Replacing the Replacements

Last year I wrote the following on this here blog:

Women grieve, men replace.

I don't know where I heard that, but it's an interesting idea. Probably posited by a woman trying to denigrate men, but whatever. I'm not here to argue whether or not it's true. I just want to talk about the idea of "replacing."

And so here I am, once again pondering the idea of replacing.

I'm looking for a replacement for K. Some people might say I'm not ready yet. That I should take some time to grieve and get over her. I should work on myself and find my own identity. Sounds great, only it's not how I work. I've spent plenty of time being single. I've had nothing but time to grieve. I know who I am. I've built so much character I have it coming out the wazoo. And I've tried like a motherfucker the past year, during this long-distance relationship, to cultivate a fabulous single life of my own, but it still flounders. It just doesn't work for me. I need a partner.

I can't speak for all men, but I know for me, the best way to get over K is to find someone new. Someone to create new associations with. Find someone else to colonize my brain, my heart, and my penis.

If it sounds callous to say I want to replace K, remember: she dumped me. I wanted to be with her indefinitely. She was my ideal. I adored her madly, stupidly, wholly, but she said I wasn't enough for her. So I'm moving on.

Which reminds me of the whole issue of the post-breakup dating scramble, where the person who starts dating someone else after a breakup wins. When K and I get back in touch next year, I desperately want to be able to tell her that I'm dating someone. Not to make her jealous, but to prove that I've moved on. And I don't want to just show that I've moved on, I want to have moved on.

On the other hand, I will be devastated if she's dating someone and I'm not. In fact, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to be friends with her if that's the case. It's petty, I know, but I'm not that strong.

*****

SnarkEx appears to be stirring up shit again. She'd moved to California earlier this year so she could be with her new boyfriend, Skeezgeek. But the Sunday before Thanksgiving she showed up at her old church (where my brother and sister-in-law go) because she was in town with Skeezgeek for the holiday. During church "sharing time" she stood up to announce that things were "progressing" with her boyfriend. What was the purpose of that? "Sharing time" is usually so people can ask for prayers for their dying mother or a sick neighbor, or for blessings for their son who's getting married. Who the fuck "shares" that they're having a good time doing disgusting things with their troll of a boyfriend? It really seems like she was trying to rub it in.

Any other time I would have just brushed this off. But I found out about it on Thanksgiving, three weeks after K had dumped me. I was already sensitive having to deal with the holidays as a single person, and the fact that I'd just lost the best woman I'd ever loved, and now I had to hear how happy my ex was? It was too much for me to take and I had a short crying fit.

Don't get me wrong. I don't miss SnarkEx and I truly believe I'm better off without her. It's just that this isn't how things are supposed to be. She's supposed to be miserable for flaking out and leaving our marriage. She's supposed to pay a karmic debt for being so fickle and insensitive and completely unapologetic about how she dealt with her early-life crisis. Instead, she's flaunting how great her life is around people she knows are close to me.

That was the last crying fit I've had.

*****

I wonder how long I'll have to wait until I find another girlfriend. There are people who have no problem jumping from relationship to relationship, but I've always been a slow operator. Dating is a volume business, and I need to suffer a string of rejections before I find someone new.

The quickest turnaround time I've ever had between relationships was four months. (That happened twice, right before I met SnarkEx and K, respectively. They also happened to be my two biggest loves. Coincidence?) The longest dry spell was two and a half years. The average is about a year, or about 1/2 the length of the relationship. So I guess I can expect that I'll be dating someone new within the next year or two.

Since I'm a statistics geek, here are my relationship-time stats. Since my first serious relationship 15 years ago, I've spent 110 months in a relationship and 63 months single. (Approximately.) That means I've had a girlfriend/wife 63% of the time. Not a bad run.

There's no question that I will eventually find someone new. I've proven I can do that.

The questions are: how, when, and will I have to I settle for less than K?