Book review: Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl

I recognized a few uncomfortable truths about myself as soon as I started reading Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl by Natalie Lue, better known as NML, the voice of the blog Baggage Reclaim. While I admit I’m old-fashioned enough to prefer my books on paper rather than as a PDF download, this self-published e-book is one of the most no-nonsense guides I’ve found for women who are sick of trying to win over distant lovers and ready to learn how to stop playing their game.

Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl starts out by introducing the main characters in the all-too-familiar drama:

Mr. Unavailable: He’s just what he sounds like — a man who’s not emotionally available, for whatever reason, to be in a committed, healthy relationship. He likes having a woman or several around when he’s lonely, bored, or looking for an ego stroke (or the other kind of stroke), but as soon as things get too serious for his tastes, he dances away to a medley of “My Way” and “I Wanna Be Free.”

The Fallback Girl: She’s the woman Mr. Unavailable depends on to accommodate his bad relationship habits. She honestly believes she wants a great relationship, but because she grew up with terrible relationship experiences, she doesn’t have the faintest idea what one feels like or how to get there. When Mr. Unavailable “falls back” on her, his crumbs of attention look to her an awful lot like a whole loaf.

From there it’s a brisk ride through the critical issues: how to spot and avoid Mr. Unavailable, what made him that way and why Fallback Girls find them so dangerously appealing, and how to break the attraction by ripping out the wiring behind it.

Granted, it’s not as though no one has ever written about emotional unavailability before. Somehow, though, Lue’s cheeky, charmingly British style helps the medicine go down in a more delightful way. She doesn’t stint on dosing readers with tough love, since Fallback Girls, she notes, “have a nasty habit of talking themselves into a bad situation.” She knows, from experience as a former Fallback Girl herself. To balance this out, she tends to say things like “Stop caring. Stop obsessing. Every last, damn, moment that you spend obsessing over this assclown is a complete and utter waste.”

In other words, if you’re looking for a bunch of hand-holding and advice on how to turn a frog into Prince Charming, look elsewhere. But if you’re ready to start breaking the connections between what you were taught about love when you were younger and the reasons you’re settling for substandard lovin’ today, pay your £12.50 ($20.62 at today’s exchange rate) to download 392 pages of bracing advice, and get to work. Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is no fairy tale, but it does give you a chance to write your own happy ending.

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My Hobo-hemia is the place to be

I like to sing. I’m told I have a decent voice, but I’ve never had any vocal training, so while I can easily be persuaded to belt one out when I’ve been drinking, I’m still self-conscious about it. So it was a very big deal to me indeed on Thanksgiving when, surrounded by a group of people who are almost all either choir members or professional musicians (or both), I stood next to a piano and sang “The Lady is a Tramp.”

I like the green grass under my shoes
What can I lose?
I’m flat, that’s that
I’m all alone when I lower my lamp
That’s why the lady is a tramp

I’m no Ella, that’s for damn sure, and I squeaked a little because I was a little out of my register, but… I did it!

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On being a lifeguard

One of the most difficult lessons I’ve had to learn is that I can’t do for other people what they aren’t willing to do for themselves. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, especially if that person has an “I hate you, don’t leave me” approach to life.

I’m getting a midterm exam in that lesson right now. Sometimes I imagine I’m standing at the end of a dock, with turbulent seas below me. Someone in my life is flailing in the water, crying out for help — but when I toss her a life preserver, she shoves it away. When I throw out a rope, she screams that she didn’t want a rope. When I get in a rowboat and try to reach her with the oar, she refuses to grab it. The only option she seems to find acceptable is for me to dive in and swim to her…so she doesn’t have to drown alone.

I’m not sure how this is going to end. (Probably not well.) I suspect the best I can hope to achieve at this point is a modest goal: to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say honestly, “I did everything I could, within reason.” This is someone I feel obligated to help as much as I can, and it hurts to be unable to help, but I feel my obligation ends at the point where helping someone else requires me to sacrifice myself.

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Gratitude

I am grateful for Green Apple, for the Blue Danube, for Olive, for Trader Joe’s, for Zipcar, for Golden Gate Park, for Apple, for all the farmers’ markets, for Soma.fm, for Sonic.net, for Flickr, and even for Muni.

I am grateful for my cute, affordable, conveniently located apartment.

I am grateful for my friends, from the ones I’ve known for years to the ones I’ve only known a few months.

I am grateful that some of my friends are family.

I am grateful that whatever health issues I have are minor and easily managed without too much effort or expense.

I am grateful for my adorable, infuriating cat.

I am grateful for a job I’m good at, that supports me and interests me and occasionally brings me into contact with fascinating people.

I am grateful for my brain, and especially grateful that it works well.

I am grateful for the Internet, which is even better than my childhood fantasy of being able to visit every library in the world.

I am grateful to have the time and opportunity to explore some of my interests.

I am grateful for cashmere sweaters.

I am grateful for my new oven, in which I am currently baking the best-smelling pumpkin pie ever.

I am grateful for an awe-inspiring support system which is helping me pursue and achieve dreams of all sizes.

I am grateful to have become the person I am, because things could so easily have been different.

I’m so very fortunate.

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Tossed salad post 4

Low calorie! High fiber! The lazy way to make a daily post!

• Ran into someone today who hadn’t seen me in 3 weeks or so, who said, “Wow, you look great. Have you been working out?” Well, yes, I have, in fact. And I’ve lost 6 pounds. Halfway to my goal.
• I need to start considering the details of my traditional Jewish Christmas observance, which is, of course, Chinese food and a movie. The Chinese food is easy. The movie choice, not so much.
• First the Wall Street Journal shuttered its Boston bureau. Now the Washington Post is closing its Chicago, LA, and New York bureaus. Guess a few more unemployed journalists will be working on their book proposals this holiday season.
• And speaking of endings, a post on BreakupGirl.net about breakup songs tickled a hibernating brain cell, and up popped a memory of one I’d long forgotten: the 1983 hit “Salt in My Tears” by Martin Briley. It’s still good, cheesy ’80s video notwithstanding. (Incidentally, Briley never had another hit of his own, but has apparently had a boffo career writing and producing songs for other people. To which I say, “Well played.” So to speak.)

Will that be ranch, Thousand Island, balsamic vinaigrette, or just a little lemon juice?

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