All We Really Need Is Love Excerpt: Mary, Late 30's

You have to allow love to grow

I’m from Bulgaria. I grew up in a small village raised by my grandmother, who instilled very solid values. My grandmother wasn’t an educated woman. She went to school until the fourth grade and then worked in the fields for the rest of her life. But for some reason, and it wasn’t from school or from books, she had this idea of what it meant to be a woman, a good woman. If I were to give her a title, it would be hero. She was my role model. She was the person who taught me about life, who taught me about right and wrong. Even now as a grown woman, in any kind of decision that I make in relationships and work, I always think, “What would my Grandmother think about this?” Let put it this way. You know how each of us has a moral compass? That’s her. When I think about her she brings me back to the center.

The relationships in Bulgaria were very patriarchal. I would say in western terms — abusive. Men traditionally from that part of the world are in charge and dominate. There is a lot of drinking involved, especially in the rural parts, and domestic violence is socially accepted. I didn’t really have a lot of relationships to look up to, but then again, I was raised by women because my grandfather died at a really young age.

When I was 10 or 11, I had a crush on this guy that was about 17 and I really liked him. I was friends with his younger sister, so I would always get information about him. I remember I would have these dreams that I was being chased by this bull, so when I would wake up I would tell my grandmother, “Grandma, I had a dream that this bull was chasing me.” She said, “That’s because a boy likes you.” I felt like it was the coolest thing ever because it must be that boy.

What was he like?

Total asshole. You know how every kid has a crush? You don’t think about sex, you just think about holding someone’s hand and maybe the farthest thought in your mind would be someone kissing you. That’s the most extreme thing that would happen. I didn’t look at him as a sexual possibility, I was just attracted to him physically and he was cool. What burst my whole bubble is that one time in the city center, my girlfriends and I passed by this coffee shop where he hung out. I went upstairs to see him and guess what the guy and his friends were doing?

Umm getting laid?

Your mind just goes there! (Laughs) They were watching porn, hardcore porn.

Well porn never hurt nobody (Laughs).

So the whole fantasy of this guy that I put up on a pedestal, seeing what he was watching and how he was laughing at it, it just made me….. That was it, that was the end of my crush.

When I got older, I moved to Baltimore in the States. I had three jobs — one cleaning houses, loading trucks at a farmers market, and waitressing. The restaurant where I worked was a little joint, but it was exploiting us. They had just opened and couldn’t really pay us, so we were working for tips. The waitresses and I had this game going where after every shift we had these aprons filled with numbers from guys talking the whole, “Hey baby can I take you out?” game. We were all different types. D was super voluptuous, big afro and all that, studying to be a nurse. K was a daughter of diplomats; so she did it just to pass time. K was super beautiful and from such privilege that she never bought her clothes. She would have a tailor make her clothes custom, so everything is made for her perfectly. I was 16 at the time and no one knew I was under 21, so I was just under the radar, serving drinks and all that.

One night around 2 am, we were getting ready to close the joint. D and I were cleaning the tables and she forgot to turn off the “open” light, so this guy just came in. We can’t kick him out because the sign says open. He had come from another bar and wanted to eat so that made it even worse, because we have to get all this stuff out of the fridge. We were all really tired and since D had to study in the morning, she asked me to do it. I was pissed because I had to be at the market at four in the morning. We were arguing back and forth and so I finally said forget it and took this guy’s order. I don’t remember what he looked like because he was such an unwelcoming presence. I didn’t worry about is he cute or is he not cute. I just remember he had a baseball cap on and just came back from Jamaica and I’m into reggae music, so I said something about that. He then talked about motorcycles and I thought that was cool. The guy said he would teach me how to ride and I thought bullshit, because you would hear all kinds of bullshit from guys that are interested in you. So I took the order and made him this raspberry soda. He liked it and noticed that I was in a hurry. He asked why I was in a hurry and I told him I had this other job. We started talking and I remember I was impressed that he knew where Bulgaria was. So before he left, he gave me his number and said he wanted to go out sometime. When I took his number, the first thought in my mind was throwing it away because I wasn’t going out with any of the customers; that’s something I didn’t do. Plus I had my livelihood, helping my family and other priorities. I had no time to go out with anybody. But, he did something that no one else did. When we were saying goodbye, he took my hand, held it, looked straight into my eyes and said, “You promise to call me?”

That’s smooth! I am gonna use that (laughs).

And because he did that, it caught me off guard and I made that promise. Going back to my grandma, once you give your word, you don’t retract it. The fact that I promised him, I had to follow through and I called him.

The first date, I was cautious and I will tell you why. When I called him, he wanted to go out so I suggested we meet at the restaurant. The reason why I was cautious is that when I told D that I was going out with him and she said, “Do you know what kind of car he is driving?” I didn’t know and really didn’t care, he could be walking or riding a bicycle. Well she told me that he parked his Porsche a couple blocks away and that he was a hustler. So I already had one of my girls telling me to be careful, because if he is a hustler, you don’t want to be caught up in that shit. We went to the movies and saw Orlando, an artsy film, but I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was laying on his shoulder and I remember it felt so comfortable, I might have even been drooling (laughs), but it was cool.

