I only hope

That this photograph catches a genuine expression. That the words have not been added to the side of the van via PhotoShop for effect.



This had to be one of the most gruesome articles I've seen in, Christ, since I subjected myself to the hideous movie Knocked Up. The subtitle tells you everything you need to know: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough. This is so wrong on so many levels, it will probably take several posts to plumb the ingenuousness.

The author of this article has a sperm donor baby, then decides she'd like some help. Suddenly she finds herself willing to take it in the form of Mr Good Enough. If indeed she does manage to wrest from him the physical and financial support she specifies needing to bring up baby, brava! I know plenty of single moms who started out with Mr Good Enough.

Say they do make it to the teen years. What then? What if, god forbid, she's actually fallen in love (or at least in love with the habit). He may just look at her and think, "Hmm, I could do better." And he probably can. Certainly he'll have more options than she will in her, by now, late 40s. He might even spawn another mewling infant.


What is with women that we place our self-esteem on our relationships with others? I don't mean just primary sexual relationships, I'm also talking about family (even offspring!), friends, co-workers. We can accept we are not our job titles. We are not our bank accounts. We are not clothes...but suggest that we are not the sum of our relationships? Scandal!

It is precisely this kind of thinking that makes us feel as if we must have relationships. Makes us settle. Then it turns around and destroys the relationship, because the relationship becomes the thing that's important, not the person.

"But I sat in 12 degree weather week after week so I could be the designated driver for him and his buddies after watching them yell at football players," a friend told me recently, vaguely stunned that after all the putting up with Mr. Good Enough he just wasn't into her the way he used to be.

The whole world wants intimate love. This is not some uniquely female, heterosexual paradigm, as the writer of this piece suggests. But my intimate relationships can be no better than my relationship with myself. The trick is to rise in love, not fall. I can't muster up enthusiasm for that trip with Mr Good Enough. Luckily, I like myself enough that I don't feel I have to. I also like myself enough to know I will probably act in ways that are counter to these beliefs. I forgive me already.