my pants, get my pheremones raging, then just as we started getting close he’d leave. Oh he’d surface every few months, just as I had slowly, painfully, worked him out of my system. It’s an all-too-common dynamic for which there is a scientific explanation. By the way, wise but crafty men know already know this. Sadly, most women don’t…
When women have sex they release a bonding chemical or neuropeptide called oxytocin (also known as the Love Hormone) – the very same one that wipes out all memory of how painful childbirth is for a mother, mother nature’s way of making sure she’ll do it again. The result is we are left feeling like we are hopelessly in love, with a man we hardly know. Out goes all logic, reasonable thinking and any sort of perspective – the one that is supposed to be reserved for clear headed assessment as to whether our love interest is indeed worthy of our body, mind and soul. Oxytocin makes sure all of that is clouded with euphoric puppy love. Before we know it, we think we’re in love. We’re not. But at that point it doesn’t really matter. Men like Gavin thrive on this. Even if they don’t know the neuro-biology of it all, on some semi-conscious level it’s all about getting in our pants, both as a form of self-pleasure but also to ensure we’re theirs hook, line and sinker whenever they want us. Whenever they want us. Without having to show up in any real way. Like a boyfriend, or heaven forbid a husband. When I eventually had enough of the casual convenient dynamic I had set up with Gavin and suddenly demanded more, he ran. Fast. So fast he left a Gavin-shaped hole in the wall behind him.
The truth is, though of course there are exceptions, when you sleep with men the first night you meet them, the likelihood they’ll want to settle down with you is remote. You see, they’re biologically wired to seek out the best WIFE – virtuous, trustworthy, feminine. If they got you into bed easily, imagine how easy it would be for OTHER men to do the same. They know how predatory males can be when they see a woman they want. Heck, they did the very same thing with YOU! In Gavin’s mind, though he never said it in these exact words, if I slept with him so quickly, with little effort on his part, then who was to say I’d be any more discerning should other viable prospects enter the picture. Unfair? Sure. Truthful? Absolutely. Based on my actions with him. At least from his perspective. Did I learn from it then and there? No. However, at 40, I’d like to think I know better than to jump into bed with someone too soon. Well, for the most part. But Gavin and Patrick weren’t the biggest lessons in love I’d get… the piece de resistance would come shortly after the Gavin debacle. And he would suck up half of my thirties...
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