Yes, believe it. It's really, really bad. I seriously think I need medication or something. Something really big and exciting will happen like someone I know getting rightfully fat after all the years they teased me or a mean spirited girl getting engaged to someone terrible. Or, I don't know, someone will get arrested for something ridiculous like pot possession (I mean, seriously. If you're going to go down for something, at least make it worth while. Go big or go home, you know what I mean?) and I obviously have to immediately tell my best friend.
I will literally tell her the whole story in very intricate detail (I'm a neurotic writer, after all...) and we'll obsess over it and discuss it for drinks on end. Then, three days later, I will text her a frantic, "OMG, I have SUCH the story for you!" She'll get all hyped up only for me to tell her the same freaking story AGAIN. And then she'll send me back this sad, "... you already told me, Kathleen" text message. And I'm telling you, this happens maybe two or three times a month, depending on the ensuing daily drama. I hate being responsible for her biweekly disappointments and I swear, one day she's going to check me into an abusive nursing home for people with Alzheimer's. (Probably a joke typed in poor taste but I'm SO not kidding.)
The point I'm trying to convey across the interweb is that I repeat myself. A lot. And it drives people, myself included once I'm made aware of it, crazy. It's a terribly embarrassing epidemic I'm being made to endure here, friends. For realsies.
Most people, like myself, keep repeating the same mistakes. -William Shatner
But while repeating the same thing over and over again can get annoying to those around me, there's yet another sort of repetition that can create major mistakes in your life. Little blips of time where you're left with only one bereaved thought: How did I do this again?
There were many times, in my single days, when I would sit in my cramped little apartment, listening to Charlie Barnet, Stevie Wonder or J. Holiday (Don't judge. I'm a true musician. I can find an appreciation for almost any genre.) and I would wonder to myself how it was that I kept ending up in the same place. What commonalities occurred within each failed relationship? What incessant mistakes was I making with each man? How could it be that I continually found myself being forced to stare down the barrel of the same problem every single time? What was I doing wrong? How was I virtually picking the same man, with the same ailments, no matter where I looked?
To be fair and realistic, it isn't just me. I see a lot of this amongst my friends. Women dating different variations of the same tool or allowing their idiot boyfriends to get away with the same nonsense they kicked the last man to the curb for. Or making the same mistakes romantically within every relationship like getting instantly attached and praying for a proposal. Or being too much of a nag with their partner and acting more like a mother than a girlfriend. Or even worse, those people left forever scarred by their turmoil, torment and heartbreak and as a result, continue to push people away. The walls they've built around their hearts nearly impenetrable. In some cases, that continual need to protect yourself can lead to a very long and lonely life.
There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before. -Willa Cather
Now believe it or not, I've known a handful of people who are guilty of this propensity to fall into the same patterns over and over again. In fact, I was one of those people for quite awhile. And I'm not saying that these people are wrong, necessarily, or making really terrible mistakes. It's just like they say: History repeats itself. Methods don't vary. Archetypes are pursued over and over and before you know it, you're stuck with an insolent twerp just as bad as the last one. Or in some cases, worse than the last one. And all the while you think you've upgraded. No, friends. These are lies. You're dating the same guy as before. He's just cuter and took a little bit longer to unleash his dastardly qualities.
I used to know this girl who was notorious for putting all her eggs into one basket. She would meet a guy, get instantly hooked, and turn her whole life upside down to be with him. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, her problem was that she actually changed her entire life; molded herself into whatever it was that guy in particular wanted her to be. It was like, with every guy, she lost more of herself because she was so focused on being the girl he wanted. And she did this with EVERY SINGLE ONE. It was almost as if she got so deep into the habit of trying to please her man, she forgot who she really was.
History repeats itself first of tragedy, second as farce. -Karl Marx
Another example is an old, old friend of mine. She had this chronic need to marry virtually every guy she dated. She could literally go on two dates with someone, barely know their middle name (Which personally, I find to be very important. My husband, as it happens, doesn't have one. These are things that you need to know.) and call me afterward to tell me how certain she was that they were getting married. And okay, that's admirable to an extent because what's the point in seriously dating someone without any plans to move onto bigger things but it was borderline scary how quickly she got attached. And again, she did it with EVERY SINGLE ONE and would be so distraught when the guys freaked out and ditched her. She would swear that they had something irreplaceable, that this particular guy was the love of her life until two weeks later, when she met someone else.
So are these people just repeating history and making the same mistakes over and over? Or are they just adapting to some weird romantic brand of habitual behavior?
I don't know.
Moral of the Crazy: But here's what I do know. Some mistakes are worth the making, no matter how things turn out. Some things are worth repeating (IE gossip stories, rocks glasses of whiskey, and watching the season 2 finale of the Good Wife. You know the one. Where Will and Alicia get the hotel room? I could watch that a million times.) because the retelling makes them all the more special.
Maybe repetitive behavior occurs because although we shouldn't, we expect different results. We think things will be different; crave for them to be and so we just keep trying and hope for the best.
And sometimes we just repeat ourselves simply because we forgot that we already told you...
Disregard for the past will never do us any good. Without it, we cannot know truly who we are. -Syd Moore
The Crazy version of Dear Abby:
Need advice on something vital or love induced? Have some gossip that you desperately need to share? Want to swap idiot boyfriend stories?
Share your stories with me at: katemeyer@tampabay.rr.com with the subject line Crazy Face and be anonymously featured in my blog!
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