They Called Him My Father Figure…
I watched Sex and the City this evening. The one where Carrie’s Vogue editor-guy gave her the “Your daddy ran away so now you’re looking for a father figure,” speech, and it got me thinking… My Daddy left when I was six months old, so am I looking for a father figure in all of the men I date?
I started to look back over some of the men I’ve been in relationships with, trying to find some kind of pattern, something that links them all. They’re all very different men, with very few similarities, but are they all a ‘father figure’ of sorts?
The guy I’m with now [later edit: The Guy I Couldn’t Get Rid Of] looks after me pretty well. He holds my hands when I cross the road, never makes me walk the roadside of the path, carries my shopping bags, buys me drinks … he’s not much of a father figure, though. Far from it, actually. I don’t think I could rely on him to take care of me if something were to happen.
Before him was Big Love, the chap I moved to the other side of the world for. He looked after me for sure. Not so much towards the end, of course. We’d still be together if that were the case, but when I was lost, in a brand new country, with absolutely no one to call my friend, he took care of me. Again, I’m not so sure that it was in a fatherly figure-kinda way; both Big Love and The Guy I Couldn’t Get Rid Of were only a couple of years older than me.
The one before Big Love was The Hubby … the one I accidentally married and definitely shouldn’t have done. He was just an asshole. An abusive, cheating, asshole of a man. No, not even a man: a child. He was definitely not a father figure in my life. He was younger than me to start with, and he couldn’t look after himself, let alone someone else. He was just a fucking dick.
I could go on like this forever. I’ve dated a lot of guys and they’ve all had some father-figure’y traits about them, but I wouldn’t say they were the perfect substitutes to fill my Daddy void. I did notice a couple of other patterns, however. Little similarities that I hadn’t quite picked up on before.
1 – they were all stupidly arrogant.
2 – they could all probably save me in a zombie apocalypse.
3 – they were all a little bit father-figure’y, in one way or another.
I think I am looking for a father figure. I do want the man (or woman) who can take care of me. I need to be looked after a bit. I can take care of myself just fine, but that doesn’t mean I want to, you know?
Maybe I’ll come back to this subject sometime. I get the impression this won’t be the last time I talk about Daddy issues on the blog.
