That's the Thing About this Love Business...

A friend’s recent engagement really moved me. It wasn’t the actual proposal; however, it was the back story. Prior to meeting her now fiancé, my friend had shared with me countless times about her struggle to believe that she was going to find a husband. Like most single women, especially in their thirties, this becomes a regular topic of conversation. 

Will it ever happen? How will I know? Am I desirable enough? As any good friend will say, the answer to those questions is “Yes, you just will, and of course you are.” But to truly believe those things is a much harder task. We’d spent hours discussing dating, where to meet the right kind of man and how to avoid getting stuck thinking you’ll one day be a cat lady who will cuddle up to Fluffy and Snowball for love each night. Yes, these thoughts do come up regularly. 

My friend is beautiful, smart, incredibly talented and has a really great personality. She was always talked about in the highest regard and men were always attracted to her. Yet, she still found that no one ever seemed to fit. This caused a lot of hurt and self-deprecating talk usually followed. I hear these same thoughts in many of my friends as well as myself at times. 

But then, she met him. You never know where these things will go when you start them and it’s always a risk to get your heart broken. Yet, as the months passed it was hard to remember her ever being single, they worked so well together.

After her engagement we were able to talk about those earlier days where she’d say she was never going to find Mr. Right. Or how, like many of us, she was blaming God for her singleness. One thing that stood out was how she realized now that had she met her fiancé earlier in her life, she wouldn’t have been ready. They met at the perfect time and while the waiting was hard, she is confident that it happened exactly when it should have.  That’s the thing about all this love business. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen and we don’t need to rush it.

These days stories like this make me wonder why we place so much value on finding a husband. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is a beautiful thing and I want it as much as the next person. But how are our identities so caught up in who we are dating in the moment or who we’re not dating? We’re not all going to get married or find someone, that’s just the facts. Is this really how we want to live our lives though? Waiting for someone to define us while we waste our days away, forgetting that we’re pretty cool just as we are. 

Her story moved me because I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from friends who knew her story thinking, “Maybe there is hope for me too.” Which is almost silly, in a way. Of course there is hope, but let’s not forget that our end goal in life shouldn’t be focused around one person. There are way too many exciting things out there to explore, new restaurants to try and new hobbies to pick up. Travel through South America, take up acroyoga, read Dostoevsky and Faulkner. Be interesting.

Sitting around all day worrying when he’ll fall into your lap is only going to bring you wrinkles and probably a sore booty. If our purpose in life is to be the best version of ourselves and not the girl with the boyfriend/husband it seems like life could be much more fun. If and when love happens we will already be content with our lives and that person will be a bonus to the awesome life we have already been living.

(I’m reminding myself of this as much as any person.)

How To Get Along with People

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS of
HOW TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE

1. Keep skid chains on your tongue. Always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. How you say it often counts more than what you say.
2. Make promises sparingly and keep them faithfully, no matter what the cost.
3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody. Praise good work, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, offer it gently, never harshly.
4. Be interested in others---their pursuits, their work, their homes and families. Make merry with those who rejoice, and weep with those who mourn. Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard him or her as a person of importance.
5. Don’t burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your minor aches and pains and small disappointments. Remember, everyone is carrying some kind of burden, often heavier than your own.
6. Keep an open mind. Discuss, but don’t argue. It is the mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves. Refuse to talk of other’s vices. Discourage gossip. It is a waste of valuable time, and can be extremely destructive.
8. Be careful of another’s feelings. Wit and humor at another person’s expense may do more damage than you will ever know.
9. Pay no attention to disparaging remarks. Remember, the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world, and things become twisted in the retelling. Live so that nobody will believe them.
10. Don’t be too eager to get the credit due you. Do your best, and be patient. Forget about yourself, and let others “remember”. Success is much sweeter that way.

(Credit Ann Landers)

Read this list last night, passed onto me by a friend. This past year I've been teaching myself to follow these guidelines. While the exact list may be new to me, the principles have been on my mind for some time. Some of them I have gotten better at, some of them I have failed miserably to observe. 

Either way though, it's a good reminder of how to be a better human being. Try it out, see how differently the world responds to you when you do. It's worth a shot, right?

The Born-Again Dater

You could say I was pretty surprised after the guy I had been dating the last two months ended things with me after a series of texts singing my praises the previous day. But the real surprise came a day later in the form of a new BMW Z4 convertible that he had purchased only hours later. And the icing on the cake? The new 25-year-old blonde who would be riding in the passenger seat. 

I don't think it's always appropriate to write about past guys (I'm looking at you, Taylor Swift), but then again, I've never been traded in for 3,000 pounds of metal. But secretly, as a writer, we live for these moments. It's only a matter of time now until I'm the next Lena Dunham.

My friend and I have been tossing around the word 'reinvention' recently. What does it mean for an almost 30 year old to reinvent herself? We're not talking about the "Who am I? What is my purpose in life?" type of questions. I'm fully aware of those answers. No, ours is a question of self-worth and an "others-first" mindset. Fighting our way through the awkward years of questioning everything, it is now time to learn how to be a good friend, a good girlfriend and a good self.

This same friend has a mantra for dating:  Never give them a reason to roll their eyes at you. This meaning, don't become the needy texter, the over-emotional date or the controlling girlfriend. Act with confidence but with respect.

It's interesting dating at this age. The old self would have been more preoccupied with how she was doing on dates than how her date was feeling. She would have text him the first day she didn't hear from him, just to reassure herself that he wasn't forgetting about her. And that old self would have beat herself up over the whys of the dismissal, permitting him to control her emotions. 

Not the reinvented self. 

Our initial dates (with the aforementioned guy) consisted of trying to put him first and consider his need for space and time. Still, being a girl, I allowed myself time to mourn (three days to be exact) when it ended. And then I went for a run, played guitar and got drinks with friends. Life rolled on. 

They say we accept the love we think we deserve. And if I accepted that situation then I'd be doing myself a disservice. We're not meant for everyone, thank God. We are, however, meant to love ourselves enough to guard our hearts and to love others enough to care for them even when things get messy. I missed some red flags because I didn't do the former. And I missed opportunities because I didn't do the latter.

In the end, it didn't work out. But, if he really looks back and thinks about our time together, I don't believe he'd have a reason to roll his eyes.