This is a story about global children…
I should have been in Prague today, December 22nd, visiting the greatest Kiwi-Czech couple I know. I love them to bits. I’m sad I didn’t get to go.
My ex-wife was a programmer when I met her. I thought there could be nothing greater than dating a geek. Turns out it’s better just to date somebody you like and who is nice to you.
Yes, I went out with my checklist of things that I wanted:
- Science degree
- Computer programmer
- Outdoorsy
- Adventurous
- Ambitious
- Prepared to follow me into dangerous situations
- Able to stay calm in a crisis
I would say that I got most of those things. The problem was that she never backed me up. There were so many times when I expected her to have my back and she didn’t. In fact she was an even more harsh critic of me than I am, and I’m unbelievably hard on myself.
She ended up trying to be me, which is a bit weird. She wanted to learn to climb, so she paid money for a guide and porters to drag her up a mountain. I could have taken her up some Scottish winter routes that are amongst the most brutally dangerous and exposed in Europe.
She wanted to learn to sail. I’d already pretty much taught her, but I could have found some really nasty tidal eddies and extremely tough ports to navigate into, where loads of boats run aground. I could have taken her out on a brutal day where you surf down the waves and try not to broach. No, she wanted to pay SunSail to bob around on a floating caravan in non-tidal waters.
She said she wanted to drive a rally car and thought she was a good driver. I’ve raced round the Belgian Formula One circuit and won a bunch of karting races. She bought herself a little car that looked a bit like a sports car while I was in hospital once. I bought her a 1972 MG Midget with wire wheels, for her to drive all summer while she was off work.
You would have thought that she’d take care of me, but either she didn’t realise how good she had it, or she had a highly inflated opinion of herself.
It occurs to me that a lot of geeks would like a geek girlfriend. They’re highly sought after.
I probably just picked badly.
Also, being nice to somebody doesn’t make them nice, it turns out.
This photo was taken 8 days after we met. My life skills were ploughed into learning how to be a good adventurer, leader and geek, rather than pick a good life partner (July 2005)
Tags: #divorce
Comments
One response to “Advent Calendar (Day Twenty-Two)”
“Turns out it’s better just to date somebody you like and who is nice to you.”
Exactly. Somebody can tick all the right boxes as far as hobbies, occupation, education etc go, but it’s more important that they respect you and value you as you are. Sometimes we all get preoccupied with the checklist and don’t think about whether the person treats us the way we deserve to be treated. Unfortunately it seems to be a life lesson we all have to learn the hard way, and even knowing it doesn’t stop us getting into bad relationships again.
With hindsight, it is easy to see where you went wrong, but remember that at the time you made decisions based on the information you had and the emotions you were experiencing. We are all brought up to expect to find this one person who is perfectly suited to us and completes us and that once we’ve met that person, life will be easy. It’s not a Hollywood movie, there is no happy ever after. As we get older we get a bit wiser but it doesn’t stop us repeating mistakes. I’ve been told that relationships that last require being good friends and being able to work as a team more than wild passion. I believe there’s many potential people out there for each of us, if we aren’t too caught up in the material details and focus instead on whether the person is kind and respects others. But what do I know? All my past relationships have been failures and I make a lot of poor decisions.