Resolutions

I've read quite a few people's blogs this week and the common thread (as you'd expect at this time of year) is resolutions. The same threads are showing up on another non-blog running discussion board I belong to.

The thing that struck me about everyone's resolutions was how similar one theme in their resolutions is: Confidence. More specifically, their lack of (and hope to achieve more of).

It's really quite amazing how all these incredible people (women, mostly) are confessing how little self-confidence they have. For each person, it's in a different area of their life. But's it's a common Achilles' heel.

Now, I will go on record saying that I suffer from the same problem. For me, it's a lack of confidence where men are concerned. There are many sources, events and thought processes that contributed to the evolution of this problem. For the most part, they're linked to having been overweight for so long (I'd been told many times growing up, "You'd be very attractive if only you lost 40 pounds").

But the weird thing is, I've recently come to a whole new level of acceptance for my body that really should have moved my confidence-level up a bit (it hasn't). Specifically, there are three things that have contributed the most to it:

1) Publicly disclosing my weight (the actual number), both here in the virtual world as well as in real-life. I've also disclosed my starting weight and how much weight I've lost. This was liberating because I didn't feel like I had to hide from it anymore or be ashamed of it anymore.

2) Realizing that, although I don't have the body of a 22-year-old (nor should I, considering I am, in fact, 42), I still have a better body than I personally had at 22. And it's a pretty kick-ass body in terms of the things I've been able to do with it (e.g., Ironman).

3) Running through downtown in my bathing suit last month. I was surrounded by some pretty hard-bodied men and women, so it was easy to feel inferior on so many different levels. I can honestly say that I really didn't care what I looked like or what anyone else thought I looked like that day. But it wasn't until several days after the event as I started to tell people what I had done that I started to feel the positive effects. I can't even count the number of people (again, mostly women), all of whom have much thinner bodies that I have, who said that they would never be caught dead in public in their bathing suits. The funny thing was, it had nothing to do with the cold; it was simply the embarassment of being seen in a bathing suit.

In hearing some other people talk about how much they hated their bodies (or parts of their bodies), it made me realize how far I had come in terms of my own level of body acceptance.

But all of this seems to be moot, considering I am still no more confident when it comes to men than I was before. Although I might be more attractive today than I was when I was 65 pounds heavier, I'm certainly not any more confident in myself as being attractive to men.

Career: 8/10 confidence level
Family: 10/10
Friends: 9/10
Fitness: 9/10
Men: 4/10

First of all, I don't really trust my judgment in interactions with men. I don't know how to read them. I can't tell if they're interested or not. I can't distinguish between "flirting with intent" and "flirting without intent". Heck, I can hardly ever tell if they're even flirting in the first place! And I don't know how to flirt myself. I don't know how to communicate my feelings towards them in a way that will let them know that I am interested without scaring them off. I fall into the "friends zone" (never to emerge) far too easily and frequently. I scare some men off because I am very independent and have a hard time showing that I might actually need something from someone. I'm never fixed up on dates by well-meaning friends, further solidifying my belief that there must be something fundamentally wrong with me that makes me unsuitable as a date (let alone a girlfriend or a wife).

Basically, I'm no further along than some pimply-faced teenager when it comes to men. Sigh.

At the root of things, I have an innate fear of embarassment and humiliation. This is partly borne of normal teenage events that are no more tragic or humiliating than anything anyone else hasn't experienced. But for some reason those pains are as real to me today as if they happened this morning. If I am rejected for a job, the whole thing just rolls off my back; no harm done. But if (strike that: when!) I am rejected by a man, all I want to do is crawl into a hole and never come out. I am embarassed and humiliated beyond belief. I perceive that the guy (and anyone else who knows of the rejection) looks at me with pity, which is just too much for me to bear. "Poor old La. How could she ever think that someone like I could be interested in someone like her?" It takes me a long time for wounds like that to heal and I'm not much interested in putting myself out there again any time soon.

And since I'm not totally dissatisfied with my single life, why should I even bother putting myself through the potential agony and shame of being rejected? Why not just live my life the way I am and just turn that part of myself off, hoping that my desire and longing for a partner will atrophy? I have a good job, a great family, awesome friends, a full social life, athletic goals/pursuits and a condo on the way. Why not just take what I have and forget about dealing with this pipe dream of also finding love and companionship?

But then again, nobody said that resolutions were supposed to be easy.