How long did you all date until you became exclusive?

A couple of months, maybe even sooner.

What was it about this guy?

(pauses) He was funny. He was the kind of guy that always stood up for the underdog, always helping people. I remember we were driving and there were these kids begging, so he rolled down the window and gave a few loose dollar bills to the older boy, maybe like four dollars. He told the boy to split the money and to make sure everyone got some. As he pulled off, he saw the older kid put the money in his pocket, so he stopped the car, put the hazards on, got out of the car, and told the kid to hand the money over. He then starts talking to the older kid saying, “What kind of brother are you?” Because he and the kid was half black/half Latin, he was hard on the kid.

He was the guy that taught me how to be street smart in the U.S. and I always credited him with that. I was young enough to absorb a lot of it from him. He was 27 and I was 16, so he had a lot to teach me, good and bad.

I had been with boys before him, but I wasn’t in love. He was my first true love. The moment that you don’t care about your own well being, that you put this person’s well being before yours, as crazy as that sounds…. It’s almost like we are designed as human beings to do everything for self preservation, and falling in love goes against that. It’s you not worrying about self preservation any more, not worrying about getting your heart broken, getting used, and getting dropped. None of this matters anymore because this other life has such significance for you. That it is bigger than you. That other person’s life and well being is more important than your own, and it is the most beautiful thing. It happens so rarely in life were you truly feel that you would die for this person. When you truly believe that you would be willing to take a bullet for someone, that’s what it is. And within two months, I felt like I would do anything for him. His happiness was more important than my own. I remember asking him, “What do you want to do in life?” He said, “What I want to do I could never do because of where I come from. I am a product of the hood and I will either end up dead or in jail and that’s my future.

He had self awareness of who he was.

He was really sharp. We then continued to talk and he told me he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He was always really good at fixing stuff. He would fix cars, race bikes, and was always fixing things. I said, ‘If this is your dream, we will make it happen,” and he is a mechanical engineer. It took a long time.

I moved to The Bay Area the next year and he followed me soon after. We then both started going to City College. It was tough for him because he barely finished high school. What I had to my advantage was education. I came from a family were education was a top priority and he didn’t. So I was like the little foreign girl who couldn’t speak English when she came here, and here I am writing this grown man’s papers for him, making sure the grammar is right and all that. And I felt like his happiness was everything to me; I was not going to give up on him until he achieved that.

When I first lived in San Francisco, I rented this little studio in the Tenderloin for $500 a month, which was all that I could afford. When he moved down here, he saw the studio and was shocked at the size, but that was fine with him because that meant he could hold me closer. It was so true because the limitation of the resources made us closer, inseparable and I just loved him so much. One day he had this little red box and he said to me, “I know you are the kind of girl that really doesn’t like rings and would appreciate something that has a story. Well this has a story.” I open the box and it’s this amazing ring, not fancy but just old, really old. It was from WWII and it belonged to a woman that lost her husband during the war. It was not even a question if I was going to be with him. I told him, “You don’t even have to ask, I am already with you.”

I always made this joke to my friends that when he and I met I was 16 and we were the same height. then outgrew him. I got taller and taller and he stayed the same because he was 27 when I met him. It’s not really funny but I outgrew him in many ways. After many years of being together, when we would have dinner, we would have nothing to say to each other. I finished high school, got my undergrad, my graduate, and I was working two jobs to pay the bills. He was still in school. The truth is, I lost respect for him. The guy I met, the guy I put on a pedestal — all of his street smarts from the hood could not translate to this world here. No one here values someone with street smarts because when you are in the financial or professional world. You don’t have to worry about getting jumped or someone pulling a gun on you. He could handle that kind of situation, but he couldn’t handle the professional challenges and ups and downs. The rules of the game had changed and he couldn’t adapt to it as fast as I believe he could. I thought someone as sharp as him could be in any environment and do really well.

Do you think he couldn’t because he didn’t have the confidence in himself?

That’s a question only he could answer. I cannot speak for him. I think the moment a woman loses respect for a man, it is over. She can never get it back.

How was the divorce? Was it messy?

I don’t think there are any clean divorces. I don’t know of any.

Who initiated?

Me.

It’s always the woman….

No it’s not always the woman. It’s just that men stay in the same situation because they don’t have the balls to end it.

I can dig that. Men feel like that if they initiate the breakup, they will crush her. But men have to realize women are tougher than they think.

When I initiated the divorce, he didn’t want to. It was not for a lack of trying to work it out, because we did for two years. I remember when I got the divorce papers, he wouldn’t sign them for a year. He was not into the idea of us not being together, so when I had got back from a trip doing photo journalism, I called him and said, “There is nothing that I can give you. I am done so you can sign, you cannot sign — but whatever you think is going to happen is not going to happen by you putting on this pause.

What if he would have rushed back to your side when you got back?

No, there was nothing that he could have done. Have you ever heard of the story the scorpion and the frog?

Yes. I’ve been victim of the scorpion. You can’t change who you are. The song remains the same. (Author’s note: The story is from one of Aesop’s fables.)

