I don't know what desperate means but it sounds bad and I'd rather not be it --- so maybe I need to relax

I spoke to a lady recently who wanted to start a country bar. I thought that sounded like a pretty cool ambition, and I said so. I found it attractive — maybe the more so because she was willing to admit it out loud, when she might be subject to skepticism or to be judged later on whether she did that. I wonder if this kind of ambition is what Zan Perrion's talking about when he talks about the need for adventure — for men to have something going on in their life that isn't their woman.

Maybe I ought to start a country bar. (Ha! 🤓)

My therapist asked me recently, what if you never find love like you're looking for? Would that be okay? I said, what do you mean like I'm on my death bed and I never found love, she said (paraphrasing) let's say you're in your 80s and you never found love. And picturing the death bed hypothetical in detail, I cried — "not okay," she said — yes, exactly, I felt not okay about that. She observed that this seems like a lot of pressure, and maybe some of that is coming through in the way I interact with women. Maybe it's a turn-off.

She didn't use the word desperate. That was a good choice. She chooses her words wisely. I thought of it anyway.

Is this what it means to be desperate? One of the things it could mean, maybe.

I think it's a subtler kind of desperate than common usage, though. I don't feel desperate in the sense of thinking I am worthless. I know I have value. I don't feel desperate in the sense that I'm looking for "any port in a storm." I know there are qualities that I like in a woman and not every woman lives those qualities. I don't feel like I need any lady in particular to like me or like I'm trying to impress her. I feel like I appreciate lots of women and would be thrilled if any one of them was interested, but I don't need any particular one to want to date me. I think of those three meanings as more typical of what "desperate" means.

It doesn't matter how I define desperation, though, if the way I'm orienting to the world turns women off. I can't redistrict the world into submission. People see in me whatever they see.

There might be something to the idea that ladies are seeing tension and pressure in me and saying "no, thanks." I often find I'm tense when I pay attention, and even like I've forgotten what relaxed feels like. Relaxed looks good; tense doesn't, even if it's not coming from "classical" desperation.

And if that's the case — I don't know what to do about it. Actually, I think there's nothing I can do about it. Actually, I think the situation is extremely funny. Maybe the "way" is to relax. As much as I try, I can't "do" "relaxing," and I find that hilarious.

I know a lady, very sweet and wise, who has often told me to relax. In my head, sometimes I think of replying to her, I'm trying, Andrea! And – of course — the trying is the problem. If I stop trying then I start relaxing. It's crazy how that works.

And if the tension is the operative part of desperation, maybe all I need is to relax.