Dream Journal 12/23/13: Making a Boy Cry

I finally got through to someone last night.  This person was crying and upset because he finally understood how his behavior has affected others.

It was a dream, naturally. This person is so hard-headed that to explain anything to him requires the patience of a saint, which I don't happen to possess. Our relationship over the years has been difficult because he likes to be outspoken and more times than not, I didn't ask for his opinion. So, to summarize, I identify more with an introvert personality type, while he is extroverted.  Even our choices of what we do for a living are very different, and of course that's by design.

Of course, when you have a longstanding friendship with someone, you let things slide. You let bygones be bygones.  You figure out what to avoid talking about so that you can get along.

I don't remember the details of the dream, but I do recall the ending because it is freshest in my mind. He was crying.  I've never seen him cry in real life.  He cried because I told him that he was insensitive to his single friends. Several people I know act like finding someone to spend the rest of your life with is super easy, like you can get it done before breakfast in most cases.

Friends, I am engaged for the first time and 40 years old.  At a time when most people are thinking about how to spend their midlife crises, I am blooming later than average.  I realize that for the rest of Generation X, this isn't so odd, but for the older people in my life, and for the Xers who found love in high school and college, engaged/married life is old hat, something they started 10 to 15 years ago.

I've noticed that these "smug marrieds" (as Bridget Jones named them) tend to forget the pain of rejection, the angst of meeting someone and doing all that work just to find out if that person is even available, the awkwardness of having to fly solo to weddings, class reunions, and so forth, and the judgment of people around you who wonder what's wrong with you, what prevents you from being paired off like the rest of the planet.

My subconscious hides most of the details from me, so I don't even know how I got through to him, but I did.  I woke up while the dream was still happening, and the poor boy was crying.  Crying!

Friends, be nice to single people. Don't be that smug and judgmental jerk who belittles them.  I spent many years being single and some of the closest people to me still are.

Merry Christmas too, darlings.

Love,

Jane Q. Phoenix