Men in Trees

Men in Trees happens to be one of my favourite shows on tv. I have the feeling it’s not a very popular series, probably due to the late broadcasting hour.

I love it though.

It’s about a relationship guru who moves to Alaska after a very humiliating break up in New York. She finds herself in a tiny town for her book promotion and decides to stay and learn more about men, as she realises there is a 10  to 1 men to women ratio there. It touches on  fashion, relationships, family bonds, and life’s usual dilema’s…Marin, the writer always knows the right things to say, she seems to ‘feel’ what path to take, yet she too sometimes wonders if she’s on the right track.

Love is complicated. It doesn’t seem so when you’re in your 20’s but as life is lived, and love is learnt, you realise it’s not an easy venture. I have come to understand that being who I am today, and carrying with me all my treasures and spices that I aquired in the past decennia, makes me extremely un-everything in the present available-men-market.
It has become clear that men who are around my own age and have no children, run from me as fast as they can. Those a bit older without children, usually have some sort of psychological reason why they do not, yet have kids. Most of these men have worked long and hard, and have given their career priority for years, hoping that there would still be enough time at some point to have a family. (This is of course possible due to all the willing young ladies, who fall for the charms of an older man…;-)) Single men, with kids, I have not yet dated, as they seem far too happy to finally be ‘free’ again …!!

A man whom I had only had email contact with, and had met via online dating, reacted very keenly to me. He seemed lovely, caring, and very interested. The fact that I have children was no problem to him but a wonderful gift. He wanted to do anything and everything for me. Having found out who my favorite singer was, he would have gotten me tickets to the concert in NY if he could have (they were sold out…). One of my favourite TV show’s is Top Gear and it was going to be filmed in Holland in January of this year, and he was allready planning to get us tickets. He wanted to send me chocolates and gifts, but something in me kept holding off the boat.

He was too generous, too nice, too kind, too accepting, too willing and too desperate.

Apparently that was not good enough for me…actually, it scared the hell living daylights out of me. So I stopped all contact with him.
I chose the guy who didn’t have time for me, who was always too busy to get together, who had told me he didn’t want a woman with children and that he could not offer me any kind of serious commitment or relationship. I was smitten.

Yes, I was nuts too. But I didn’t see that at the time. I just enjoyed the few and short times we planned our dates. Thinking of course he would fall head over heals in love with me as time passed and he got to know me better. Nope, none of that happened. The dates became fewer, the phonecalls stopped, all contact was lost….a few times it seemed that it was rescusitable…fresh new air was blown into a tiny linger of hope…only to make it’s point even more clearly. It was over. No chance of survival. Dead.

That left me with again huge questions and no answers about relationships. Just like Marin in Men in Trees, I’ve tried to figure out how it ‘works’….but there does not seem to be a guide for these type of life’s challenges. You just need to live them, love them and survive them.

I have removed the ‘please use or abuse me’ sign off my forehead, and hope that the new sign  ‘Treasure me and my spices’ will attract a better crowd ! 😉