Essex and the City
Even though he’s no longer with us, I’m still slightly obsessed with Corey Haim. Every now and then I Google image him and trawl through pictures, pondering how my life would have turned out if ‘Just 17’ actually had taken my begging letters seriously and we had got married. It doesn’t seem quite right that at 31, I’m still looking longingly at what are basically pictures of a 16 year old boy. I don’t know why I still love him but I think I still do and what’s even sillier is that I’ve actually met him (see article 28 or something) and spoken to him and I didn’t have those warm fuzzy feelings towards him like I thought I would have. Instead I thought he was a bit…well….odd (god rest his soul). I’m sharing my weird obsession for a teenager with you because I think there’s a lesson to be learned, the first clearly to get a more adult (even legal) crush, and the second to analyse why it is that we call totally fall for someone that we don’t know? I shall explain.
Every now and then we fall for people with very little evidence of who they really are, we get so carried away with this prospect that that this might in fact be ‘the one’ - we end up convincing ourselves they are, when really they’re not. Thinking like this causes a lot of damage and you can reach a point where no matter how ugly and blatant the real truth about the person you’re with is you just tend to ignore it. I don’t now why we do it, desperation? Social pressure to be part of a ‘we’? Or perhaps its ego and that fact that you daren’t admit to yourself that you’ve actually pinned all your hopes and dreams on someone who’s turned out to be a bit of an idiot and there’s no turning back.
Everyone knows that from the very first date with a guy, a woman really fancies (and I say fancy because that’s all it is), they’ve already planned the wedding, named the kids and chosen the house. It’s a fact, it might not be normal, but it’s the truth and no matter how sane the woman is (clearly not classing myself as sane, hello I still fancy a 16 year old) they all do it. After more than one date we women conjure up this make-believe life of what they’re like and what our lives would be like with them and the more dates the more extreme. On dates three or four, we’re choosing which one of our new love interests friend’s girlfriends we’re going to be friends with by looking at their facebook. We’re deciding if we’re at their mums or our mum for Christmas, in fact we’re getting so obsessed we’re getting the key cut and the wardrobe space ready before they’ve even stayed over! If you’re a man, I don’t want to scare you, but I do think you should know and what you should also know is that we can’t help the way we are. As women we’re born with it, exactly how I was with Mr Haim, but clearly on a 9 year olds scale, instead of which house and how many kids, it was more a case of which Barbie I would let him play with and whether or not I would allow his action man in my Wendy house (oh you lot are sick!). What’s even worse about the whole disability that we women have (and that’s what it is) is that we’re so fu8cked even when we’re given the truth – we still have the capability to trick ourselves into believing that fictional person still exists! It’s a hindrance to our sanity I can tell you and it doesn’t stop there, oh no this kind of self manipulation can come comes many forms and disguises and some are more dangerous.
The most worrying form of the ‘Corey Haim Syndrome’, as I’ve now named it, (being his wife allows me to make up syndromes about him) is linked with rejection, you’re pinning your hopes on someone – and you’re not even together. In other words, you’ve met someone, liked them they’ve dumped you and before reaching the ‘secure’ stage. You know very little about them or them you and this leaves far too much imaginative brain space for you to create a perfect man, loosely based around an idea of someone whose middle name you don’t even know (although your obsession will lead you to find out and you will be too far gone at that stage to even care that its Barry). You convince yourself he’s ‘the one that got away’, thus driving yourself mad and obsessing and no man can match up to him, because its ALL IN YOUR HEAD!
With all this in mind (and the need for change) I decided to find a way of out tricking myself by using my own brain, some people would call this schizophrenia but not me (or me). If you can delude yourself so much in one way then surely it must be just as easy to reverse it? Anyway I think I may have got it! And as sung in The Wonder Years (and yes I still fancy Fred Savage, what’s wrong with me?), in order to get what I needed I heavily relied on ‘A little help from my friends’
So I’ve started a new job and for the first time in 8 years I’m working with girls and I love it! Naturally, my new workmates and I often end up talking about relationships and the opposite sex. It’s not all we talk about no, occasionally we’ll discuss how we agreed with the protesters turning off the petrol pumps at BP in anger at the oil spill were justified, or how Gaza is basically a prison and something needs to be done about it (although admittedly that last discussion was more on how mental ‘Gazza’ has become – Dressing gown, chicken? You know what I’m talking about). Anyway so apart from some very political current affairs we sometimes brush over the subject of men/relationships/wa*nkers. The camaraderie on this subject is very refreshing and we often spend lunch times teaching each other our findings from the dating world and sharing experiences in order for the ones that listened to avoid the pain but still reap the benefits from the information learned…
So it was during one of our discussions that I had the urge to write about this topic. On this particular discussion we were talking about the men that muck you about when you first meet them. You know the ones who sort of either just goes off you or you date for a while but don’t really know where you stand? Instead of finishing with you, they just don’t call or text again or when they do it’s not for anything interesting apart from possibly, a roll about, (oh and while we’re on the subject of sex, unless you are actually THE real Samantha from Sex and the City you can’t really behave like that and get away emotionally scott free, just so you know). Anyway, so here we were and although we’re all extremely familiar with the ‘he’s just not that into you theory’ we couldn’t understand why we get so bothered about the rejection of someone we barely know or weren’t really sure of in the first place. Then it clicked, for all of us – the Corey Haim syndrome – the day dreaming and getting carried away etc etc etc. So now what, now we know how do we change it? Well there is a way, and it’s very very easy, next time you’re sitting at your desk wistfully daydreaming about what car you and Mr X will choose to house your 3 future children – STOP, STOP, STOP, just stop and think about something else, anything else, melons, shoes, house plants, the M25, what you’re having for dinner (and not what you’d cook for him) whatever, then carry on with your life. There will be plenty of time to day dream about the future with your new man, when you actually have a future!!! I know it sounds harsh but it’s the only way to keep yourself sane and not waste time missing someone who doesn’t exists…. I promise it will help!
So until next time lots and lots and lots of love…
Oh and P.S…. Totally contradictory to this whole article… I spent so much time thinking about Mr Haim… that I did actually get to meet him…. Ha ha there is always hope!!
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