Pull Together To Construct Better World

When the economic and cultural structure of a society changes, it feels like a revolution. Revolutions leave people without a safe haven because old systems collapse before new ones are in place. We get caught in the void, the tension, between old and new.

Hard-working people who were satisfied with basic manufacturing jobs feel they have no place in a world of high technology and entrepreneurship. Good people who were comfortable with narrow definitions of family, class, race and morals think their country is falling apart.

Some will embrace the language and the tactics of war. They will talk revolution but they want to retreat not advance. They cannot tolerate being left behind yet they cannot envision a positive future. They will kill rather than be rendered irrelevant.

The only comfort I can offer is that this has always happened throughout history. The old violently resists the new and innocents die. It is an ancient grief process of denial, anger and bargaining to stave off the inevitable. As with grief, the sadness must be felt, the shock is deep, and then we will do what we always do, pull together and rebuild a better world.

Dear Jennifer: I am so unique it is unbelievable. When I was a teenager, girls would make barfing sounds when they walked by me with their friends. When I was older, in my 20s, women began to be outright hostile. I haven’t had a date in my life.

Psychologists say that I am pushing them away, that my low self-esteem prevents me from getting women. Yet, many of my friends who have been in jail, are unemployed and have nowhere to live can still rake in women everywhere they go.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I am 26, I take care of my body, exercise, attend college to move up in my life, dress well, but women ignore me and go out with abusers and losers. What is this unseen force that repels them? Is it psychic? It could be a scent, such as pheromone, but it’s not my personality and not my looks.

I am so lonely. Today is my birthday and I slept most of the day and wrote this letter at night. I want one woman who really cares about me and accepts me. - Mike

Dear Mike: I have known two men who fit the description you give of yourself and your experience with women.

One was extremely “ugly” by America’s standards. He put his heart into his work and community. People were won over by his caring and his perseverance and his impeccable grooming. He struggled to make the best of what he had. He did not find love until he was 40. He married a wonderful woman.

The second man was not “ugly” but he did put out a scent, a psychic pheromone. He did not know what it was. When he persisted in asking questions of women who would talk with him and finally a good counselor, he found out it was anger. He did not know how angry he was, or when it had started, but it had a lot more to do with his mother and his childhood than it did the other women who rejected him.

When the anger was out in the open he found himself letting it go and his body language changed. It took him a few years to let it all go and to open himself to other “scents.” But he, too, found a woman who knew his value.

Many women make bad choices in partners and many men are far more abusive than they look. You have the disadvantage and the advantage of having your emotions close to the surface. That means women can pick them up and stay out of range but it also means you can reach them yourself and change them.

You did not give us an address and we have some information on men’s groups, counseling and safer places to meet women. We will always protect your anonymity. We changed your name for the column. Your long letter, which I have summarized here, indicates an awareness and an intelligence that will only grow as you age.

You are not alone. There are many wonderful men and women who do not find love until 40 and some until 60. Keep trying, you deserve to be loved. - Jennifer

xxxx