Who are you calling a control freak? Forays into dating...

I recently realized that I tend to date only two kinds of men.  One set has strict schedules and routines by which they run their lives, regardless of any outside stimuli. And one set remains confused as to why anyone would get out of bed before noon if they didn't have to, (and having to show up at work is not always a compelling reason). I think conventionally these might be described as the uptight, "responsible," control-freak types, and there are the pot-head, "irresponsible," laissez-faire types. (Of course, I'm grossly oversimplifying here).

There are many other ways to describe my collection of ex-boyfriends, but no other way I have noticed where they fall so clearly into two opposing camps. The safe ones. And the wild ones. The ones who always seem in control and the ones who seem always to be a little bit out of control. The former tends to make me feel like I'm always in trouble with something (I do struggle with routines... being on time... finding my keys). And the latter I tend to make feel bad, unwittingly, because routines aside, I don't like feeling like my partner is out of control. I want to feel like I can count on my boyfriend to hold down a job, pay his utilities, and not smoke so much weed he can't utter his name.

So what about them is the same? How could two sets of men who seem so different also be similar? What does a guy who insists we interact only at 9pm every night have in common with someone who has lost multiple jobs because he was consistently too hungover to arrive? (I'm going to assume right now that we're all setting aside the issue of judging me or them for their neuroses, because as far as I can tell, we all have them... and, well, I'm going to blame it all on youth anyway).

I think it all comes down to boundaries. They still might sound like completely different issues, but I think they're related to the same core thread.

There is the set that has very rigid boundaries, for whom adding me into their life is an absolute challenge. Things are neatly partitioned and organized and orderly. And I belong in a partition of their life. And that space is neatly groomed and comfortable, but it has high walls around it. Then there is the set with really loose boundaries. The men who know they love me in a matter of weeks, and fail to remember they have their own friends or school or jobs. They half move-in before we really know each other. (This isn't intended to sound like I have no agency in how these things happen, but for the purposes of illustration).

I have been comfortable with both. The control guys felt safe. I always knew when they would be there. I had absolutely zero anxiety about their reliability. The out-of-control guys were comforting in a different way. They were the model of romantic love, full of merging and affection and idealism. I had no doubts that they were completely into me.

But I'm also not comfortable with either one. I have either felt kind of weirdly excluded from entire chunks of someone's life or kind of smothered and overwhelmed at how intense everything felt. Neither feels like the right set of boundaries to me. Some are way too rigid and some are way too loose. Obviously, the other common denominator, besides extreme (lack of?) boundaries, is me.

I'm the one who chooses these men. I have a great deal of say in who I end up dating, and I seem to pick people who struggle to set (what seems to me) to be middle-range boundaries. I'm sure there are plenty of lovely women who are OK living on either end of this spectrum. But, I think that there really ought to be something in between them, something closer to a middle way. Someone who makes consistent time for me, but is OK breaking his routine. Someone who holds down a steady job regardless of wanting to stay in bed, but also follows his bliss. And I think there is something in here for me to reflect on about how I set, or fail to set, boundaries with people close to me. Because when a man gives up everything to be with me, he gives up too much of himself. And when man gives up almost nothing, there isn't really a partnership.

Oddly, in my first week back in Madison, I've come across this theme many times. And when something consistently appears, it tends to be worthy of reflection and consideration. So, having discovered this pattern, and realized it is being called to my attention, I'm now going to sit with it and try to imagine what a middle way might look like to me.

I'd be curious to know what it looks like for other people, and how they know when it's too much or too little.

-In love-