Which is more difficult, realising that your love never meant crap and ‘chucking it,’ for want of a better phrase, or concluding that love is worth holding onto regardless of how much it sucks?
I must have asked myself that question a thousand times and every time I end up with the same response: they both suck! The more I think I about it the clearer some things have become, and those who know me would know that’s an achievement in itself. I complicate any and everything in my life and I think that is why so many questions are hard to answer.
Truth is women like me set standards (nothing is wrong with this) about the type of men we want in our lives and we run with that for as long as we possibly can. We get through those difficult teenage years fooling around with guys we have crushes on; innocent little hook-ups that we look back on and laugh at how silly some of those dates were. Imagine going on a date during break period at school. Yep, it happened all right, and for fifteen minutes you share things with that person then it was back to being normal around your girls again.
But as we get older women like me (I hate saying this) end up meeting a guy whom we are crazy about and we say, “He fits the bill,” but does he? There is a part of the brain which we hardly allow to be active and function when it should, and it questions and logically screens this same guy who is perfect in the beginning. He seems perfect or at a bare minimum, he is the ideal partner in the eyes of people who matter to you (most of them anyway). And you say, let’s take him home to mama because she will like him. No wait, she must like him too.
But he declines. Yep, turns you flat down saying he is not ready, but it gets better. He’s not going to be ready for years, maybe four, five, seven years. And it turns out to be that and so many other things. This is the same guy who was ideal and you know what women like me do, we say he is perfect so let’s hold onto this one and work with what we’ve got. The fact that he is smart, ambitious and likable and has a face people would want to pucker up to also doesn’t help because it keeps you thinking; “This is the ideal guy.”
I used to think those were the ideals I wanted in a guy (maybe I do); forget his traits like he never wants to explore what fun is and that he loves you conditionally. Forget all the times he has said no to taking you out and/or forgetting to ever compliment you. Ideal alright! The ideal guy is a myth and you know what, I never wanted him. I just want a good guy; someone who could share a healthy relationship with me. Someone who would make me feel important on the days that I question what my relevance is in this big old world.
Someone who still remembers what I was wearing the first time he saw me and it has been years to this day. “Grey skirt and black blouse,” he says, and bingo! He is right! Someone who sits and looks at me and asks himself, “What can a man like me do to get a woman like her?”
Someone who looks at me and says out of the blue, “You’re beautiful.” I don’t care to hear it but he says it because he feels it; he believes it. Why not take him home to mama? Is he ideal? I hope not because ideal has been such a disappointment.
