Sharing your weirdness is one thing. Not excepting the weirdness of others is another. One of Howard’s main faults was that he had a set-in-stone idea of what his life would be like with his two women. It would be his fantasy, exactly as he had planned it out. There would be set roles. There would be jobs and duties for all three of them.
Howard was also extremely rigid about money (cheap beyond cheap), food (more weirdness), and, well, he always did things the same way, and that was the way he liked things. That is the way he insisted on things.
Yes, despite the weirdness, people liked Howard. And because of his weirdness he was the last person they’d want to fix up their female friends with.
Howard went on a quest to find two women to share his life and bed with. Since he didn’t go to bars, clubs, or any event where he’d have to spend money his options were limited. He also didn’t tell most of his friends about his plan.
This was back before the days of the Internet, so he started looking for ads in newspapers and magazines.
To make a long sad story short, Howard was conned more than once. He wrote women. They wrote back and sent photos. They told him everything he wanted to know. They took his money and he never heard from them again. It happened again, and again, and again.
Jump to 2021. I have a friend, Phil, who says he is engaged to a woman he met online. He has never met her in person. She is extraordinarily attractive – far more attractive than he is. She is young. She isn’t real. Everyone knows she isn’t real. She has no footprint. No online friends. There is no record of her anywhere on the Internet. Yet, Phil says he will marry her soon, in London. He tells everyone that if they say anything about her that is not in his fantasy then he will no longer be their friend. Like Howard, this is a man who has been single forever and allows himself to be preyed upon by con artists, who know there is a certain type of man who thinks he can attract perfection. Perfection for him might be a woman who lives in his own town, who isn’t beautiful, but is pretty in her own way, and will talk for hours about anything. She might not be perfect but she is kind and people like her. She is real.
I also have a few female friends who cry over the fact that they have never found true love. The problem is that they were never looking for true love. They were looking for their ideal of a perfect man. They were looking for money. They were looking for status. They were looking for someone to take care of them. They were looking for Doris Day and Rock Hudson tied up in a pretty bow.
Life is messy. Life is hard. Life is unpredictable. Relationships take work. Relationships that work take a lot of give and take. Relationships take flexibility. People change as relationships change. If you don’t want to be alone you have to build a dream with someone. Dreams don’t work in a vacuum.
So many men are looking for a swimsuit model and miss their match who is working in the bakery at the local supermarket. Women are looking for a doctor. Go to medical school and BE a doctor yourself. Then look for someone who makes you laugh. He might be a mechanic, or a high school English teacher, or the owner of a frame shop.
And like anything… if it is too good to be true it probably is. Or I’ll just be blunt and say “DON’T BE STUPID.” You’re a smart adult. If you’re going to be weird, and selfish, and immature, and needy don’t expect your friends and family to feel sorry for you after they’ve emotionally bailed you out for the 23rd time.
Then again, some people never learn from their mistakes. The pull of the fantasy is too strong. Unfortunately for some there is no cure.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Vampire Maman 
Amen to “Don’t be stupid.”