Perspective...

I just returned from my night out with my new fre-quaintance. I really enjoyed myself (until the bar we were at got so loud with the "jazz" that came in at 9:00, that we had to leave).

I must admit, I really love chatting with women -- finding out their "stories." I love to sort of float the whole 'fEmpowerment' idea, to see what sticks and what doesn't.

This gal was telling me about her husband of 17 years -- whom she has fairly recently left. We were talking about the whole fEmpowerment thing, and the Bond grrl thing. She had a different perspective on it, which I do love (especially when it isn't jumping down my throat immediately...)

She said that for her, what she really wanted to feel with a man was "protected." She wanted to feel that when something "went wrong," that it wasn't somehow going to be her fault.

She had a story -- apparently when she and her family were moving into a new house her son , then 2 (now 8) was enamoured of watching the movers/contractors work. As she has 3 daughters, the whole "son/big trucks" thing was endearing to her. So she took him out to "enjoy" the scene.

Apparently the workers were Italian (as was her husband), and they were commenting about her. (She's quite a hottie.) The husband heard the men, and called her inside, giving her a dressing down for being "out there" and "enticing" the workers.

She said this, sadly, because her remembrance was how her son didn't "understand" why they weren't able to "watch the trucks."

She said what she wanted was a man who would go outside and say, in Italian, "you respect my wife, or you get out of here, capiche??" She said that just one phrase would have completely bought the respect that she should have gotten -- and allowed her son to enjoy the "trucks," plus made her feel like she wasn't somehow "bad" for "enticing" the men.

The reason she ultimately left her husband was this sort of deal -- the whole jealousy thing. But she said that what she came to realize she was really looking for came down to some basics for her -- feeling protected, feeling trusted, and feeling respected.

She said her current boyfriend -- who is probably not the be all and end all, for different reasons (she has swung the other way and now has a guy without a job instead of a driven guy) -- actually kind of relishes when it's obvious that other men are "attracted to" her. He teases her -- "I bet they're jealous that you're coming home with ME!" He says it in a teasing way -- but so unlike her husband, who was constantly berating her for what she was wearing, e.g., "you're just trying to turn on those truck drivers with those pants, you're such a slut."

I don't understand this sort of behavior. But I do understand wanting to feel "taken care of," or "protected" -- and to feel respected and trusted.

I mentioned to her the whole fEmpowerment "gig" and the Bond grrl analogy. Thankfully, she "got" it. She said that in those movies, that Bond "trusted and respected" the women -- he literally put his life in their hands quite often, and they rose to the occasion. But on the flip side, he also gave his life to protect them. She said that protected/trusted/respected "triumverate" (is that the word?) was really just "it" for her -- and to her, embodied in the Bond grrls.

She said that often it seems that one "leg" is missing -- and usually, it's the "protected" bit. That women seem to feel that they shouldn't "want that." She said that she'd been through some therapy to realize that it was "ok" to want to feel that. She had always felt that she had "put away little girl feelings" when she "became a woman" -- and that "being an adult" meant that she "shouldn't" want to be "protected." But instead, her therapist said that this was honestly a core desire -- and a very normal or usual one. That even men want this too -- they just often have to sublimate it even deeper than women do.

But in her estimation, she said that women often go for the "man's 2 legs" of the tripod -- the trusted/respected ones -- and then don't "allow themselves" to find a place where they feel "protected," too. She said in her estimation, this led to low grade anxiety at all times -- which women "just got used to." When it raised to a bit more of a "buzz" -- e.g., under stress, etc. -- then it became noticeable...but she said for herself, she had just recently come to realize that it was "ok" to want to feel protected, and not have to push down those feelings and "be a (wo)man" about them.

Interestingly, my James and I are in therapy. At the end of a particularly intense session this week, the therapist (who is God (laugh!)) said at the very end to my James "how do you feel towards her?" And he said "affectionate." Then he asked how I felt towards my James, and I said "protected." Then, interestingly, the therapist pointed that out to my James -- that he shouldn't feel that this is not a "loving" or "affectionate" or such response -- that this was a core thing that I was feeling and that this was immensely important to me, and to many, many people. That the desire to feel "protected" is actually primal -- and then we just completely push it aside, because once we're adults, we're supposed to be the "protectors"...the thing is, we never really lose that quality where we want to be "protected," too.

But we want to be protected AND respected. We want to be the little one AND the adult one. If one of the two are missing (protected and NOT respected = "you are my little girl" -- respected but not protected = "I have no safety net"), it's not as powerful.

In the whole Bond grrl paradigm, these women are protected by Bond -- and respected by him. On the one hand, he would die for them -- the whole "pulling them out of burning elevator shafts" thing. On the other, they are completely relied on for their expertise by him -- 100%. They do what they do, and he doesn't second guess it, he "puts his whole weight into them" as the saying goes.

And that's the deal. They "allow themselves to be" protected by him (no ubermacho "I can shoot out as good as you can, don't try to protect ME" thing). But they also "allow themselves to be" fully relied upon by him. And know the difference, and when one and when the other.

Anyway -- the whole thing and conversation was worth a boot-up of the old laptop.....just fascinating stuff.

I am loving these conversations with women on these subjects -- I love to hear what they say. And I love it when someone resonates with the paradigm. I feel pretty cool when that happens.