In my previous “Men and Women” post, Deanna commented and said this:
These guys that you’re hanging out with now, for the most part, will never be a part of “Jen’s History” when you look back at your life. How many of them will really make an impact on you that you’ll remember them 10-15 years from now?
Hmmmm… See, here’s what’s bothering me. She’s right (and she usually is), but I look at it a different way. None of these guys will ever be as important to me as the Corporal was, but the combination of all of them? The combination of all of them is what impacts me. And it scares me a little bit because I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the men=assholes opinion that I’ve developed. Even the ones I think are nice guys — the Crow, the Engineer, Smock Boy — I pick and pick and find something wrong. And I’m mean. For the love of God, I told one of them I’d let him die on the floor of the bar before I gave him CPR. Yes, I actually said that. Because I get so defensive and I work so hard to figure every little detail of why they are acting the way they are that I think I know what they’re after before they’ve even made up their mind, and then I just end up looking for the next bad thing in the next good guy.
I know none of these guys will ultimately mean anything to me. But the combination of all of them taints the way I look at the world. I don’t want to be a hopeless romantic, but I don’t want to feel hopeless, either. I just hope that when one comes along and proves me wrong, I can believe him. But there is a very, very large part of me that thinks that will never happen.
I don’t believe in happy ever after, but I’m afraid I’ll never let myself get once upon a time.
28/02/2006 at 10:30 pm Permalink
Wow, I get an entry titled after me? Totally flattered!!
You are right that each one of these guys is tainting your outlook on love and life in general and they, possibly in a very small way, affecting your future. But what I was really getting at is that you don’t really have to let them do that. Take them for what they are–guys that will never be what you want them to be–and just know in your head that that’s that.
Yes, there will be a man at some point who will prove you wrong, but the question is, will you even let him have the chance to prove himself to you? Will you let your guard down enough to let him in without pushing him away?
I think I may have said this in my other comment, but men and women are not all that much different. Yes, men are biologically based, women are emotionally based, but we’re all looking for happiness. No one really wants to be alone because humans were not designed for solidarity. And everyone has their pasts and pasts do mold your future to a certain extent. Just try to think about that the next time you have an interest in a guy and he doesn’t say something or act the way you want. Just as your past has molded you maybe his has molded him as well.
28/02/2006 at 10:47 pm Permalink
Ha! Don’t be flattered, I wish it were that big a deal, though…
I know I don’t have to let anyone do that. I find it’s different now than it was before, I used to get mad because no one was living up to my expectations, I’d try to ‘fix’ the wrong ones, tell myself that they’d straighten up for me. I don’t think that way anymore. I think ‘Yeah, ok, he’s cool’ and lately, it’s been pretty good. Like, I hang out with the Crow every so often and it’s always a good time, and when I leave, I know that nothing serious has happened and that, although I don’t know when, I know I’ll see him again. Or when I hung out with Musician the first few times and he told me when he’d be playing at the bar and invited me to go see him play that night on the South Side. Or when I knew I would be hanging out with Bio Boy all night, regardless of who he went home to.
I know men and women are the same, and I know no one wants to be alone. That’s basically what makes us different than animals. We’re social beings, we have the ability to feel and all that. And I don’t believe that there is anyone who really wants to be alone, I think that there are people, like me, who are trying to get their shit together, work a lot, go to school, and really don’t have time. I don’t want that because I know me, if I met someone I wanted to be with, I’d spread myself so thin that I’d let everything else suffer. I can’t do that right now.
But I think those people who say that they don’t want a relationship are those people who have been so jaded by their past that they think it’s easier to not get hurt. It’s one thing if you really have shit going on, it’s another if you honestly think you want to be alone forever. Because that’s a cop out. That’s running away.
I don’t think I’m shutting down or anything. I’m just saying, it’s so hard not to meet someone and think ‘When’s he going to prove to me that he’s an asshole?’ I think I look for that so much, I just pick people who are.