A lot of people look for a comfortable “seat” after divorce. By “seat” I mean, any old person to settle with...anyone to replace the loneliness and discomfort that a divorce can often bring.
Then of course, there are the friends with benefits, otherwise known as f*ck buddies or to the YOLO generation, your “Netflix and Chill” buddy. A lot of people will go those rounds. After all, if sex is as good as pizza, then even bad sex is good, right?
Wrong.
At least, in my eyes.
I think a better route to take after a failed marriage is to wait to be WOW’d.
And no, I’m not talking about the old “Whip em’ Out Wednesday’s” request, courtesy of the Howard Stern era...but wow’d emotionally, physically and intellectually.
This “Wow” is not characterized by snobbery or looking for a real life hunk/model with a heart of gold, sensational bank account, high IQ and personality of a rock star...the “Wow” is an emotional feeling.
The “Wow” is when someone is for you, just like Baby Bear’s bed, porridge and chair was for Goldilocks— just right.
The “Wow” is when someone hits all of your center points...that person speaks to you emotionally, sexually, intellectually and communicates with you in a way that speaks to your love language. For me, my dominant love language is “words of affirmation”...with acts of service, physical touch and quality time pretty much a dead tie. Gifts are nice but they’re not what makes my heart sing.
The ‘Wow” is when someone convinces you that —hey, maybe you’d be better off with them, rather than being single and having your freedom. While I truly want a commitment, there aren’t too many men out there that make me say, “Yes! I’ll put my all into you.” And I suppose the same goes for all of us: if you connect with someone on every level, that’s special.
Being “wow’d” doesn’t happen every day. Being smitten and building a love and life together doesn’t happen every day. It is special. Rare. Consider your amazing connections an endangered species: if you don’t nourish and feed them, they’ll die...never to return again.
Who can chance that?!
Not me.
The “Wow”is that somebody who learns about the things you like and surprises you by entering a hobby with you together, cultivating memories as a couple...or bringing you home a surprise, something you love and didn’t realize the person knew you did! I would just about melt over someone bringing me old school Peanuts books home for me. Or asked me what my first favorite books were as a child that I sunk my teeth into, and then got me hardcover editions or originals. (Can you tell I love books?)
The ‘Wow” is somebody who makes you feel comfortable instantly. Who understands things about you even when you don’t want him or her to. Who points out the things you do wrong in a constructive way so you can get better. Who praises the things you do right. Who just knows you.
The “Wow” is somebody who you find beautiful, sexy or handsome, inside and out. You are in admiration of this person. You want to be a better person simply because this individual exists.
The “Wow” is the person that even when the initial chemistry fades, you still want to touch. Need to touch. MUST touch. That your sexual energies, lives and needs are well taken care of on both sides.
The “Wow” is somebody who turns to you and says he or she will step up his or her game for you. That this person wants you, is willing and dying to “Wow” you as well as be “Wow’d” him or herself.
This person undeniably, is ready to go in for the kill (and by kill I mean this in the most tactical and least bloody or broken of ways), hunt for your heart, find it, win it and treasure it with the hopes that you will also do the same.
And after divorce, how could you not settle for anything less than a “Wow?”
After unraveling your life from someone else’s...after leaving someone toxic...after leaving someone good who perhaps just wasn’t the right shoe for you, Cinderella or Cinderfella...
How could you settle for just a “seat?”
How, after marrying the wrong person, could you decide to tie up your life and possibly your kid’s life with the “seat?” With a semi- spark? A dull beam?
I can’t do that.
It means, waiting patiently or in my case sometimes, rather impatiently, to be “Wow’d.”
To wait even when it feels annoyingly tedious for someone who “Wow’s” me and wants to commit.
To wait knowing that it will happen, it’s just a matter of when.
I encourage everyone who wants to love after a divorce to be patient for that “Wow.”
I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care who you are.
If you believe, if you are positive and if you wait, you will be “Wow’d” again.