If you are close to me, or hell, even if you're just meeting me, you will probably gather quickly that I don't have the best luck when it comes to men.
Let's start from the beginning. My infatuation with humans of the opposite sex started when I was just a wee little tot trampling through the planet. My mother told me that I would just go up to little boys on the street and try to hold their hands. Or kiss them. And in kindergarten, I even came home exclaiming that I had married one of them.
The point is I have always loved boys, I always will, and whether I like to admit it or not, they take up a good 25% more of my brain space then they ever should.
The problem here lies in the fact that as much as I love boys, I have let few boys who truly love me into my life.
At 23 the list of men I have accumulated in my dating history is advanced to say the least. I have been on (and off and then on again) OKCupid at least five (? I really don't know) separate times. I have kissed upwards of a hundred men randomly found in streets and bars and venues all over the globe (yes, the globe). I have flirted and teased and admired from afar. Just today I saw this man walking past me and I actually stopped mid walk, and followed him with my gaze like a giant creep-o because he was SO DAMN ATTRACTIVE LORD HELP ME WHERE ARE THIS MEN FABRICATED?!
I'd say I probably fall madly in love at least three times a day.
But while I find myself constantly falling in love with these men of the world, there are very few that I have actually liked. I mean really liked. These men cause a stampede of butterfly's through my core that give most the delight and euphoric sense they are falling in love.
It gives me indigestion.
I have spent years building up a titanium fortress around my heart so they can't get in again. Who do you think you are just knocking all that down in five minutes? I SAID WHO SIR?!
Let's note the wonderful (and I say that because they really are) men I have fallen for have always chased after me first. They have not been the most handsome, the funniest, the most financially (or physically) well endowed. But for some reason I can't help but becoming obsessed with every single part of their being. Things like how that one tooth on the bottom row, right in the front, is crooked or the sound of their laugh or the fact that they put coffee in their cereal because they don't like the taste of milk. These traits and attributes are permanently seared in my memory and are no more exceptional than any other human's weirdness except for the fact that it is THEIR'S.
These men pursue me for a said period of time while I try to run far, far away (because I already know where this is going) but can't seem to pick my feet up from off the ground. I am emotionally paralyzed. Aware of what's to come but succumbing to the delightful and semi-nauseating feelings of all those butterflies frenzied in my soul.
Until one day, just like that, they're gone.
We spend an amazing day, or night together. Maybe I had just bought them a bagel and kissed them goodbye as they were boarding the train home for Thanksgiving. Or we had just slept together on my friends daybed talking about what we've done that we've been most proud of in our life to date. I've stared into their eyes as I've said goodbye. Kissed them. Watched them walk away. Never to be seen again. Never even heard from them again. Even if in the days following I had the stupidity to text or call and say "Hey, whatsup? Where have you been? Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?"
Am I doing something wrong?
My lovely girlfriends say things like "No, Lauren, you're just picking the wrong men" "They are just intimidated by your greatness" "Boys are just dumb"
My male friends would say "They're just not interested anymore, Laur".
And after one, maybe even two mishaps any girl could easily delude herself into the pointing the finger at the penis clad child or just brushing it off to a lack of interest.
But at this point, I know there's got to be something wrong with me.
And not me in the sense that I did something WRONG because I didn't. I've always been nothing but the COOLEST MOTHERFUCKING HUMAN (I said coolest, not calmest). But there's obviously a problem.
There's a pattern. It's so calculated I could draw up the blueprints. I don't even know how my friends have been so gracious with me through all of these.
Even my therapist has had it.
The meeting, the falling, the obsessing over, the disappearing act.
Just call me the Houdini of the dating world.
I'll never truly know why these particular men just fall off the planet the way they do. I mean they'll never have the courage to say why, that's why they felt the need to disappear in the first place.
And I know I'm not alone in this. My girl friend told me she calls it the "Island of Lost Men" but anyone who disappears from a relationship (no matter how casual or serious) with another like that isn't a man so I'm reclaiming it.
My most recent disappearing act was this kid who came up to me at a festival and asked me to dance, with the most innocent of intentions, who I spent a wonderful hot, sweaty, three days in a tent with. I have let him sail off to join the rest with a pain in my heart but an understanding that there's nothing more I can do if they want to go.
And with that I have gathered what's left and sailed off to my own Island of Lost Souls to search for the validation in my own life. That is, again, so apparently missing.
Because no boy, no matter how awesome, or stupid, or just plain ignorant should have the ability to send me tumbling into these black holes of depression and self loathing.
Where's my undying love for myself?
The only undying love I have had in my life (besides from my terrific and seriously under appreciated parental units) has been from my friends. My gay best friend who'll have my favorite wine and cheese plate already waiting when I visit him at work. My insanely fierce girlfriend who inspired me to write this blog (see: chelseatwentysomething.blogspot.com). My other insanely fierce girlfriend who came up with the name for this blog in five minutes while I had been mulling over it for a week with no success. My incredible roommates who I am have been blessed to make a home with and my life long girlfriends who knew me before I even grew tits.
They are gems among gems and have provided me with a stable and constant love. Every story of me meeting a guy, allowing said male to bend, break, rip, kick, spit at my self worth leaving it cold and lonely in a ditch is followed by my friends picking it back up, feeding it love, and repeating- until I get it through my thick skull-- that my self worth is not defined by the actions of these men.
And that I should probably get my shit together.
And having the love of these beautiful humans is always enough for me to get back up and try, try again. Because if they're still there at the end of the day, than I must be doing something right.
Until next time,
Your (maybe) Broken (but very hopeful) Record
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