It has long been my conviction that when it comes to matters of love, sex, and dating; everyone is a douche.
Yes, even you.
And me.
Especially me.
Think about it; we spend a lot of time talking about how men are all assholes. Guys probably spend almost as much time talking about how all women are crazy. Besides the fact that this begs the questions “do crazy women turn men into assholes or do men make women go crazy,” (Which came first; the chicken or the egg?) it sets a pretty universal standard of douchery.
Several months ago when I was still reeling from everything I was going through, I ended up in one of those man bashing sessions with a few of my friends who were recently single and/or in an “it’s complicated” relationship. The end result of every story about every guy was, “what an asshole.”
Besides the fact that I hate that word (I’m using it because it’s the one I always hear used), I couldn’t help but object to the sentiment. I mean, I knew a few of these guys and I thought that they were quite nice.
The blame game is easy but unproductive. With one last pronouncement of yet another guy being an asshole, I couldn’t help it. I interjected, “Yeah, but I feel like when it comes to matters of love; everyone’s a douche.”
“I mean, we’re in this constant tension, especially at the beginning, of trying to share just enough of ourselves to know if it’s a fit while also trying to protect ourselves just in case it isn’t. It’s a push-pull situation that is such a fine line to walk. Of course we screw up sometimes and hurt people. It’s part of the package. It gets even worse that hormones and sex cloud our judgment so much. Sometimes it’s really hard to not jump his bones.”
A majority of my friends are guys and maybe that’s why I can’t just make this generalization. Then again, maybe it also has something to do with that jar of marbles analogy my mother brought up every other day when I was growing up to make sure I remembered that every person has a different perception of things and that their side is just as valid.
I still shudder every time I see a jar of marbles.
And then I remember how we turned it into a dirty joke in college… story for another time.
It’s really hard to put yourself out there in that vulnerable place of seeing if another person is right for you. I realize that I’ve become particularly jaded and somewhat heartless in the aftermath of all that I’ve been though. I wonder if, at this point, I’d recognize potential if it fell right in my lap.
Not like that…
Maybe like that.
As I go back and forth between wanting love and not wanting to have anything to do with any squishy emotions I realize that I’m probably not ready to be back in the dating world. I’ve been the girl who leads someone on an emotional wild goose chase and I don’t want to do that again. I’ve been the girl who’s had the back-up boy in an effort to have an emotional out, just in case I was in danger of getting hurt. I’m sure you can imagine the hot mess that created. I’ve also been the heartbroken girl who had to pick up the pieces and move on.
I’d really like to not repeat any of those roles, though I accept that the last one will probably happen again at some point.
I’m not really sure how one goes about this whole business of relationship readiness but for the moment I’m just doing my best to continue to rebuild my life and to be responsible for my own happiness. As a strong, vivacious, and happy woman I’ll have much more to bring to the table and I’ll probably expect more as well.
I can’t wait for the next time someone plops into my life with that undeniable something about them that makes me wild. I’m sure that there are plenty of men in the world with compatible pheromones. (How romantic?) In the meantime, though, I’ll be working on my life and staunchly avoiding calling anyone an asshole.
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I can’t finish this post without acknowledging that there definitely are guys out there who objectively suck as a person. I’ve met a few of those, but more often than not I revert back to my belief that when it comes to love; everyone is a douche.