Life is not like Sex and the City, or Private Practice, or any other show where people in their late 20's / 30's / 40's are dating for our amusement. It's not fun. It's not glamorous. Relationships do not end with a lesson learned and a glass of wine. Okay, the wine is fairly accurate. The rest of it is crap.
We watch those shows because of how inaccurate they are. We'd like to believe that after our latest heartbreak, we will recline in a bubble bath or in front of our computers, marveling at our newfound wisdom and patting ourselves on the back for becoming a more mature person. Let's for a moment apply this entirely artificial paradigm to my life. The basic ingredients are there: single woman in her distressingly late 20s, eligible-ish men, dates, alcohol, occasionally fabulous clothes. Hell, I've even got the klatch of cackling besties to tell me that the latest guy is unworthy of my distress. The basics are here. Things just don't seem to play out the way they do on TV.
You see, we're at the end of our latest episode. The budding romance has died and our heroine (in theory, me) is supposed to be learning something, internalizing her growth or whatever. I am instead internalizing quite a bit of anger. I'm not angry at this week's extra. I'm angry at myself b/c this time around I knew something wasn't quite right - what doesn't really matter, but either way, I didn't trust my instincts about something, and I made myself feel like I was imagining something when I should have just gone with my gut. You'd think this would have a fairly easy resolution - learn to trust myself. Wrong.
I'm learning things, but none of them are things I want to be learning. I'm learning that people can't be trusted (including myself), and that even with the best of intentions you can still end up crying alone. I'm not losing faith in love or anything dramatic like that, but I am losing faith in myself, and I don't like it. I'm losing faith in my ability to make good choices, to see people as they really are, and to respond in the way that makes me happy. My insides are turning into a jaded jumble, and I don't like it. This darkness is not something I particularly want as part of my personality.
So, this series is ending. No more ridiculously hopeful romances followed by dashed hopes followed by lessons learned. Or if not ended, on indefinite hiatus. I'm tired, and it turns out that I've got enough difficulties and enough joys to keep me busy without introducing temporary characters to the mix. So, in parallel to what a friend has said to me repeatedly, I am a confirmed bachelorette. Let's see if I can't get this right.
We watch those shows because of how inaccurate they are. We'd like to believe that after our latest heartbreak, we will recline in a bubble bath or in front of our computers, marveling at our newfound wisdom and patting ourselves on the back for becoming a more mature person. Let's for a moment apply this entirely artificial paradigm to my life. The basic ingredients are there: single woman in her distressingly late 20s, eligible-ish men, dates, alcohol, occasionally fabulous clothes. Hell, I've even got the klatch of cackling besties to tell me that the latest guy is unworthy of my distress. The basics are here. Things just don't seem to play out the way they do on TV.
You see, we're at the end of our latest episode. The budding romance has died and our heroine (in theory, me) is supposed to be learning something, internalizing her growth or whatever. I am instead internalizing quite a bit of anger. I'm not angry at this week's extra. I'm angry at myself b/c this time around I knew something wasn't quite right - what doesn't really matter, but either way, I didn't trust my instincts about something, and I made myself feel like I was imagining something when I should have just gone with my gut. You'd think this would have a fairly easy resolution - learn to trust myself. Wrong.
I'm learning things, but none of them are things I want to be learning. I'm learning that people can't be trusted (including myself), and that even with the best of intentions you can still end up crying alone. I'm not losing faith in love or anything dramatic like that, but I am losing faith in myself, and I don't like it. I'm losing faith in my ability to make good choices, to see people as they really are, and to respond in the way that makes me happy. My insides are turning into a jaded jumble, and I don't like it. This darkness is not something I particularly want as part of my personality.
So, this series is ending. No more ridiculously hopeful romances followed by dashed hopes followed by lessons learned. Or if not ended, on indefinite hiatus. I'm tired, and it turns out that I've got enough difficulties and enough joys to keep me busy without introducing temporary characters to the mix. So, in parallel to what a friend has said to me repeatedly, I am a confirmed bachelorette. Let's see if I can't get this right.
Comments
yes, very understandable - I'm with you and would feel the same way. Bad feelings on all kinds of karmic levels. That is something you can do something about.
"I'm losing faith in my ability to make good choices."
No, that assumes that you had majority responsibility or control in this situation. you can only operate with the information available to you (and don't beat yourself up too much about the "trusting instincts" vs. "evidence" business - there is value in both modes and I dislike and distrust anyone who only does or the other - but if you use both, it occasionally goes awry (but if you only use one, it nearly always goes awry). anyway. You can't always "get it right" because it's often only 50% about you (at best). *AT least* 50% of this situation is about the other person. You like to be in control.
I think you need to learn to ride. it might help. You can be far more in control on a horse that you ever will be in a relationship - enacted correctly, the horse will allow (and even enjoy) you being 100% the leader of the situation. At best in a relationship, you get 50% control.
AND, 90% of the people you will meet on horseback are women - it's a total girls club - fill your flask and climb aboard.
cackling rocks by the way, don't underrate it.
In other news, this is exactly why I quit watching Friends when Ross and Rachel broke up. It's also why The Office is getting increasingly annoying. If I wanted complicated and shitty, I'd read the newspaper instead of watching Thursday night television.