>>stripped of natural charm

Would you like to know the weirdest, most insecure moment in a relationship? Reading a post by your significant other about The Person That Came Before. My advice is to not find it when you are mad at them because it will make you want to rip out their guts.

What a humbling experience it is to get that shocking jolt of reality, to remember that you were not the first. It makes me understand why some people don’t want to date until they’re ready to be married. I understand why virgins stay virgins – not only for self-preservation, but for future relationship preservation. It stings a little bit; it’s numbing.

And then you remember that there’s a good possibility that they feel the same way when they think about you and the One Who Came Before Them. Maybe that relationship has been archived, saved forever via the internet, and the thought of your other reading in black and white that you loved someone else makes you want to vomit.

As I was sorting through my closet a few weeks ago I stumbled acrossed a scrapbook I made two years ago full of pictures and cards from Mr. Ex.
I felt disconnected from it as I was looking at those pictures. That whole thing felt like such a long time ago – I don’t even think I’m the same person anymore. It was like looking at pictures from when I was a toddler: clearly it’s me, but that’s not how I remember it.

It’s only after we’ve gone through those types of relationships do we truly understand what they were: preparation. It takes time and mistakes in order for us to realize how to fully love someone, what it means to give, to take. Those relationships prepare us for The Holy Mother of All Relationships Ever so when we get there we have a better understanding of how things are supposed to play out.
I can’t say I think back with fondness with regards to my relationship with Mr. Ex–it was a bad thing with its good moments– but I can say that I appreciate it because in some undefinable way, it made me realize that the thing I have now is real. The Ones Who Came Before were just practice.

Let’s be frank here. Break-ups blow.
There are many books written about the topic: “It’s Called A Break-Up Because It’s Broken” or “He’s Just Not That Into You.”
Most of the books are directed towards women, not because guys are incapable of feeling (seriously. They’re not) but because women have a need to figure things out, to delve into their psyche and truly understand why this is happening and why they’re “not good enough.”

Lemme tell you something, chickadee, as lovingly and as blunt as possible.
The reason people break up is because one person (or both people) aren’t satisfied and don’t want to waste time moving forward in a relationship which holds no foreseeable future. It’s not because you aren’t skinny enough, aren’t pretty enough, don’t cook well enough, or because you would rather watch “Friends” than yet one more minute of Jack Bauer biting the neck out of some testosterone-laced superfreak. The bottom line is that nothing will stop a guy from doing what he wants, good or bad. If he wants to break up, he’ll do it. If he wants to stay together, then he’ll fight like hell for that to happen.

Dating is, at the heart of it, a way to figure out what kind of person you want to be with for the long haul. The M word. I’ll just go ahead and say it: marriage. My outlook on the whole dating issue is a little more old-fashioned than most. Some people like to date, and I’m not knocking that. It’s good to get to know the sort of person you’d like to be around until
death do you part. I don’t agree with those people who say they don’t want to date ever because dating is from Satan. It’s impossible to get married if you haven’t dated; it’s like going into the kitchen and deciding “Today I’d like to be a chef!” when you don’t even know how to make peanut butter and jelly.
Dating is neccessary.
Breakups are unavoidable.
The trouble females get into is when they start to define themselves by who they’re dating. Again, darling, your identity is not wrapped up in your boyfriend.

“But he completes me!” you wail into your tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
Chill with that melodramatic crap for a second and think about this realisitically.
You were complete before you met him.
You’ll be complete again.
You are complete now (a complete mess still counts, no?) and what you need is not a man in your life, but a good time hanging out with the people who’s pants you don’t want to get into. At all. Friends. Remember your friends? The people you called when Mr. Goodenough wanted to watch the game? Those same people are still around, and while they may be a little resentful because you haven’t called them, like, at ALL in the past howeverlong, go get a few drinks. The first round is on you.

“But we were meant to be!”
Sorry.
Apparently not.
And if you were “meant to be,” then it will be. Crying won’t make the situation adjust itself any sooner.
Neither will leaving long ranting messages about what an asshole he is on his myspace/voicemail/blog. Neither will calling his mother/sister/friends-who-only-sort-of-thought-you-were-okay.
Remember those friends I talked about earlier? The ones you inadvertantly forgot about but are now fine with after you realized what a wee bit of a slag you were being? Those are the ones that you cry to. Those are the shoulders you wet with your tears, and those are the people that will get you so rip-roarin’ drunk that you won’t remember how awesome it was to forget about What’s His Name.
But it was awesome.
Trust me.

“I’ll never find love again!”
Um, yeah.
You most likely will.
When I was talking to my mom about the Wonders of Childbirth, she told me that she forgot the pain. She didn’t remember how badly it hurt to have the first one or else she would never have had the second one, and I would be brotherless (which is as appealing as it is depressing). Maybe love is like that.
If you’ve been in love more than once you’ve most likely uttered the words “It’s never felt like this before.” In the way that joy is shades of happiness, this love is shades of the previous. They both have different characteristics: joy is endurance through hard times because of the knowledge of something more; this love is different because you know which mistakes to avoid, etc. My point is, it’s likely that you have felt this way before but, like childbirth, the intensity of the feelings from the previous relationship doesn’t solidify in our memories and becomes jaded.
If you’ve felt it before, you’ll feel it again. And you’ll swear it’s different.
And one day it will be.
You are more than just another girl. Out there is someone who will be honored to meet you, who will respect you and love you in the way that you need to be loved, and it will be nothing short of a privledge to love him back.

