Sometimes body tells us what heart can’t face — sage Steven Kalas

http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/kalas/Sometimes_body_tells_us_what_heart_cant_face.html

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Question:

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Eleven months ago, I found the woman of my dreams. She is all I can imagine. She shares all my activities, like camping, hiking, skiing and more.

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She is intelligent, knows what she wants and on top of that, she is just incredibly good-looking. But this turned out to be a problem for me.

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I right away didn’t know what to do with my luck. I felt like she is more than I can handle, like she is out of my league. I’m 51, and I never had a woman like her before.

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We had a very nice time together for the first two months. Then I felt like she (started) keeping me at a distance. We did not have conversations with each other like other couples would. She kept more and more to herself. She did not share thoughts with me (except when) she was drunk. She told me a few times that she got hurt a few times in her previous relationship, and it seems that she made sure this is not going to happen again.

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This behavior and my insecurity led to severe ED problems on my behalf. She was nice about it in the beginning, but then it turned nasty a couple of times and she even called me gay.

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I tried injections, which didn’t do anything, and I tried Cialis, which pretty much was without any success, either. The family doctor I went to was not really much of a help. He more or less gave me the walkaround, gave me the Cialis and said that should do it. But I can’t with her. I’m too intimidated.

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So, in the meantime, we broke up but I have to get over this ED problem or my life becomes pretty useless.

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So I’m hoping that you could give me some advice as going to a good doctor or more likely to a counselor? I’m pretty desperate and down as of now.

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— K.L.

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Las Vegas

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Answer:

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You had a very nice time for two months. And then you met her. All of her.

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She is inconstant and ambivalent. She distances you. She withholds words and conversation. But she talks when she’s drunk. She hides from you — and herself — behind the pain of a past relationship, begging the question, then, what the hell was she doing offering herself to a relationship with you in the first place? Then, when you can’t get an erection, she calls you “gay.”

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Question: How do I get my girlfriend to love and cherish me?

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Answer: I pour her lots of hooch and pretend like I don’t care if she loves and cherishes me.

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You must have picked this girl out of thousands.

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Here’s a surprise, K.L. Just based on your letter, I wouldn’t necessarily conclude that you have an ED problem. I might, however, wonder if you have (or had) a Boy, What Was I Thinking Dating Such A Fragile Poser problem.

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There is nothing more crazy-making than to be on the receiving end of inconstancy and ambivalence.

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It’s mean. It’s maddening. And it’s “a tell.”

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It reveals, at minimum, that this person is just not that into you. Or, my preferred way to say it, this person isn’t choosing you. But neither will she entirely let you go.

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Before I would investigate the possibility of an ED problem, K.L., I would think it more likely that your anatomy was telling a truth that your heart and mind simply weren’t ready to face.

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That happens, you know.

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Sometimes our bodies are more honest than our hearts. Imagine it!

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What if your manhood simply said, “Hell, no … K.L. deserves so much more than this!”

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Did you have ED during the “nice times” of the first two months? Have you had ED issues before? Have you, at 51, recently had blood pressure problems? Blood sugar problems? Any other cardiovascular issues? Such things frequently explain the medical face of ED.

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The real measure of what’s going on, K.L., will, of course, be if/when you have another relationship that includes sex.

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If it would give you some peace of mind to rule out medical issues, I highly recommend you visit a urologist instead of your GP.

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But I won’t be surprised if you’re fine, medically speaking. And finer still having jettisoned Ms. I’m Just Not Sure What I Want.

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Out of your league, K.L.? Did it ever occur to you that you were out of her league?

 

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http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/kalas/Symbol_participates_in_the_thing_it_represents.html

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Symbol ‘participates’ in the thing it represents [symbols keep us connected to our deepest/introspective selves]

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A symbol is not a sign. A sign is merely a shape, a color, a gesture, an object or a word representing something else. A “stop sign,” for example, is a red octagon with the word “stop” on it. It is a sign representing a legal mandate, a boundary for people operating vehicles through an intersection of roads. The mandate is “stop.” Come to a full stop. Then go. Wait your turn. So you don’t die. Or kill anyone. Or smash up your car and watch your auto insurance rates go from ridiculously expensive to really obscene.

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Signs are functional. Useful and necessary. But the stop sign itself is worth no more than the sheet metal and paint out of which it is made.

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The difference between a sign and a symbol is something first felt, and only later comprehended. Consider this illustration …

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Let’s say I’m standing in front of a stop sign, holding a 12-gauge shotgun. Let’s say I’ve had enough beers to open the padlock on the cage detaining and restraining Stupid Macho Man Moron. When Stupid Macho Man Moron gets out, somebody usually goes to jail, the hospital and, sometimes, the morgue. At the very least, there are repair bills.

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So, Stupid Macho Man Moron gets the idea that it would be both fun and meaningful to shoot the stop sign with the 12-gauge. And so he does. Ka-blam. Buncha smoking holes in the stop sign now. SMMM has conquered, and is king of all he surveys.

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Now, if the county sheriff happens to witness this little masculine adventure, he will arrest me. I’ll be charged with wanton destruction of public property. At the very least, I’ll be fined, put on probation, made to make restitution, perhaps sentenced to community service.

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But it isn’t personal. No one would be “hurt.” Disgusted, maybe. But no one would be horrified or personally devastated.

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Now, let’s say you’re happily married in a great love affair. I’m over for dinner. I compliment your wedding ring. Ask to see it. You take it off and hand it to me. I get up, step out on the back patio, take a hammer out of my pocket, and smash it to bits with three rapid blows. White gold flattened. Diamonds rendered to dust.

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Your mouth would drop open in a silent or not-so-silent scream. You might cover your face with your hands. Hold your stomach, straining, bending over so as not to implode. You hold the ruined ring in your hands, cradling it like a dying sparrow chick, fallen from the nest. Eventually, you weep.

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In some other — but equally real — reality, I have hit you with the hammer three times.

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That’s the difference between a sign and a symbol. A symbol “participates” in the thing it represents.

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Now I’m ready to answer your question, S.

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I’m talking about all kinds of symbols. Marriage is a symbol. Wedding rings are symbols. That collar around the neck of the priest is a symbol. Old Glory is a symbol. Hair can be a symbol (see Samson). Fire (see sweat lodges). The Alamo is a symbol. (I was in San Antonio on the day Ozzy Osbourne urinated on it. Texans reacted, well, badly. Dramatically, even.)

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Only in a culture as overly rationalized and material as this one could we …

 

* wear the American flag as jockey shorts;

* refer to a wedding license as “just a piece of paper”;

* be absent collective rituals for grief;

* be absent collective rituals for rites of passage to adulthood;

* think it’s funny to try to make the guard at Buckingham Palace laugh;

* think potato chips and Pepsi could stand in for bread and wine;

* refer to a girl’s first menses as the arrival of “The Curse”;

* think a glowing light bulb is the same as a perpetual flame;

* ask them to mail your doctoral diploma to your house;

* dare to be impatient when stuck behind a funeral procession in traffic.

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Here’s my first question in premarital counseling: “What do you want to change in your relationship on (date)?” Wanna know the most common answer? The couple exchanges a befuddled glance. One of them sits taller. Proud of this answer, mind you. “Nothing,” he/she says quizzically, as if I’ve asked a very strange question.

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If your goal was to change nothing, wouldn’t it make sense that you would do nothing?

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Modern people are tragically separated from their symbols.

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