Oprah's Collage and Men - what is the point?

[outofpractice]

I actually started doing a collage yesterday as promoted on Oprah's website. You are supposed to cut out pictures and captions from magazines and newspapers which you like and then stick them in a collage, and it is meant to make statements about your life which you may not otherwise face up to. What it made me realize (but only had time to do cutting not sticking yet) was that I am quite happy (choosing lots of smiley pictures of mother and child, happy pictures of days out and holidays, glamorous pictures of working women in suits, pictures of smiley women doing sports, and even sexy pictures of women dressed up to go out) and words like "happy", "time off", "balanced" and "we love each other", but there was no room in my collage for a man. I could not relate to any of the pictures of couples any more. In the end I decided I would have to do a separate collage about relationships, but I had cut out all bad things, eg photo of man in 3-piece suit on a beach and photo of man in suit on tennis court (representing the workaholic men I meet!), photo of a shark, captions saying, "Good or bad?",and "You can't fool me," and picture of a bride crying. I had chosen a picture of a happy pregnant woman, though, which I would put in the relationships collage rather than the main collage. I feel really ambivalent about men these days although superficially I am looking for a partner again. So, can any of you persuade me that there is any point in having a man around? Would you bother to get another man if you lost the one you have now?

not for a long time - i would be devestated if hom indoors left.

however i would eventually want great sex, friendship, conversation, banter, laughter, arguments, secret looks, the knowing of another person like no other. liking having someone who knows my feelings well enough to judge certain situations without even asking me. oh and great sex again woth mentioning twice

What a fascinating post, outofpractice. What I would crave most I think, in your position i.e. available, is that (ultimately fleeting) feeling of being massively love-sick over someone, even if it is temporary. That's worth the perserverence, IMO. The rest. . . I don't know. I guess it would depend on the man. If you choose really carefully, knowing all you know now, i think the point in having a man around would become self-explanatory and you would truly want that man around.

I loved your description of your collage. That is a telling exercise. I should do it.

Message withdrawn

custardo and expatkat seem to be saying something which I want to believe, that romantic love is wonderful and exciting whatever age you are. However, as you say, while being massively lovesick can be so fantastic, I cannot reconcile allowing oneself to be crazy, feckless, reckless like that whilst also having all these maternal responsibilities. bloss, you don't list any of the brilliant things! What are they, that you could not do alone or with friends? The reason why you might not want another dp is that it is just such sheer hard work and hell to go out dating, and very time-consuming to meet new people unless you have an absolutely brilliant social life. I have good friends, and I get to go out once or twice a week, but no way have a brilliant social life with new people all the time. My friends (like me) have families and need to arrange babysitters and plan ahead, or they are single people who turn you down saying that they need to work in the office in the evenings and weekends (and it is not a polite excuse but true). I also get really put off because so many mothers with partners are always complaining about them and so rarely praise them. expatkat is very frank about "the rest". I highly recommend doing the collage and ds made a collage too, giving me maximum complacency for doing creative things with him on a working day evening!

I wouldn't want the bother of getting another man - I think the first flush of love thing is a bit overrated. But I would definately want another dh. I know we all sound off on here about them, but there really are some positive things about having a settled, loving relationship.
You have somebody to moan about
You have somebody to share ALL the crap with, I can moan to dh about anything, my family, my friends and he is truly the only person in the world that I feel I can be completely open and honest with.
There is somebody else who thinks you are wonderful - and unlike your kids they have the means and ability to treat you as such in more material ways - shallow, yes, but nice.
Cuddles - sex is good too but nothing beats the feeling of being completely safe and wrapped up in somebodies arms