After my divorce, it changed the way I looked at men. When you’re married, you become stagnant and people take each other for granted because it is a done deal. They don’t know how easy it is to break that done deal. And once you take on that destructive path to break it, well let’s just say that it takes a lot longer to build it than to break it. It takes so many years to establish trust and respect, but it doesn’t take much to make that structure collapse. It can happen over four or five different things that can coincide and then it’s done, nothing you can do can reverse it. You know that feeling when you’re in a relationship and there is no going back? Like when you hit that point and damn, you can’t take it back.

I met this guy shortly after. Beautiful guy, and I was straight up with him. I told him, “More than likely you’re gonna be a rebound guy, so don’t fall in love with me. I am just coming out of out of an 11 year relationship. This was the love of my life, he was like my father and my brother and my best friend.” But the guy fell in love with me. So there were a series of guys and here is the thing, the fucked up thing is that I would let them know, “Look, here are the rules of engagement,” and guys don’t want to hear you. They think, “Aww, I can change that, she is just saying that, she is just being tough.” Bullshit, but that’s what would happen. And also I think it’s an appeal of wanting what you can’t have, the evasive, elusive woman that you can’t truly have. So it’s this constant pursuit of men and women setting themselves up for misery.

You mentioned your ex-husband being your father and brother. In retrospect, do you believe not being raised by a father figure colored the way you look at men?

I think it colors everyone. It would color the way you look at women not having a father. The core of the way we perceive relationships is who we are raised by. Was there a strong female presence and was there a strong male presence, and in the ideal situation we would have both. Nine out of 10 times, people don’t. Very rarely will you meet someone who’s had a solid family structure where the Mom and Dad are there.

Do I want to get married again? No. I don’t believe in it. Marriage is a structure that we create sort of like Valentine’s Day.

Let me guess, everyday should be Valentine’s Day?

No, when I am with someone I am with someone; it’s straight up. That’s why it’s so hard for people to get me to commit to someone, because they know once I say it, I’m not turning back on it.

What’s so terrifying about commitment?

Well I’ve made mistakes and sometimes in the past I committed to people I shouldn’t have committed to. Somewhere down the line I didn’t have all the information. Also I travel a lot. I’m around a lot of different people, and my work requires me to be out and about. I need somebody who is secure and has his own stuff going on. I have that now with this person I am with. Would you like to see him?

Sure.

She shows me a picture of him, very handsome guy

How long have you guys been together?

We have known each other for six years, but been together? Well, it’s been me walking out a lot of times because of my commitment issues.

Very temperamental?

Yeah that’s a good word for it. What attracts me to him is that it’s 85% me being in love with his mind. His mind is remarkable. He has such a beautiful mind. You want to know how I know I am in love? Well if he were in a fire and all of his physical beauty is gone, would I still love him, would I still be with him? Yeah. If he were a cripple, would I still love him? Yeah. Would I take care of him? Damn straight. The only problem I would have is if he would lose his mind. If he were a vegetable and still had the physical beauty, I would have a hard time because the physical is only 15%.

I think dating today is sad. People don’t know what they want and are going after the wrong things all the time. The structure of dating is so superficial and so forced in the way men and women behave towards one another. Men and women are not being natural with one another because of these social constraints mostly put on by the media, mostly by what they are fed by television. Dating is not like a recipe that you follow; everyone’s dish is different. The women that I know that are in the dating scene have certain specifications, and when you ask them what does the guy need to be, you realize that guy doesn’t exist. I’ve met hundreds of thousands of people all around the world and I have never met one guy that fits all the specs. Today I asked this guy about his dream woman and he went down the list, and I think I’m pretty good here. If I were in the dating scene, I would probably be in the top 2%.

Very humble I might add!

(laughs) But am I right or am I wrong? This is not about humility, you want me to break it down for you.

I think you possess a lot of qualities that men would find desirable.

And still, I think I would meet probably a third of what he was looking for.

Wow.

It’s unrealistic expectations of both genders. People don’t know how to be calm, and I think so much of love is patience and calmness. Because you have to allow love to grow and there is too much of a time frame. Everything is on a schedule, everything is supposed to be a recipe, and if you were to make food that way it would taste terrible. It’s like everything is on the clock, there is no creativity.

I think the number one mistake women make in dating is that they ask too many questions and don’t listen. With men, they get so nervous they overcompensate for how nervous and vulnerable they feel by dominating the conversation all the time. This is a major complaint from many women I know. There are never any questions about her. With men, women don’t realize that they are more complex than what we think.

You think so? I disagree with that. I think by nature, women overcomplicate things, especially with relationships. I think women can take a simple coffee recipe and turn it into beef stroganoff (laughs).

What I am saying is that in human emotions, men cover it up a lot more. Also, with men you can’t put them into categories. You can’t say, “This is how all men think.”

Do you miss your ex-husband?

No. When a person is left behind, it always impacts the person who has been left more than the person who was leaving. We used to stay in contact, but he was with someone and I felt that it wasn’t healthy for him to call me, so I asked him to stop. I made a decision to end it, so for me it was already over. For him it took a long time, and maybe it was never really over. That is why he continued to call even when he was somebody else.

What is love?

Love is everything.

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