"WHY AM I ATTRACTING THESE unemployed, savage,drug addictGuys!?" I yelled into my phone to myBest friend,Ruba, on a transcontinental link toLondon.
I got to work stomping my toes in my worn out platform boots and was very angry and upset at this unfair world.
Even the birds flying around the Metropolitan Museum of Art looked sad and sick. I was in one of those moods where even pretty things look depressing and bleak.
"I don't know, it's weird!" she yelled back. I could hear her blowing cigarette smoke through the phone. failed. failed. failed.
"Do you know why this keeps happening to me?!" He was really pissed off now. I wanted answers, dammit! Not just silence and smoke.
“I don't know, Z. We'll talk about that later. I meet Cat at the pub. I love you!" Failure. Click. The phone rang.
I walked through the brutal winter while my heavy head stared at the concrete. The sun was too strong to look up.
I was really upset because I just met a girl that I really liked. He had piercing blue-green eyes, jet-black hair, and an offbeat sense of humor. We'd been on an amazing, mind-blowing date for 30 minutes when the conversation suddenly took a strangely dark turn.
"Well I know that's itstrange, but I teach this extreme bondage class on Sundays. Do you want to model my demo? I would have to tie it up in front of about 200 people. I know it's a lot to ask, but you're so sweet and open that I thought it might be worth a try."
Look girls, it's no secret that I'm a little cautiouscurlyend of the spectrum. i write aboutSex. I'm talking aboutSex. I have manySex.
but i am adamn lady, Also. And I don't know what gave this girl the impression, as I sat across from her at a table in a fancy downtown restaurant, dressed in a civilized cherry red dress with a flower in my hair, that I was a kind of tether.Insane.
I mean, can't we at least sleep together before you ask me to model for you in a bondage class?
Call me old-fashioned, but can you at least buy the first drink before asking a pretty Upper East Side lesbian to hook up in front of an audience?
I'm a union actress and I'm screaming. Isn't that against the SAG/Equity rules?
I picked up my imaginary beads and looked at her blankly. All those years in Connecticut taught me to be cold and empty when I wasn't feeling well.
I mean, can't we at least sleep together before you ask me to model for you in a bondage class?
"Okay, judging by your reaction, you're not interested. Maybe I'll change my mind!" She downed the rest of her gin and tonic (which she thought was a promising cocktail option, usually a G&T girl is nothing more than a class number).
She laughed maniacally and her eyes widened. Sort of like Joan Crawford's character in Mommy Dearest.
My momHe always told me there was something fundamentally wrong with people who have eyes like that, where you can see the white around the iris. A shiver ran down my spine.
"Then I should probably tell you now. Since I like you a lot and I see a possible future with you..."
possible future? I know lesbians are notoriousfor fast movement, but could this bitch see a possible future with me before the incumbent leaves?
I suddenly shook my headcraving for a cigarettewith a desire she didn't even know she had.
"So I amDrink, but it shouldn't be. I have actually been addicted to heroin on and off for about three years now. I got out of rehab two days ago. The doctor says it's too soon to go, but there was something about you when I met you yesterday. I felt magnetically drawn to you."
look kitty. I don't shame honest people or former addicts. I myself suffer from a self proclaimed honesty disorder and I bathed in itdrug tank, Also.
But I don't mention mine casuallyobsessive-compulsive disorderor history of beingsleepingEmantidepressantsuntil we have AT LEASTsleep together.
But here's the real shit that went through my head: I started noticing a pattern in the people I attracted.
They were all crazy.
I'm not talking cute, quirky, wild, I drink a little too much and speak my mind, crazy. I'm talking about you picking me up from rehab.
I was crazy. I finally got to a point in my life where I really wanted something real, you know?
Someone I could bounce ideas off of and not someone I would be afraid to introduce to my family because God knows what trick they would pull.
I was above this life. In my youth, I may have confused all this with creativity, but I began to realize that hit and run was closer to narcissism than art.
I began to realize that hit and run was closer to narcissism than art.
I finally did what I always do when looking for answers, I'm going through a major life crisis and I'm generally ready to close the shadows of my life and become a total recluse: I called ashrink.
In fact, I googled her at work, walked into the bathroom with a stall, and made an appointment for late afternoon. When I'm lost, I'm more proactive.
A few hours later, I found myself cradling a stick of incense on a buttery soft leather sofa. "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera was played in the waiting room, which I really found inspiring and comforting (which really speaks directly to my vulnerability at the time).
"So what brings you here, Zara?" doctor ponytail and looked at me with big, friendly green eyes.
“I keep attracting people who are mentally unstable, drugged or unemployed. I want to break the cycle,” I said, looking directly at a framed photo of her, a handsome man and an even cuter dog on her desk.
Cute dog, handsome man, self therapy practice. This woman clearly killed him in life. I was all ears when she explained it to me.
"Well, maybe you need to look at your own behavior. After all, aren't we a direct reflection of who we're dating?"
I let his words hang in the air with the incense of Nag Champa. And together me and Dr. Combed back ponytail my patterns for the next 55 minutes.
I realized that it wasn't this magical, mystical force that attracted these crazy and insane people into my life. It wasn't just a wild coincidence.
It was me. it wasmiEnergy.
I attracted these people because I was so incomplete with myself and I avoided so many ghosts from my past that I was unconsciously looking for someone to save.
If I could put all my energy into helpingthey, so I would never have to look in the mirror and face my own demons.
Also, I had just the right amount of weirdness in me for these people to know that I wasn't going to judge them.
But it also had just the right stability that appealed to those loose weapons. They knew I was strong enough to support myself, but fierce enough to join the party. They knew that he was not a fully realized person: he radiated this empty energy into the atmosphere.
Sitting on that psychiatrist's couch, I learned a valuable life lesson: we don't attract men by chance, we attract men through our actions.
We don't attract guys by accident, we attract them by our actions.
If we are not complete, we will attract really troublesome people to fill in the gaps in our lives.
If we're too jealous we'll attract the biggest flirt in the world so we can be the ones to change them.
When we avoid dealing with our problems, we date the person with MORE problems so that we can indirectly solve our own problems through them.
And if (as in my case) we continue to attract unpredictable people, it's because we are used to chaos and confuse chaos with love and passion. In fact, it's anything but.
True love is right. Love is giving and receiving. He gave, gave, gave and attracted people who took, took, took.
Love is giving and receiving. He gave, gave, gave and attracted people who took, took, took.
When I got to onehealthierplace in my life, when I finally faced all the bullshit I had avoided, I started attracting other sane people.
Ver,healthyPeople are not attracted to people they need to save. They won't want to date you to solve some childhood problem, or because they're afraid of being alone, or because they need someone to pay the bills.
They are fine on their own so they will date you because they really love you. There is no timeline.
And they tend to love other people who are sane and fully realized.
Then you can finally have a relationship based on love and stability, not codependency.
If you're healthy, you can break out of that vicious cycle that keeps you spinning without your feet ever touching the ground.
And trust me, being grounded and rooted in the solid ground of true love trumps the dizzying merry-go-round of unpredictability any day of the week.