What constitutes a lasting relationship? I sure as hell don't know. Does anyone? It seems that love is something we are all striving for, something we all want an outline for. After all, aren't there countless books and magazine articles and online posts trying to give us some insight? I admit, whenever my Glamour magazine shows up and I see there's an article on relationships it's one of the first things I read. Whenever I'm in a relationship I devour every online article I come across on Facebook hoping to see signs saying the man I'm with is The One. Conclusion? Nobody knows what they're talking about. If they did I'm pretty sure I would not be sitting here at the age of 36 with no boyfriend, having never even come close to marriage or having never even lived with a man, still reeling from a breakup I did not see coming. But if nothing else being single more than taken over the years has allowed me to sit back and really soul search about what I'm looking for in The Future Mr. Summer Sattora. I think it boils down to reality over fantasy.
Who doesn't love fantasy? (I mean more along the rom-com romance novel line. not Fifty Shades. This is not that kind of blog.) What girl doesn't swoon when the cars pull away and Jake Ryan is standing there, leaning against his car, waiting for Samantha? Who hasn't cried at the end of Never Been Kissed? Who hasn't sighed a little when the absolutely smoking hot guy just seems to get and understand the quirky not-so-popular or not-so-attractive girl? You get what I'm saying. We are led to believe that when we find The One our eyes will meet, the world will fade away, and we will instantly know this person on a deeper level that we can't even explain to other people. Our dating life will be a montage ending in a beautiful wedding and laughter and forever. And I call bullshit. Oh, sure, I'm sure for some people this is how they met their partner. I concede that for some people some or all of what I just wrote is true for them. But for a lot of people, based on my observations, that isn't how it happens. I think it's good to have the fantasy and the daydream. Sure, I've spent many a minute on my bus ride to work fantasizing about Ryan Paevey coming to Rochester and being instantly taken with me. But at the end of the day I know it's not real, and that's okay. Having the fantasy helps me, as a hopeless/hopeful romantic, keep the dream alive. It helps me to not give up when everything inside me is telling me I should.
But at the end of the day, as much as Jake Ryan makes me swoon, I want real. I don't want a lightning bolt or an instant connection. (I mean, really, has anyone seen an episode of The Bachelor?) I want to look at a man and say "I can see myself building a future with you. I can see us growing from where we are now and enjoying getting to know each other. I see us laughing and fighting and crying and supporting and loving and being annoyed and everything that you do and feel with a person for the next fifty or sixty years." That is sexier and more romantic to me than any rom-com moment. But then again, maybe that's my version of the fantasy and it doesn't exist. I mean, I actually thought I kind of had that and it turned out I was really wrong and that he was looking for the fantasy not the reality. He wanted all-consuming and I didn't. He wanted can't live can't breathe without you instant love. I wanted let's be our own people and enhance each other with our differences love. I wanted to be pushed out of my comfort zone and he wanted to stay in his. It sucks, but at the end of the day, I guess he was right to end things. If we both have different ideas of "the fantasy" then how are we going to come together in "reality?"
Then again, maybe when you find The One it's a melding of these two. Maybe there's an instant connection but you still feel the room to grow. Maybe you find a way to spend massive amounts of time together and yet still be individual. Maybe he sweeps you off your feet and then the next week he sweeps your apartment. Like I've said, clearly I don't know what goes in to a perfect lasting relationship. I guess it must be that elusive "it factor" that people who are in love can't explain they just know it's there. I just know I want something that will grow in to a marriage, not a wedding. And there's enough fantasy in me to keep the hope of the reality alive for now. So I'll cry my tears, get myself confident in myself and my singleness again, and then give it another shot. One thing being in seminary has taught me is that I need to learn to take chances and I need to be open. It's okay to not know where I'm going and to trust in the journey, even if I struggle with that at times. And I guess ultimately I keep coming back to a lyric from the song "When The Right One Comes Along" (which is my wedding song. Yes I have my wedding song picked out. Don't judge.) I'll end this blog post with it and put it out to the universe as a reminder that all the lists and must-haves and can't-haves in the world won't matter when I finally get it right:
"You think you know what you're looking for til what you're looking for finds you."
