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  Saturday, June 04, 2005

Use Your Powers for Good

A couple years ago, our daughter broke up with her boyfriend, and it ended poorly, with hurt feelings on both sides. This bothered her. Debbie's a compassionate girl. She hates hurting people, so after that she decided not to date anymore.

This wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. Debbie thinks things through, and it was only after due consideration that she reached her conclusion. The outcome of dating is either marriage or a breakup, she says, and she doesn't like those choices. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, she doesn't want to get hurt, and she doesn't want to get married yet.

Even so, there have been no lack of suitors since that time. Recently she had five or six boys all interested in her at once. And, Debbie's learned that it's easy to take advantage of this, to have guys do favors for her, but she wants to use her powers for Good.

Then, last month, everything changed.

You see, Debbie has this friend, Richard. He likes her, and she likes him, but they met when Debbie was unavailable, and once she became available she was no longer interested in dating. So they've just been friends.

Then, last month, they were at a beach party, and one of the girls there who was interested in Richard got mad at Debbie for monopolizing him. I guess the girl just ignored the fact that Richard wanted to be monopolized. Still, Debbie realized that she'd hurt someone yet again. Just because she didn't want to be dating Richard didn't mean that Richard would date anyone else.

According to Richard, he hasn't been attracted to anyone else since meeting Debbie. She had "raised the bar" and now other girls don't interest him. It was quite the dilemma. If Debbie dates, someone gets hurt, and if she doesn't date, someone gets hurt. Why can't we all just get along?

You know the little joke I quoted about May 4th being Star Wars Day? ("May the fourth be with you.") Last month, Debbie gave up her vows of unavailability. Since it wasn't working out as planned anyway, she and Richard began an exclusive dating relationship. She tells me it will be easy to remember the date they made this decision. That's because it was May the 4th. Star Wars Day.


Blog Tag: Chatter

4 Comments:

At 6/04/2005 10:59 AM, Blogger Melissa said...

Debbie has a good head on her shoulders and a big heart. You and Connie did good!

I've also gone long periods of time without dating, for the same reasons as Debbie. After my high school boyfriend and I stopped seeing each other (Yes, it was you Dave), I didn't go out on a single date for over a year.

My marriage ended almost 8 years ago and to compare the breakup to Krakatoa would be an understatement. Now, I occasionally force myself to go out, but there is never a second date. I'm still not ready. I'm fine and doing well, but not wanting to risk that kind of pain again, I just have friends. But still, it would be kind of nice to have a boyfriend. This relationship stuff is so hard.

 
At 6/04/2005 11:53 AM, Blogger Mary said...

That's wonderful.

Happy One-Month-iversary to Debbie and Richard. Today. :)

 
At 6/06/2005 4:02 PM, Blogger taza said...

She sounds like an incipient Buddhist. Hope the dating thing works out, and no, it doesn't have to be marriage or nothing. She and Richard can make whatever they want out of it. Think outside the box!

 
At 6/07/2005 12:49 AM, Blogger dkgoodman said...

I don't know about latent Buddhism, but she does love animals. Debbie volunteers every week at Marin Wildcare, where she helps care for injured wild animals. She's always been like that.

When Debbie was 3 or 4, we took her to a birthday party where they had a pinata of a donkey or horse or something. When the kids started hitting it with a stick, Debbie came to us pouting and told us, "Horsie say, 'No!'"

 

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