To see how I’ve changed over time, notice which women I’ve fallen for

By David McElroy · December 19, 2018

When I got married at 24, I assumed it would be my only marriage. Don’t most people believe that about themselves?

I came across this photo in an old album tonight and it felt as though it was from another lifetime. But that’s me up there next to the lovely woman in the white dress. That’s my best man, Larry, to my right. That’s her best friend, Monique, on her left. That’s Rev. Leroy Anthony officiating. That’s his wife, Martha, at the organ on the right. That’s my father and his second wife on the right side of the second pew.

And that’s the woman who I married back then. In the interest of her privacy, I’m not going to be much more specific or show her face. There’s nothing to hide, but I just see no reason to drag her face into my musings tonight.

I still think very highly of Melissa. As far as I know, she still thinks highly of me. (She once told me that she would be happy to be a character witness for me with a future romantic partner if I needed one.) But she is a stranger to me now. She remarried quickly after we divorced and she has a wonderful husband and a beautiful little boy. I’m happy for her.

But when I look back on her — and on all the women I’ve dated or fallen in love with along the way — it occurs to me tonight that they tell a story about where I’ve been and what I’m becoming.

The first time I fell in love, I was a freshman in college. She was someone I had had a crush on back in junior high school. I had gotten over her eventually, of course, but then we were thrown together as college freshmen. We fell in love, dated three years and almost got married.

I haven’t talked to Gail in many, many years, but nothing ever changed my opinion of her character or worth. I still think very highly of her, just as I do Melissa.

But as I sit here tonight and think about them — and other women along the way — I see a pattern. I realize that the person I am today never would have been attracted to them. And I don’t think they would have been attracted to the person I am today.

I can’t quite explain that, but I wish I could. It’s not a slight to them. Not in the least. I’ve just changed in radical ways. The person I was at the time thought they were perfect candidates for me. The person I am today is attracted to someone far, far different.

If I made a list of the women who have really mattered to me — who I’ve fallen in love with — there wouldn’t be that many of them. But if I arranged them in order and you knew everything about them, you would see some patterns.

The women I was attracted to back then were more conservative. Not politically, but maybe socially. Or maybe more “traditional” is a better choice of words. They were more the sort of woman who might be cast to play the role of an old-fashioned wife of the stereotypical sort from my childhood years. This is not a bad thing, but I find that the women I’ve been attracted to more recently are much, much stronger women, at least in outward ways.

This is tough to explain, because it might come across as though I’m saying Melissa was someone who was passive or unambitious, but that would be mistaken. She has a Ph.D. and is a researcher and professor at a university. She’s fantastic at what she does. But there’s some essential difference in stance and presentation between her and the woman I would want today.

I’ve always wanted a partner in marriage, but I think I saw that role in a more traditional way at one time. I don’t mean as someone to keep “barefoot and pregnant,” of course, but something essential has changed in how I see my wife’s role.

I suppose I’m trying to say that I once saw my wife’s role as secondary to my own, whereas I now see someone who is an equal partner in the eyes of the world.

I think I once wanted a wife whose intelligence and beauty and charm would reflect well on me. The difference now is that I want a woman whose intelligence and beauty and charm reflect perfectly on her. I don’t want someone who can be an adoring woman in the shadows. Yes, I want her adoration. (I need that.) But whereas I might have once seen me as the one getting the glory — as a wife watched and supported me from the shadows — I now want a wife who stands in the spotlight for the glory with me.

Here’s something I don’t like admitting. I think I would have been put off — all those years ago — by the kind of woman who seems like my kind of woman today. Maybe I’m wrong, but when I look at the most recent woman I fell in love with, it was someone whose accomplishments made me burst with pride for her. I wanted her to be a star in her own right — and I wanted her just as much for her star power and ability to achieve as I wanted her for her beauty and charm and personality.

If I met someone today who was just like the women who I fell in love with when I was young, I think I would like them, but I can’t see me falling in love with them.

If I met someone back then just like the sort of woman I fall for today, I don’t see me falling in love with her. I suspect I would find her fascinating and even somewhat dangerous, but I would have seen her as too different from me.

I have changed radically over the years — and I’m seeing tonight just how much what I want has changed.

When we get married, we promise to love someone forever. That’s the romantic goal. It’s been the standard that society has pushed us toward through both culture and religion. For some people, that works and I wouldn’t suggest they should change it. I’m just certain that many of us change rapidly — and we soon discover that we’re no longer anything like the person we married.

I’m not going to get sidetracked on whether this is a bad thing or not. At one point, I thought divorce was terrible, but my views are far more complicated and nuanced today. I’ll leave it at that.

I just know I’ve changed. When I see who I was at 24 and I married Melissa, I simply don’t know that man anymore. I don’t know her anymore. For her sake, I’m glad she isn’t married to me anymore. I’m simply not the man she thought I was — and I like the person I am today far better.

I still think very highly of Gail and Melissa. I still think highly of the other women I’ve dated and had serious relationships with. But it’s noteworthy that the only one I would choose to marry today is the most recent one — not any from the past.

Something about me changed in radical ways. I like those changes. And those changes in me changed who I wanted.

If you could see and meet the woman I want — this star prototype, so to speak — I assure you that you would fall in love with her. I can’t take my eyes off her face in my mind. I wish I could tell her that.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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