Love and relationships, love and relationships… God, it seems like that’s all I’ve been talking about over the past week and it’s making me uncomfortable. Not because I’m in that whiny I-wish-I-weren’t-single mode – I’m long, long over that phase and well into the getting-into-a-relationship-terrifies-the-shit-out-of-me phase. Actually, maybe terrified is too strong of a word. I don’t think I’m terrified of too much anymore, except maybe the Spice Girls splitting up again. I don’t think I’d be able to live through that twice.
Anyway. What’s making me uncomfortable about these conversations is that the things I’m saying to my friends involved in these situations often relate directly to me. Like, I might as well be looking in the mirror when I say what I say.
For example, I was out for dinner with a girlfriend who was admitting to her insane jealousy streak with her boyfriend. So I asked her, why is she so jealous? She responded bluntly, “Because every guy I’ve ever dated has cheated on me.”
“So why are you so afraid of commitment that you keep choosing these guys?” I asked.
She stopped and just blinked for a few minutes as she digested what I said. “I… don’t know.”
“When you figure that out, the guys you choose will change,” I told her.
How do I know this? Because I’ve done it so many times in the past. I’ve chosen and stayed with the boyfriend who cheated on me because not only did I not think I deserved someone who could be devoted to me, but because actually committing to someone who could commit to me freaked me out. I’ve dated the emotionally unavailable man more times than I can count because in the back of my mind I know there’s an out clause. At some point he will shut down, giving me the opportunity to jump into clingy mode to drive him further away until I can make things crumble, and if it doesn’t happen soon enough I turn into SuperBitch until it ends. And then I bitch and moan about how I have another failed relationship under my belt, but I’m secretly pleased because despite the initial discomfort of a break-up, it’s way easier to be with myself than it is to share myself with someone else.
This kind of segues into a text argument I got in with Sharolyn. I was telling her how much the concept of a man liking me in that way made me want to break out in a cold sweat. Because although I know that I’ve changed dramatically in the last year and a half, I also don’t know what this me would be like in a relationship. I don’t yet know if I would make the same mistakes and act the same way, and while I realize I don’t know until I get involved, all I have to go on is past experience. And I realize thinking this way sets me up for disaster. But I have to have my freak-out moments to process things sometimes.
Anyway. During the course of the conversation I said to her, “Nobody can love me the way I can love me,” which is finally true. After spending years of beating myself up for not being this or not looking like that, I finally accept who and what I am. And it’s not that I don’t want someone else to love me, but the key is I no longer need someone else to love me… and there’s a big difference.
“You know you’re better than that,” she wrote back, and yeah, maybe I do. But I’m still afraid to talk about it. And I don’t know that I’ll be able to talk about it unless the right man comes along.
And then she said, “But someone else loving you should add to that love, not take it away.”
It got too uncomfortable to talk about. So I went to bed and stopped answering.
But back to the friend discussions thing. Another friend of mine is in the throes of a new romance, which is beautiful to watch. (Actually, several of my friends are in the throes of new romances. Is fall the new spring?) The problem is she feels like he’s giving her the brush off and not spending time with her.
“Are you telling him you want to spend time with him?” I asked her.
“Yeah.”
“How are you telling him?”
She sighed. “Well, I keep telling him my schedule and he never invites me out.”
I laughed. “So you’ve never actually told him, ‘I want to see you tonight.’”
“No,” she said. “Should I?”
“Yes! How is he supposed to know you want to spend time with him unless you tell him? Hints don’t work – you have to be obtuse because they don’t speak in subtleties the way we do! Have you ever told him how you feel?”
“Sorta?”
Translation? No. How do I know? Because I’ve done this more times than I can count. There are ways in which telling someone “I Love You” is easy, because it’s just something you toss out there like “hello” and “goodbye” – like a reflex. And there are ways of telling someone “I Love You” that are incredibly hard because it comes from the depths of your soul. At least, that’s what I believe. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve said the second kind of “I Love you,” and then I’ve stopped saying it out of fear. Because what happens if he loves me back, really and truly? What happens if he can totally 100% accept the fact that sometimes I’m neurotic (like now), or that there are days where I refuse to wear make-up and pile my hair in a mess on top of my head, or that I will spend enough money to purchase a third world country on many tickets to see Madonna on the same tour over and over again, or that I sometimes get indigestion (but not gas, because that’s gross)? What happens then?
Oh, look at the time. I have to be at the airport shortly and I haven’t even packed.
(Convenient, no?)
There may be blogging from Thailand. But just in case there’s not, here’s my final thought until my return:
Target already has their Christmas stocking in, boys and girls. I so cannot wait to come home and decorate my place… in the five days I have at home before I leave again.
See ya – I’m off to ride elephants.
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