Emotional Cripple

I'll be honest. I spent the last six months dating a guy who I thought would eventually turn around and realize what a catch I was.  However, my fairy tale didn't turn out as planned. In fact, it turned out as opposite as I planned. I turned around and realized that I didn't need to continue dating him.  


There are guys who you meet and who you will become involved with where you know that they have been hurt in the past in one fashion or another.  You, are the fiesty, hard-headed, Protestant American, with a "go-forth" attitude in trying to make something with this guy because of your connection. However, there is a wall that is preventing the two of you from getting together.  


It is not that your connection is wrong or that the two of you couldn't be right for one another, but the challenge is in the line in the sand that the guy makes in a self-defense manner.  He doesn't want to get hurt again so it is easier to be emotionally crippled; to not deal with the emotions and the pain again, the drama he calls it. You try to understand, try to be sympthetic and wait until he comes around and is so engrossed by your strength and beauty and drive that it forces him out of the shell he has crammed his emotions into.  


But the fact is no matter how great you are or caring in the attempt to demonstrate that you're not like the one who hurt him, that you are in fact going to be there and care for him, you can't.  You can't crack his shell no matter what you do.  It has to come from himself.  He has to want his shell to come open and try again.  If he is not willing to lay his heart open, even with caution, then there is nothing you can do to make him do it.  


So leave it be. Let him lay with himself, with his lack of emotion and his inability to feel.  Because you can feel and you feel how much it truly is hurting you. You can feel the neglect. You can feel the void. 


Eventually if a relationship is what you are searching for but are unable to obtain it from your emotional cripple, you need to walk away.  It is better to make the decision to walk away from a man's indecision and unemotional attachment to you.  Rather than allowing weeks of dating to turn into months, or years, waiting for him to wake up and notice what is at his side, walk away.  


Truthfully, he might never wake up, no matter how great and understanding you are. You have to walk away for you. You are a feeling human being and you need to spend your time on someone who is willing to put his heart next to yours.  Sure it still might not bring you happily ever after with the next guy but you won't be waiting for the emotional cripple to explain to you that he is never coming around to be with you. 


Get out while you can and find a man who has a past, accepts it, and wants a chance to link his heart with yours.

Jumping Through Hoops

There are some people who have these awe-inspiring love stories of a couple who went through hell and back in order to be together. There are couples who endured some long distance because of jobs.  There are couples who have to fight back against resistance from friends, family, and/or traditions.  There are couples who had to an extreme juggling act between work, family, and other commitments.  But there are also couples who only jump through the hoops of everyday life: The balancing act between work, family, friends, and extras that make you an individual.

I think the important thing to remember in a relationship is that there needs to be a little hoop jumping.  Not because it needs to be this big gesture, which it is, but because when you jump through some hoops to be with someone (to experience a big day for them, to make a trip to visit their family in California, to buy something you know they need) you demonstrate not only to them, but to everyone else that you are committed to this person in your life. You aren't just showing up in their life. You're making effort.

Every good relationship needs effort to be made. And both parties need to be willing to jump through hoops now and again in order to make the relationship work.

18 Year Old Girls

As we get older, women are told, "the younger version of ourselves are coming. Coming to take our jobs. Coming to take our husbands."  I always thought that it was something that was said on Sex and the City.  I didn't believe this really happened in real life. 


Until it did. Until I was replaced by a newly graduated high school senior.  


I was amazed. Enraged. Upset. Confused. Baffled. Taken Aback.  Hurt. 


I couldn't understand how this little girl with limited life experience had gone in and swooped up this guy who I thought was a man who valued experience and knowledge in the women he was dating.  A guy who has had his fair share of experiences.  What the hell could they possibly have in common? What the hell could they talk about?


What I think hurt the most is that he never was forthcoming about it all. I had to find out from someone else. I had to find out that I was being phased out.  Because he wasn't man enough, or mature enough to tell me himself, even though he was given multiple opportunities.  


Then again, maybe in this instance it isn't the 18 year old girls who are the enemy.  Maybe it's the guys we are dating. They are the enemy because they choose to be immature. They choose to play with our feelings. They choose to act like they are 18 year boys who don't know any better and don't care to.  Maybe the enemy isn't the little girl who thinks she is charming with her stupidity; maybe it's really the guy who choosing her young stupidity over a woman who has a clue and knows her worth.  


I knew my worth. I knew I was exhausted of the dating game we were playing and even if that 18 year old hadn't stumbled in, I was throwing in the towel if he wasn't going to make our relationship official.  


She just gave me a better out. She gave me a better reason to see the guy for who he really was (or was trying to be again) and I was able to walk away without feeling like I had made a rash decision to end things.  


Maybe 18 year old girls are good for something. 


Maybe they are like these big road block signs, with the flashing lights that line highways during the summer. Maybe the 18 year old girls who come in and swoop up the men we are dating show us that we aren't with someone who is serious, committed, or interested in true worth and value.  Those 18 year old girls show us what we've really been dealing with all along and what has been hidden beneath an experienced facade of a boy posing as a man.