The other day, a couple girlfriends and I were discussing
how to find your “end guy” over probably way
too much alcohol. (Those appletinis really pack a wallop, don’t they? But you
know what they say, in vino veritas.)
To be honest, I don’t even really know how the conversation started. It was
sort of like, “I’ll get another appletini please, Carlos.” (Carlos, whose name I
later learned his name from my receipt when I sobered up, was the bartender who
told me I had mermaid hair and asked to see pictures of my daughter. I obviously drunkenly showed him like
forty-seven because I have no shame in my mama game.) And then, “Listen, here’s
what you should do, [newly single] best friend.”
And it’s funny because I don’t know why I even tried to get
on my high horse. I don’t know anything about relationships. I didn’t have many
good ones (except for my current one and like everyone else, even we have our own issues) and the good
ones I did have, I sort of messed up
on my own. The rest of them, well, most of you have read my blog. Men are just awful. I’m sure that even Carlos the
Flirty Bartender has his faults.
But to be fair, and it’s coming back to me slowly because
alcohol wasn’t (or maybe was?) my friend that night, I guess I really only
commented every now and again while the real
expert shared her thoughts.
My other girlfriend, the aforementioned expert, is newly
married and has had her own share of rocky relationships. (Haven’t we all?
Seriously, aren’t men just terrible??)
But she’s been around the world in other ways and has met lots of people. She
was making this case to my best friend that it’s good to sort of get around the
block, both in life and with men, so that you’re able to weed out the qualities
you really desire in another person. And to be honest, while it might have come
across as her telling my best friend to just put on a crop top and put herself
out there, I could totally understand her logic because you don’t always choose
the first car you test drive.
But something that I thought about afterward and maybe might
have somewhat coherently mentioned in
the moment (who remembers? It was #momsnightout, after all.) is that while I totally understand this logic, what if
you give your best to just one person and there’s nothing left for your “end
guy”?
Cause I gave my heart
to a goddamn fool. I gave him everything, now there’s nothing left for you.
–Sam Smith, Nothing Left for You
So in my case, and I sort of drunkenly said this in one of
the few moments where Carlos left us, I was in what I thought was a pretty
serious relationship for what I thought, at the time, was a long time. I mean, now that I’m older
and have been with the same person for twelve years, I realize that that was
just a literal blink in time. It feels like a lifetime ago; like I was a
totally different person.
But in the moment I was living it, it felt real. And while now I struggle to even
say his name, at that moment, I thought the relationship was going somewhere. I
thought all the stuff that I went through were things that would make us
stronger. I thought things would change because I could force them to. I
thought he would be nicer over time because he would see how hard I had tried
to become the person he wanted. I thought that my parents would grow to love
him, despite everything that had happened and I thought that if not, I had a
whole family of firefighters who loved me and treated me like I was theirs.
But you know what? One morning I woke up and things changed.
It was like I had gotten a bad taste in my mouth that I could not, even kind of to this day, get rid of.
I became bitter and maybe even a little bit hateful. I
started to really hate men, as much as I’ve always tried not to admit that, even to this day. I started to sift through the
nonsense really quickly and could tell from three sentences what men wanted
from me. I started to see intimacy as something I just had to do and kind of
was over it before I really even hit my prime. I sort of craved attention but
got super annoyed when men looked at me or tried to flirt with me.
And I feel like the ability to do that is something that
only comes with time. And, rather unfortunately, dating all the wrong people.
My newly married girlfriend kept saying you
literally need to get out there and go through about ten men; once you’ve done
that, you’ll have a better idea about what you really want in a partner. My
best friend’s eyes were darting back and forth between us and I was literally
thinking to myself: if I wound up with the person I first experienced
intercourse with, I would have a really sad and unfulfilling life.
But sometimes it’s better to just let those thoughts live in
your head where they can’t annoy anybody.
While my one girlfriend was saying that it took her a few
people to find the one she connected with physically, I was thinking about how
certain aspects of sex are just physical acts. I was thinking about how I gave
literally every piece of me to someone and did things that now I would probably
laugh at because there’s no way I’d even consider them. I was thinking about
how your “end guy” (or person) sort of doesn’t get the best of you because
maybe someone else already has.
I never, ever go to that place because honestly, I’m just so
far removed from it all but in that bar, I drunkenly grabbed both my friends
and I said, “[He who shall not be named] got the best of me,” gradual eye
contact shift to my best friend, “and you don’t
want that.”
Moral of the Crazy: I
really feel like I could go on and on about this but my husband says that
people don’t really read anymore so I’m trying to keep it short and sweet. I
also don’t want to claim to be a relationship or dating expert because
selfishly, if my best friend stays single awhile longer, that leaves her free
to be at my beck and call. (Don’t you
judge me: good friends are hard to find.)
But back to Carlos, the appletinis and my two homegirls at
the bar: I guess what I’m seeing from my perspective is that my best friend
went through a similar situation to mine. The little facts are different but
she gave her very best to someone and
he manipulated her. He lied about the most basic of things and sort of
controlled various aspects of her life.
The relationship was literally all about him on most
occasions and it didn’t seem like he was willing to do much of anything for
her, including meet me or any of her other friends and family. But I feel like
when you’re new and naïve to dating, that’s kind of what happens. You want to
do things right, you want to most likely marry the first person you’re with
because the infatuation is real, and you want to make sure you’re being the
person they want you to be.
And unfortunately, for me, at least, it took me a handful of
people to understand that that sort of behavior wasn’t what I wanted. It took me a few dates and
failures to realize that I didn’t like certain language or an extreme lack of
manners. I didn’t like being blown off and I didn’t like really showy,
overconfident men because from my experience, that meant they really didn’t
have much to offer.
But I never would have known this if I didn’t get out there and experience it for
myself. (And obviously turn them down because they all sucked…)
I also really saw her bending over backwards for this man
and I get it: that’s something that you should
be willing to do in relationships. It’s all a little bit of give and take
from both sides and I think it’s the meeting in the middle that can sometimes
be so important for relationships.
Like, hey, I’m not particularly interested in the Super Bowl
but I’m going to watch it and hopefully enjoy the Jennifer Lopez Halftime
presentation. Why? Because my husband cares a
lot about football; he isn’t interested in who’s playing. He’s interested
in the game. And because I love him, I’m okay with him being happy for four
hours, even if it’s something I don’t particularly care about.
I was keeping this short, right?
The point is, I’ve had to kiss lots of frogs, tadpoles and
to be honest, yucky cockroaches to get my end guy. And I just hope I treat him
in the manner he deserves. I just hope he knows I love him, even if he got me
when I was done putting up with extraneous nonsense.
But maybe we’re on the same page. Because maybe he’s been
through enough of his own brand of crazy to know that I was worth keeping. At
least for a little while.
Reputation precedes
me; they told you I’m crazy. I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me.
–Taylor Swift, End Game
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