This blog post is somewhat of a purge for me. I needed to get it out.
I have a crap track record with men.
I say men, but my track record with women is equally as bad,
sadly I have not even gotten close to a relationship (or otherwise) with a
woman for more years than I would like to admit. When I finally meet one that
is as interested in me as I am in her, then maybe we’ll have a story to tell.
Back to men. So I’ve gotten to the point that I’ve had so
much ‘bad luck’ with men that I’m coming to the realisation that it may not be
luck anymore… it may be me.
Now before you all jump on the self-esteem boosting bandwagon, its fine! I have a pretty healthy self-esteem most of the time. I’m slightly overweight if you ask my doctor, but I don’t and I recently have come to love the way I look in the mirror. Like actually stop, look at myself naked and think “you look good!”. I like this, it makes me very happy to finally accept the bumps and curves and the bits that the media airbrush out as imperfections. I still hate the bit under my chin, but everyone has their things.
The self-acceptance started a while back when I started
looking in the mirror and thinking I actually looked pretty. I don’t know why I
had never felt that way before, I know my mother tried to instil self
confidence in me, but my peers at all levels of schooling managed to find every
chink in my underdeveloped armour and they breached any confidence I had. I’m a
redhead, who had braces, still has slightly crooked teeth and I wear glasses.
Now I know I can pull off a version of sexy librarian, but back then I was just
an outlet for school yard teasing.
Anyway, the one place I have never developed confidence is
in relationships. It doesn’t really matter who the relationship is with, I’m a
disaster.
I’ve never had a relationship last longer than about 18
months. I’ve lived with four partners, none of which worked out (obviously). I’ve
meet people through the internet, through friends, through the theatre but
never through work. I’ve fallen in love a couple of times. But mostly what I do
is drive people away.
I had one relationship end after over a year with my partner
telling me she had never loved me. After we had made a life together in
Australia, away from almost all my friends and all of my family. I stayed in
Australia for another 3 years after that, mainly just to prove I didn’t move
there just for her.
One ended when we were living together, I came home from
work sick and he muted the football on the tele to tell me he was breaking up
with me. This wasn’t the first time we had broken up – originally he just
stopped calling/texting me after 6 months together. It was like he fell off the
face of the earth. His family actually got us back together after that.
I’d been dating one guy for 3 months and he broke up with me
on Facebook chat. He then convinced me to see him again… behind his girlfriend’s
back, for another 8 months (something I am not proud of by the way) before they
moved to England together. Three months later he was back on Facebook chat
telling me that losing me was the biggest mistake of his life. I just felt
dirty.
I had one relationship that he wanted to keep from everyone –
which I hated – he managed to keep it quiet for about 3 months before everyone
found out. He had cheated on me before that happened which I didn’t find out
until after I broke up with him (and had felt bad about doing so!!)
These are only a few of the ways I let myself down in relationships…
yes, in these examples, for the most part, the other person had faults and did
some shitty things, but realistically, I let them happen.
I put up with things I shouldn’t have. I became more
obsessed about being someone’s plus one that I ignored the fact they didn’t
want to take me to their work functions. That they weren’t there for me when it
counted, like the guy who wouldn’t drive me from Tauranga to Auckland to see my
father when he had a heart attack and I was so messed up I didn’t think I
should drive (I did drive, I had too).
My poor friends who have had to sit through me justifying
every mistake or faux pa that someone I’ve been dating has made. I said to
someone yesterday, my subtitle should be ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’.
I build people up into these perfect partners-to-be and then
when they don’t fit the mould, I try to make them fit. I talk them up to myself
and then when they don’t meet expectations I get annoyed at them and then
wonder why they react in a negative way.
Not only that, but in today’s online world, it’s so easy to perceive
slights. You have no idea what someone else is doing, going through, how busy
they are, but you assume that when you are free they are. So if you post a
picture of something (new dress, new shoes, new hair, a sunset etc…) you
expect a response because you’ve seen them respond to others posts during the
day and can’t understand why not yours.
Except, if you take a step back, you can understand why.
Because I get obsessed. I get fixated on how I want my life to be. I forget
that I need to live my life for me, before anyone else can join me.
I’m 34 years old and I’ve never felt sexier, more beautiful,
better dressed, been as good with money, had as many things to look forward to
as I have at any time in my life so far. I’m body confident and I’m embarking
on new adventures every day. I just need to relax the muscles around my heart and
draw back the octopus tentacles that suction themselves to every eligible male
who deigns to show an interest and carry on with my life.
Maybe someone will show up and be attracted to that me, and
maybe I can just have some fun along the way, but I’m never going to enjoy life
if I over analyse everything as it goes past.
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