My Competency Kink
So, yesterday before my day self-imploded, I was happily puttering away inside my own head. And thinking about stuff I’d read recently on teh Intarwebs. It’s interesting how I can I can learn stuff about myself from the things I read and how I react to it. Ever since I first came across it the idea of having a kink for competency has been rattling around inside my head.
One of the problems with being a strong, competent woman is that I tend to attract weak men. Even since I was in high school, I’ve had a series of guys who were attracted to me who seemed to be looking for a mommy figure to take care of them. And quite frankly, I find that terribly UNsexy. I want someone who can take care of themselves, so that 1) I don’t have to and 2) when my shit falls apart every once in a while maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to take care of ME. I'm not some helpless female, but every once in a while I'd like someone to take care of me too.
When the Wasband and I were first courting, I thought I was getting a competent man. He had a steady job, had been there over a decade, paid his bills, had a circle of friends. Yeah, he was still living with his parents, but that’s because he’d lost his roommate. And I knew how hard it was to afford your own apartment if you weren’t willing to live in a complete dump. He did find new roommates soon after and moved out. His incompetence wasn’t apparent until we’d been living together for a while, maybe not until after we were married. But it was pretty clear, he didn’t have the bandwidth to help me with much of anything when I needed it. In fact, I was pretty soon managing his social calendar and the household expenses, along with all the other stuff I had to manage for myself as a first year teacher. After a while, when I was getting exhausted, I tried to off-load some responsibilities, but he just wasn't capable of picking them up. Cue end of marriage.
I don’t think I’ve ever written about my friend R, who tried courting me right around when I moved into Frogholm (but before I started on Live Journal). I’d known him since before I got married. And known at least that long that he had a crush on me. He’d moved from Lowell down to the Cape, but we used to bump into each other at King Richard’s Faire at least once a year, where he’d follow me around all day like a puppy. I ran into one of his co-workers one year and asked where he was. The coworker took the opportunity to inform me that R had a huge crush on me (Duh!) and that his cubicle at work was decorated with pictures of me taken every year at faire. 0_o.
R was one of the handful of people who showed up to help me move when I bought Frogholm. Then he drove up from the Cape to give me the grand tour of my new hometown and took me out to dinner. The whole time I was poised to make the “I just want to be friends” speech, but he didn’t do more than hug me at the end of the evening. I thought we were fine.
Then I flew out to Arizona over Valentine’s Day weekend to go to the Arizona Renn Faire (this was back in 2004). When I got back to work on Tuesday, the Office Gossip oozed into my cube to inform me that someone had left a card and a rather large teddy bear for me while I was gone. They were in the manager’s office for safekeeping. When I got back to Frogholm, there was another large card slipped under my door. And in my e-mail was a self-pitying message about how he understood what my lack of response meant. I wrote back and said that my lack of response meant that I’d been out of town for four days and I’d call him when I got home. Turns out our chaste dinner? Had been his idea of a date. He didn’t want to move too fast. Um, sweetie, there’s not moving fast and moving at such a glacial pace that I don’t even notice you’re moving.
So yeah, back from Tangentland. I do find that knowing your stuff is terribly sexy to me. I think it’s one of the reasons why I like “caper” shows and movies (like Leverage, The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair, Entrapment) so much. All that research and planning? Sexy! Same goes for action heroes. It’s not so much the big muscles or the blazing guns that attract me. It’s that they’re always really good at what they do.
Seriously, why is it so hard to find guys who have their shit together? All I really need is one thing where you're self-confident and know what you're doing.
ETA - Because it's that self-confidence that is terribly sexy to me.
One of the problems with being a strong, competent woman is that I tend to attract weak men. Even since I was in high school, I’ve had a series of guys who were attracted to me who seemed to be looking for a mommy figure to take care of them. And quite frankly, I find that terribly UNsexy. I want someone who can take care of themselves, so that 1) I don’t have to and 2) when my shit falls apart every once in a while maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to take care of ME. I'm not some helpless female, but every once in a while I'd like someone to take care of me too.
When the Wasband and I were first courting, I thought I was getting a competent man. He had a steady job, had been there over a decade, paid his bills, had a circle of friends. Yeah, he was still living with his parents, but that’s because he’d lost his roommate. And I knew how hard it was to afford your own apartment if you weren’t willing to live in a complete dump. He did find new roommates soon after and moved out. His incompetence wasn’t apparent until we’d been living together for a while, maybe not until after we were married. But it was pretty clear, he didn’t have the bandwidth to help me with much of anything when I needed it. In fact, I was pretty soon managing his social calendar and the household expenses, along with all the other stuff I had to manage for myself as a first year teacher. After a while, when I was getting exhausted, I tried to off-load some responsibilities, but he just wasn't capable of picking them up. Cue end of marriage.
I don’t think I’ve ever written about my friend R, who tried courting me right around when I moved into Frogholm (but before I started on Live Journal). I’d known him since before I got married. And known at least that long that he had a crush on me. He’d moved from Lowell down to the Cape, but we used to bump into each other at King Richard’s Faire at least once a year, where he’d follow me around all day like a puppy. I ran into one of his co-workers one year and asked where he was. The coworker took the opportunity to inform me that R had a huge crush on me (Duh!) and that his cubicle at work was decorated with pictures of me taken every year at faire. 0_o.
R was one of the handful of people who showed up to help me move when I bought Frogholm. Then he drove up from the Cape to give me the grand tour of my new hometown and took me out to dinner. The whole time I was poised to make the “I just want to be friends” speech, but he didn’t do more than hug me at the end of the evening. I thought we were fine.
Then I flew out to Arizona over Valentine’s Day weekend to go to the Arizona Renn Faire (this was back in 2004). When I got back to work on Tuesday, the Office Gossip oozed into my cube to inform me that someone had left a card and a rather large teddy bear for me while I was gone. They were in the manager’s office for safekeeping. When I got back to Frogholm, there was another large card slipped under my door. And in my e-mail was a self-pitying message about how he understood what my lack of response meant. I wrote back and said that my lack of response meant that I’d been out of town for four days and I’d call him when I got home. Turns out our chaste dinner? Had been his idea of a date. He didn’t want to move too fast. Um, sweetie, there’s not moving fast and moving at such a glacial pace that I don’t even notice you’re moving.
So yeah, back from Tangentland. I do find that knowing your stuff is terribly sexy to me. I think it’s one of the reasons why I like “caper” shows and movies (like Leverage, The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair, Entrapment) so much. All that research and planning? Sexy! Same goes for action heroes. It’s not so much the big muscles or the blazing guns that attract me. It’s that they’re always really good at what they do.
Seriously, why is it so hard to find guys who have their shit together? All I really need is one thing where you're self-confident and know what you're doing.
ETA - Because it's that self-confidence that is terribly sexy to me.