I’m not a Casanova, and I will never claim to know one bit of shit more about women than anyone else I’ve come into contact with. But, for some unforeseen reason, I have had a pretty decent track record of attracting lovely women (who must be self-destructive themselves since they so readily choose to be with a guy like me,) dating them for a while, gaining their trust and their love, and then completely and utterly demolishing their hearts like I was Godzilla and they were Tokyo. Why? I have absolutely no clue.
Now my friends have led me to believe that this is simply a defense mechanism so I don’t get too close to women. Ordinarily I would agree, but in order to get the full effect of my asshole-edness you have to take into account the duration of time I was nuzzling up to these women; 1.5 years, 1 year, 9 months, 2 years, and 11 months. A couple of years ago I had a brief period of meditation and came to the obvious conclusion: I am the thing that drives most men to shrivel in fear, a serial dater. Now usually this handicap is applied to women who are always looking for the next hot thing, but the application of it to my personality is something far more dangerous. You see, I am a constant optimist. I have gone headfirst into every one of my doomed relationships thinking that this girl could, in fact, be the one. I often feel like Ted on “How I Met Your Mother”, immediately crowning a girl the queen of my soul and all other living things the second I find out she can quote any line from Ghostbusters. This, of course, ends slowly in disaster when I slowly start to see the REAL person I am with. But, like most guys, even then I bottle it up and hope for the best, like I get a cookie for toughing it out. Inevitably it ends up on my long list of disappointments after I find another girl with that “thing” I like and “fall in love,” or whatever that bullshit is. Not that I don’t believe in love, but sometimes being desperate to get out of a sticky situation and looking for an excuse feels a lot like love.
On the bright side, my love life isn't this bad.
So then I end up back in the beginning and ready to do it all over again. Past examples of my wretchedness:
I broke up with a girl the day before Valentine’s Day because I had heard this beautiful, amazing girl wanted to go out with me. (This was in high school, but that is still no real excuse.) Not only was I dishonest with her, I told her it was because I was about to go to college and I wanted to be free. I then proceeded to date the other girl for the entirety of my freshman year at FSU. (Looking back, that was likely the biggest mistake of my life.)
The girl I started dating was great, a scholar, and generally interesting, however after I bit my lip and suffered through an ENTIRE year at FSU monogamously, I waited until I was back home for summer for two weeks before declaring that I wasn’t in love with her anymore. (Reason; my ex from England was about to visit for a month and despite the fact that she had a serious boyfriend back home I wanted to sleep with her. I did. Now she’s married to that guy and the girl I left is, get this, engaged to an English guy. As if Alanis didn’t define ironic.)
Also, one year on Valentine’s Day I had just started dating this amazingly cool chick. (Another one I wish I could do over.) I had planned on helping my best friend set up a dinner for his girlfriend, I was the (shirtless) butler, and I was then going to take my lady out for some sushi. So she picks me up and we begin driving to the restaurant, I could practically taste the edamame on my tongue and my freshman roomy calls me up and tells me that his girlfriend just broke up with him on Valentines Day. Putting bros before hoes, I told my date that she was dropping me off at his place so I could console him. She was fantastic and said “yes”. What she didn’t know is that we drove to my house, bought two kegs, invited a shit ton of girls over, and that I then proceeded to sleep with a random girl (with whom one of my other friends had hooked up with just weeks before.) I never told her, but then again I didn’t have to. I used the excuse of breaking my neck three weeks later as an excuse to avoid breaking up with her for the right reasons.
So I’m an asshole, right? I’ve never been able to settle down, even after two years, and I always think something better is around the corner. Well, at least I did. So fast forward a few years and I’m working in south Florida and living with my girlfriend of a year and a half, although we’ve been friends since we were fifteen. I thought I had moved beyond all of that immaturity and haphazardness, but recent weeks have led me to believe that I haven’t. Yesterday was Valentines, and while we both promised ourselves that we would take it easy (no gifts, nothing fancy, just cards) I still found myself feeling awkward when we went to eat. It’s a terrible feeling when you look across the table and you see someone you know you love, but you wish you were somewhere else. After a dysfunctional sex episode (which happens frequently, I won’t explain) I found myself laying in bed and pondering, say, that new girl at work or the Asian waitress at the restaurant.
But who am I fooling? The greatest heartbreaks of my life were the ones where hindsight showed me that there was a lot more there than I would leave myself to believe. Maybe that’s why I am even more and more tentative about acting impulsively now. But the fact is, for right now I’m with her. And I’d guess I’d rather be with her, Valentine’s Day or not, than wishing she was still with me. Love the one you’re with, that’s how the song goes right?
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