Friday, March 20, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
A Little More Conversation
I got passively aggressively dumped yesterday by email. Yes, by email. It started as a conversation the night before when the man I had been seeing said "I don't know how much we have in common." At another point he said "There's just so much we don't know about each other." We had a brief serious conversation, the first one we had really had in our fledgling relationship. I suggested we continue this conversation over the weekend so we could find out what we have in common and we could talk about these things. He agreed. The next morning, after thinking about what he said (because I was blindsided and therefore had had no chance to formulate arguments or opinions about my side of things) I sent him an email briefly saying some of what I was feeling but still emphasizing we would talk in person. He replied, I won't go in to too much detail here because it isn't mine to share, basically that he just wasn't feeling it and that we could try going on some "fact finding dates" but he didn't feel they would lead anywhere and that if I still wanted to talk we could but he wouldn't be around the next couple days but I could call him if I wanted although he felt we would still end up in the same place we were now. See? Passively aggressively dumped.
Now, having a conversation does take two people so I certainly do not hold myself blameless. If you read my previous blog post you know that I have been struggling with fear. For once in a relationship I was letting myself sit back and enjoy the now, not worrying about the future. It was refreshing to just take it one day at a time and not be constantly thinking "But where is this going?!" I knew that we were getting to the point where we were going to have to have that "where are we going" talk but I wasn't quite there yet. So perhaps I am guilty of not voicing my fears earlier or not pushing those deep conversations to see what we had in common at a base level. I was content to have our dates be cuddling in front of Netflix or The Blacklist and keeping conversations more surface. But again, a conversation takes two people and it's not like he brought these things up either.
But if a conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue, how can that happen if one person doesn't even let the other one speak? And that's what is making me angry the day after. The ideas of "not much in common" and "we don't know that much about each other" may be true, but if the conversation went on in the other person's head and I didn't get to participate, how do we know? How can you throw those statements out there and then not even take the time to find out if that's true? How do you not take the chance that your preconceived notions of how I'm like may be wrong? I admit, I'm not comfortable with these heavy deep emotional conversations. The idea of sitting down and throwing everything out on the table, like I thought we were going to do, is nerve wracking. So I can certainly understand the desire to avoid the conversation altogether or to send the type of email I received. But aren't we adults? Shouldn't we be able to do this? And if one wants to be in a healthy, mature, adult relationship shouldn't one want to have these conversations? How else are you supposed to grow with someone in a relationship if you don't allow them, or yourself to participate? Because as much as I held back, whatever my reasons, he held back as well.
We are all guilty of having conversations with someone in our head. The person we have a crush on, someone we haven't spoken with in a while, the customer at work who pissed us off, etc. We imagine how the conversation would go and we get to put words in the other person's mouth and dictate the direction of the conversation. It can go exactly how we want it to and we will always come out on top. I think that may be the type of conversation that happened before my date the other night that led to all this. While he asked me about school and what I wanted to do when I graduated, I feel (looking back) that he had already had this conversation, at least partially, in his head prior to this. Since I wasn't there I obviously don't know what I said prior to Thursday, I only know what I said at dinner. If apparently something I said triggered a flight response, shouldn't we have talked about that? Instead it was like it was the last straw and was justification for saying "Religion makes me uncomfortable and your not knowing about your future worries me so I need to bail." I'm not sure what my response was for him, but I know what it would've been in a face-to-face conversation: "What about religion makes you uncomfortable? Let's talk about that. Why does being uncertain about the future worry you? Let's talk about that. We can see if there's a way to move past this together." Or something like that. Who knows? I never got the chance. (Side note: I stated right in my dating profile what I was going to school for so it's not like religion being important to me was a surprise.)
