I guess my Valentine’s Day blurb was a little bit of a downer. It’s not that I’ve never had a man tell me that he loves me or that I haven’t dated. I’ve even dated one person for quite a while. It’s just that I get this weird dynamic. There’s a line. Of course, no one is perfect and sometimes those flaws cause concern in those that love you. Sometimes the object of your affection mentions his concern about these issues. The problem is when the list of concerns is so long that to change everything would turn you into a totally different person. It is then that the person doesn’t really love you but some figment of his imagination that encompasses the list of things that are supposedly wrong with you. This is especially true when these list of flaws aren’t really flaws but just incompatible personality traits.

Hrm. So yeah. I’ve been in love. Has anyone other than my family ever actually loved me back in that romantic way? I’m not so sure. Probably never.

I haven’t had good luck at all.

  • My first love and longest relationship ended badly–complete with the telling me he never loved me. He later confessed that he cheated on me when we went out: seven times.
  • There was the guy who ended up falling in love with my best friend and began dating her behind my back when he was supposed to be dating me. The part that got me was the sheer numbers of people who knew and didn’t tell me. He had this compulsive lying thing going. We were friends for years. He even told me that he loved me when I moved to DC. Of course, he had lied to me so much about so many other things that I thought he was playing a mind game on me. So either he played the cruelest mind game or I am a bitch who snickered at a man who put himself out there.
  • There was the guy who dumped me the day after I got my period in a pregnancy scare. He dumped me during the Princess Bride. Well he turned off the VCR on the Princess Pride. In the span of a week, he told me that he loved me and wanted to spend his whole life with me, he shouted, “thank god I won’t be poor!’ when I told him I got my period, and then he dumped me during the Princess Bride. Later when he found out I was sexually assaulted in college, he of course decided I was lying and went to a mutual friend and wanted me kicked out of school. Mutual friend talked him down. But yeah I was lying. Kick her out of school. He told me the world would be better off if I would just kill myself. Well. I could go on and on. I know, in theory, there are good points about this person. There has to be something wonderful that attracted me to him in the first place but I don’t remember what they are. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind would be GREAT FOR THIS DUDE.
  • Date rapist. Enough said.
  • Peruvian car wash dude. He barely spoke English. He wanted a stay at home wife to take care of his babies. I wanted to go to law school. Shortlived as it was, it might be the best healthiest relationship I ever had. Oh and BEST SEX EVER!
  • Turned out to be married
  • Dated a while. Told him I was raped. Never spoke to me again
  • Intern here for the summer. Turned out to be boring.
  • Turned out to be a meth head. Very short lived,

So you see, there’s more than a little bit of heartbreak. For reasons that make no sense, I don’t get the “let’s just be friends.” I get the over the top style rejection.

I wish I had the confidence to just go for it. I hear friends ask the question, “What’s the worst that could happen.” Well I know all too well what the worst actually is.

How often can you get slapped in the face or disappointed until you just give up? How much humiliation can one person take?

And every time I say I’m going to be all adult and high self esteem and it’s not going to bother me but it does. It does bother me. It’s always a kick in the stomach, followed by a little bit of discombobulation, and then the realization that the world is a cold place.

I’ll feel better tomorrow.