Poisonous mixtures and the part where people start taking my advice!

<

Some of you have noticed I've been MIA from the blog world for a while. More of you probably didn't. Mostly I haven't been writing because I've had a little trouble writing anything that didn't come out like this...*$#&%&@!!! No matter though, I'm back today for a very important cause "Women's Writes". I think it's an incredible idea and even my laziness, frustration, lack of anything coherent to write wasn't going to stop me from jumping on the bandwagon.

When I was asked to write about an issue relating to women, I had grand ideas. Weight loss, society pressure, shopping, leadership....the list is endless. Then I realized this needed to be something I had actual experience with in my own life. So where did I land? Dating. Let me tell you a little bit about dating from a single, late 20's girl's perspective in the 2010.

It. Royally. Sucks.

A few years ago (after long relationship followed by long relationship), I decided to take some time to heal, grow, learn how to get over  some effed up things from my past, and MOST importantly...stop the cycle of "bringing up old shiz" in any possible future relationships. It seems that MANY men do not ever take the time to do this (yeah, yeah, I'm aware women do this too, but this is WOMEN'S writes day...so hush). This ridiculous fear of the unknown is creating a never ending cycle of passing everyone's crap onto everyone else. We each add in a dash of our very own insecurities and we end up with a very poisonous mixture to pass onto the next unsuspecting victim.


Maybe everyone is just afraid of being alone. Maybe we've become so "connected" all the time that we've lost the ability to stand still for a minute and just let things happen. But I'd like to kindly ask you all to STOP it. Immediately. Take some time and put a little metaphoric Neosporin (i.e. spend time with good friends, find hobbies, work on what YOU did wrong in the relationship, etc) on that break-up/divorce wound. Stop looking for the next best thing and MAKE yourself the next best thing. Finding the opposite of everything that drove you crazy in the last relationship won't fix anything. Filling the void with a person who otherwise could truly care about you, will just ruin any chance of a foundation.


Listen up Mr. not-so-healed, not-so-broken-up, not-so-divorced (don't even get me started...it seems I now have to request divorce decrees in writing). Stop hurting wonderful women. Stop answering the questions we ask with the answers you know will get you exactly what you want. We're not a prize, toy or game. We're human beings that just want the actual truth (at least the good ones do). We may not deserve a relationship or a fairy tale ending, but we do deserve to know that we can trust what you say. That when you say you're ready, we don't have to think for you. We can trust that you've taken the time, be that a week or a year or a decade and you've let go of your crap. WORK ON YOU. Then find someone else. It's really that simple.

And through it all, I still believe there is a right time for everyone. I believe there is a moment when you have in fact finally gotten over or let go of all the hurt you can and you're ready to move forward. I believe those are the relationships that work. The foundations that can survive any of life's earthquakes. And that if we each took a little more time to heal our wounds, we'd end up hurting a lot less people on our path 'o destruction. We'd spend more time talking about all the great dates we've had and all the great experiences we had when we spent just a little more time....single.