So there’s this guy.
He’s a little confused about the ways of women and has taken to asking me to interpret a certain girl’s meaning, running things by me that he wants to say to her, and asking for my opinion about all manner of things pertaining to this certain female.
It cracks me up, first because I am so blunt with him, to the point of almost being mean, that one would think he would quit asking by now (unless, of course, I’m actually doing a competant job at deciphering the things she says into what she really means and he’s actually getting places with her) and secondly because while I am of the female persuasion I am quite unlike the standard “please buy me flowers and all things sparkly and spend all your time with just me and no one else” type.

I’ve never cared about expensive things, like big diamonds or $800 dollar purses. I think that the money could better be spent on other endeavors.
Like cigarettes. And gummi bears.
There are as many different ways to girls’ hearts as there are girls, but there is usually one no-fail panty-dropper, especially if you get them for absolutely no reason at all: flowers.

Now.
The type of flower depends on the girl as well. For instance, I don’t like roses. Or … what are they called? The type that looks like old lady hair? Crysanthemums. But there are some of us that love roses, that would prefer them to the much more distinguised orchid.
And then you have to decide the color.
Red? Very romantic. Yellow? Maybe too “let’s be friends.” You could always try those yellow and red ones, the ones that look a little orange?
Or you could just ask her, in some sort of roundabout way, what her favorite flower is. If you listen closely, she’ll drop a hint.
Because she’s a girl.
We may not know how to change a flat tire or what offsides really means but we’re good at dropping hints.

Maybe you’re thinking, “But flowers die! It’s the only thing you can buy that you won’t return when it starts to go brown after three days!” I know they die. This is why I can’t see spending so much money on something that will eventually be thrown away (where as cigarettes? The benefit of them will last a lifetime! You’ll have the early mouth wrinkles and the hacking up little brown pieces of your own insides forever!) I can’t explain why we like them. Because they’re pretty? Some of them smell nice? I don’t know. But nothing makes a girl happier than you walking through the door with a fist full of flowers “just because.”
I don’t know much about a lot of things.
I don’t know why we say we’re fine when we’re not fine.
I don’t know why we get that weird tinge of jealousy when we see you talking to another girl, despite how she looks.
I don’t know why we spend half an hour in the shower, why we can’t close our mouths when applying mascara, or why we spend $100 on a pair of shoes that we bitch about until we throw them away.
But trust me on the flowers.

I like to think of myself as a pretty good giver of advice.
This isn’t unwarranted; people usually come to me when they need a good talking to, and I’m usually only too happy to oblige. Surprisingly, the topic with the most frequency is relationships, despite my complete lack of life experience in this area. I’m able to handle matters of the heart well, I think.
Until today.
I’m fine with dealing matters of friends’ hearts.
Not brothers’ hearts.

We talked for about forty-five minutes, and during that time I learned a lot about the alpha male, most specifically why he is the way he is when he’s in a relationship. Did you know that boys have feelings, too? I mean, I always knew they did. Clearly they have some form of emotional response: punching each other, screaming, being belligerent. All of those are masks for insecurity and keen awareness of their feelings. You may think that they don’t have feelings, but in truth they have one very strong feeling that overshadows all of the other ones: fear.

“Whenever I felt myself getting closest to her, that’s when I was the most scared.” Men feel that they have to be all burly and virile, because being emotional is a sign of weakness. They’re scared of commitment not because they’ll have to spend forever having sex with the same woman, but because of the openness that commitment brings.

It was a tremendously eye-opening experience, talking with him. I’m glad that I did it.

Certain recent events have made me realize that not everyone is who they seem to be, that people’s true colors shine through in difficult situations. This is not a new thought by any means, and the things that have been happening validate it rather than render it void.

I happen to believe that we’re all inherently bad, all equally capable of doing wicked things. Even so, I find it hard to keep an open mind when I’m faced with others’ shortcomings. Mostly I’m just talking about one person in particular. We have been friends for years but I find it hard to have a normal conversation now, given what I know. I try and remind myself that we’re on a level playing field, and what happens to one could easily happen to another.

Still. The level of involvement is not the same, and it’s much easier to have a clearer picture of the circumstance when one is outside looking in. I feel like my opinion is being disregarded, and it might possibly be, because I don’t know what it’s like to be in a certain situation. I don’t necessarily have to be, though it would create a deeper level of empathization (did I just make up a word?) and maybe my experiences could give way to a deeper level of communication. But I don’t have those experiences. Should I not be heard? You don’t need to get into a car crash to know that going too fast isn’t a good idea; you can draw on what you’ve learned from seeing other people crash and from talking to those who have had some rocky issues.
Right?

Maybe I’ll cut to the chase instead of trying to justify my point by being vague and constructing complex sentences.

I have a friend who is going through some hard times in her marriage. Quite hard times. And sometimes I think that she thinks that because I have no experience with a hard marriage (or any marriage, for that matter) that the things I say aren’t necessarily valid. That because I’m not there, living her life, that I don’t know what she’s going through.
Perhaps she has a point. But, like I said earlier, I think her views are a little skewed because she’s going through it. It’s easier for me to give her godly advice because I can see the whole picture and be more objective than she has the capacity to be right now.

The whole situation makes me feel a wide range of emotions. It makes me gratful that I’m able to communicate effectively with my boyfriend. It makes me furious that someone is ready to expunge her marriage because right at this moment it makes her unhappy and disregard her wedding vows so readily because “he just doesn’t understand.” There’s a reason he doesn’t understand, and much of it may have to do with the fact that they communicate in two different ways. It makes me sad, because when I was watching their wedding from my position as Third Bridesmaid from the Right I had no idea it would escalate into something as big as this. I never imagined she would let things get to the point where she thought they were unfixable. And maybe they aren’t unfixable, it’s just the unwillingness to try that makes it so. That, more than anything, breaks my heart.