First off, let me apologize for my rant in my last post. The world is small, and one must just deal with it. So that’s what I’m going to do: deal, not rant.

I was in Lake Tahoe this weekend with some friends and decided to try snowboarding for the first time in about two years. I started about five or six years ago when I was dating C.C. He had a friend who lived in Tahoe, and we’d get season passes and go up just about every other weekend in winter. I took lessons, I bought gear, and after two seasons, I was a decent blue (intermediate) snowboarder. Then we broke up.

Then I dated D.D., whose family had a house in Tahoe. We went snowboarding together twice (the first time, I ran into C.C. on the slopes. Awkward…). Then we broke up.

Then I stopped snowboarding. It was too expensive, I didn’t have many friends who went, blah blah blah. Plus, I never really got very good.

Or so I thought. This weekend, I took a lesson, and I immediately started linking turns again. My instructor took me to an intermediate hill and helped me work on my speed. And guess what? I was decent! She said my form was great! All I have to work on is speed, she said!

Both C.C. and D.D. did the “helpful guy” thing of trying to be my teacher, as opposed to a fun activity partner, when we’d ride together. With both of them, I’d tell them that I didn’t want any more advice, I didn’t want them to teach me, I wanted to ride by myself because it wasn’t fun to ride with them, etc.

But guys like to fix problems, and as much as I tried to set expectations, I wasn’t explicit enough to overcome their need to help me become a better snowboarder. (As a side note, I’ve been thinking lately about how guys always want to help fix things, yet they mostly offer to help with the stuff you can fix yourself. Why don’t they offer more with the hard stuff, the things you really need their help with?)

It was a bad pattern. Both of them would offer advice that, when I followed it, I’d catch an edge and totally conk my head. (I realized in my lesson today that they were offering advice for someone about three levels higher than me. Snowboarding was so easy for them that they lost perspective.) I completely lost confidence in my ability, and in both relationships, something that could have been a fun activity for us to do together because a source of contention and frustration.

So this weekend, when all the other couples went off skiing together, I, the lone single girl went off snowboarding by herself. And I had a blast. I rode the same run over and over, working on my skills. I remembered why I loved it in the first place. In one two-hour lesson, I felt that I got most of my technique back. (My legs were exhausted, but at least I knew what to do!)

And so I decided: I’m never snowboarding with someone I’m dating until I get much, much better. It’s great to find someone who loves to do the things you love to do, but when you start to not love that thing because of the dynamic you have with that person, you need to change something. I think I’m mature enough now that I can say, “Yes, let’s go snowboarding together, and when I say ‘together,’ I mean, ‘I’ll go off on my own, you go off on your own, and we’ll meet for lunch.’”