Through rose-colored glasses, Free Dictionary

With an unduly cheerful, optimistic, or favorable view of things: see the world through rose-colored glasses.

I wrote yesterday about being the one who always points out the problem. I was Linus onstage in the empty auditorium at the Charlie Brown Christmas school play crying out, Doesn’t anybody care? It is a grumpy place to live in all the time. To function and survive at all in the greater world, I needed to develop some illusions so that I could cope. I understand now that I did that when I left home by packing some rose-colored glasses, the perfect tool to help me escape from the painful reality that a truth-teller lives with. Behind those glasses, everything was wonderful. Life was fair. The family was ok. I believed in myself and that I could do great things. People described me as positive, joyful, optimistic.  I was certainly a “go-getter” who excelled at everything I pursued.

The rose-colored glasses were especially effective in filtering out the true nature of the men I chose. When you can’t see people as they really are, you can project all kinds of fantasy traits on them. Suddenly a person becomes the best catch ever. A perfect mate. Kind, caring, loyal. Everything you want and need. Together life will be grand. Everything is projected onto one mortal human. How can anyone fulfill those kinds of expectations?

Anyway, in my case, I chose men who would repeat the old family patterns; I chose someone who was not emotionally available to me, someone who abandoned me literally and figuratively. Sometimes I picked someone whose own chaotic life created in me the constant pain and uncertainty of my childhood. Sometimes substance abuse was an issue. I also had a nose for the cheaters who gave me the message that I was never good enough.

Tired of the pain of crappy relationships and content as a loner, I retreated from pursuing serious relationships about 25 years ago! Occasionally, I would meet somebody and put on my rose-colored glasses but I would heap on too many expectations and they would flake out emotionally anyway. I would retreat. Repeat. Again. Again.

There was one particular guy that I was crazy about. He was a child emotionally, and I knew on one level that nothing long-term would come of it. We still talked every few months after I moved away to Wyoming to take a church there. My hopes would rekindle. One time I even said to him, “let’s try to make a go of this,” to which he replied, “Give me some space to think about it.” He never got back to me. A few years later I contacted him again! We chatted like it was yesterday, but this time I had no expectations. We managed to be just friends. 

Even after growing older and retiring, I have brief bursts of rosy attraction. Even though I can see instantly now that the person is wholly inappropriate, I get lonely for male attention. I put on the glasses and start hoping. It is like watching myself in slow motion. That is, until just this last spring when I found my reality glasses. I met a fellow traveler who breezed into the RV ranch in New Mexico to pick up something in storage there. We felt an immediate attraction, but then the alarms started going off in my head. I was leaving in a few weeks for Alaska and decided I wasn’t going to spend the summer pining for another guy who was unavailable, even if for no other reason than being 4000 miles away. He wandered off later that afternoon but I heard that he asked about me when he met up later that month with some of his traveling buddies from the ranch. He never tried to reach me, though.

I listened to the alarms again when my current neighbor started showing interest., He invited me out for a beer, the last thing that would be fun for me, so I politely declined (that was a first).  We continued to talk quite a bit when we ran into each other outside on sunny fall days and he seemed to remain “Interested”. I smelled the stench of alcohol on his breath more than once. I paid attention when he mocked me for watching football. I made note when he made snide comments about others and called everyone a “bozo”. He talked about going to the gym and his spinning class. He told me one time that he went several times a week to the gym, spinning for an hour each time (his physique bears witness to that). Then, he told me he did a 2-hour class. The next week he told me it was a 3-hour class, where he burned 2000 calories. I didn’t doubt this, but I started to see an OCD side to him. I noticed then that he was always washing his RV, car, and truck. In fact, they were all rubbed to spotless perfection. The weather turned colder so, thankfully, I saw him less. But I had a taste of victory. I stopped myself from yet another round of rosy expectation followed by loss and heartache. This is huge for me, a real turning point. Now, if I could only recognize the good guys out there! Maybe in due time. 

Reality Glasses. Jane’s Dictionary

 Seeing things as they are, as in “wearing reality glasses” instead of rose-colored glasses.

Okay, so I am much happier when I assess men and life in general through reality glasses. No more rose-colored glasses. However, there is a weird paradox here. Seeing reality also takes me back to a major personality flaw: the weight of reality drives me to be a “truth-teller. In the old days, this is how it went: after the rosy glasses fell off and I could see someone like my neighbor for what he is (overly-critical, self-absorbed, OCD, heavy drinker or whatever), I would rain the truth on his head. He would get mad. I would get buried in shame as he verbally retaliated.

Therefore, as I toss away the rose-colored glasses and get to a healthier place, I have to process reality in a different way. Some people deal with reality by simply stating, “it is what it is” but I don’t know if I can ever be that detached (as I mentioned, I hate that no one ever spoke up about the harm done in my family). Still, I need to stop making the state of the universe such a big f-ing deal and chill. I am not Chicken Little and the sky is not falling, even though I did play Chicken LIttle in a kindergarten play. Hoping for some insights here.

Goal Four:  Keep wearing those reality glasses. Not just around single men but every single day. Be aware of the difference between being realistic in a healthy way and being consumed with the weight of the world and feeling compelled to tell everyone else the “real truth”.