I could certainly go on and on, allowing myself to debate the points he had brought up and using this blog to get my specific points across. But as much as I want to, I won't. That's a conversation between he and I, unfortunately one I was never allowed to have. Maybe I will some day, who knows. The world is a funny and odd place and certainly never what you expect. I hope that in his next relationship he is able to have the conversations with her he wouldn't have with me. I hope in my next relationship, if there is one, that I can as well. I hope he is willing to take a chance on someone who makes him a little uncomfortable. I hope I take a chance on anyone (since this is certainly not helping with the whole fear thing, although that's a blog for another time). And I hope, if nothing else, that you out there will realize that conversations and dialogues are important, especially when they're hard. Don't hold back. Don't assume, Allow the other person to participate. Who knows what the truth is otherwise?
Now, having a conversation does take two people so I certainly do not hold myself blameless. If you read my previous blog post you know that I have been struggling with fear. For once in a relationship I was letting myself sit back and enjoy the now, not worrying about the future. It was refreshing to just take it one day at a time and not be constantly thinking "But where is this going?!" I knew that we were getting to the point where we were going to have to have that "where are we going" talk but I wasn't quite there yet. So perhaps I am guilty of not voicing my fears earlier or not pushing those deep conversations to see what we had in common at a base level. I was content to have our dates be cuddling in front of Netflix or The Blacklist and keeping conversations more surface. But again, a conversation takes two people and it's not like he brought these things up either.
But if a conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue, how can that happen if one person doesn't even let the other one speak? And that's what is making me angry the day after. The ideas of "not much in common" and "we don't know that much about each other" may be true, but if the conversation went on in the other person's head and I didn't get to participate, how do we know? How can you throw those statements out there and then not even take the time to find out if that's true? How do you not take the chance that your preconceived notions of how I'm like may be wrong? I admit, I'm not comfortable with these heavy deep emotional conversations. The idea of sitting down and throwing everything out on the table, like I thought we were going to do, is nerve wracking. So I can certainly understand the desire to avoid the conversation altogether or to send the type of email I received. But aren't we adults? Shouldn't we be able to do this? And if one wants to be in a healthy, mature, adult relationship shouldn't one want to have these conversations? How else are you supposed to grow with someone in a relationship if you don't allow them, or yourself to participate? Because as much as I held back, whatever my reasons, he held back as well.
We are all guilty of having conversations with someone in our head. The person we have a crush on, someone we haven't spoken with in a while, the customer at work who pissed us off, etc. We imagine how the conversation would go and we get to put words in the other person's mouth and dictate the direction of the conversation. It can go exactly how we want it to and we will always come out on top. I think that may be the type of conversation that happened before my date the other night that led to all this. While he asked me about school and what I wanted to do when I graduated, I feel (looking back) that he had already had this conversation, at least partially, in his head prior to this. Since I wasn't there I obviously don't know what I said prior to Thursday, I only know what I said at dinner. If apparently something I said triggered a flight response, shouldn't we have talked about that? Instead it was like it was the last straw and was justification for saying "Religion makes me uncomfortable and your not knowing about your future worries me so I need to bail." I'm not sure what my response was for him, but I know what it would've been in a face-to-face conversation: "What about religion makes you uncomfortable? Let's talk about that. Why does being uncertain about the future worry you? Let's talk about that. We can see if there's a way to move past this together." Or something like that. Who knows? I never got the chance. (Side note: I stated right in my dating profile what I was going to school for so it's not like religion being important to me was a surprise.)
I could certainly go on and on, allowing myself to debate the points he had brought up and using this blog to get my specific points across. But as much as I want to, I won't. That's a conversation between he and I, unfortunately one I was never allowed to have. Maybe I will some day, who knows. The world is a funny and odd place and certainly never what you expect. I hope that in his next relationship he is able to have the conversations with her he wouldn't have with me. I hope in my next relationship, if there is one, that I can as well. I hope he is willing to take a chance on someone who makes him a little uncomfortable. I hope I take a chance on anyone (since this is certainly not helping with the whole fear thing, although that's a blog for another time). And I hope, if nothing else, that you out there will realize that conversations and dialogues are important, especially when they're hard. Don't hold back. Don't assume, Allow the other person to participate. Who knows what the truth is otherwise?
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