TMI Tuesday!!!
I don’t think today’s TMI post will offend or bother anyone at all. I will be sharing my thoughts and revelations on my own past relationships and dating experiences. Nothing racy. But if you’d rather not know/read, then by all means, do come back tomorrow. Thanks!
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I think we all get to a point in our lives where we look back on every romantic (or not) relationship we’ve ever had and begin to wonder about patterns and failures and such. While one could easily deem any relationship that ended a failure, I choose to see them all as learning experiences and happenstance (one of my favorite words). I became boy crazy at a young age. I think around pre-school! Ha-ha! But it’s true! I got “married” to my friend Kelly R. and made wedding cakes in the sand with him, we must have been 3 or 4 years old?! Yep, that early! In kindergarten the girls would chase the boys in the playground singing “Going to the chapel” to freak them out. I think that set a theme for me a bit after that.
While shy at first, I soon became the one to ask the boys out. Or at the very least hand them the opportunity to ask me out on a silver fucking platter! I rarely if ever played hard to get (but damn, that is so fun!). Oh sure, I’d get rejected occasionally. I’d get dumped, brutally, too. I would wallow in misery as a result, but would always find a way to get back out there and there always seemed to be a new boy to give me the attention I desired and wanted to give back as well. My first official boyfriend was in 7th grade. I met him at the first school dance I ever attended. He was such a dork! He danced, well, not great. My friends were merciless. But I saw something in him and when he asked me to dance and later to be his girlfriend, I said yes. I had my first real French kiss on Halloween night a few weeks later. It was swoon-worthy, I can assure you. Though I later dumped him for telling me I looked like shit when I was sick with the flu and he insisted on coming to see me even though I begged him not to come over. Also, he said he wanted to remain friends. That didn’t happen.
After that first one? Well, it was like someone had thrown the checkered flags and I was suddenly in overdrive. Every boy in school was a possible mate! But there were always the ones I wanted so badly that I obsessed over them. Preppies, mostly. Unattainable dudes. I was the awkward-poor girl constantly trying too hard to fit in or just not be noticed. I longed to wear sweaters and pegged Guess? jeans like the preppy girls, but they were so mean to me that I soon gave that notion up entirely. I always had guy friends, but there was a line I wouldn’t cross in that and I later found out many of them were gay. It was never an issue.
But then I met an older boy that would change my life forever. It was the summer before 8th grade. His name was Steve and I met him and my future BFF Marc at the same time that fateful day at the rec center pool. I was hanging out with my friend Jenny when we started talking to them. I didn’t know it at the time, but Steve would later become a fixation in my mind during my darkest times. It’s unfortunate that though we tried (we dated four times) we never did end up together. I have no regrets, but there was always electricity between us. While he disappointed me time and again over the next four years, I will never forget him.
My first serious boyfriend was the cutest boy in school. I was in 8th grade, he in 7th. I wore his Giants jacket and felt like the queen of love! He had these blue eyes that would do me in every time! *sigh* We dated for four whole months, an eternity in teenage time. I dreamt of having sex with him. I wanted him to be my first. But then he broke up with me and broke my heart and gave no reason why (I later found out that his mom had grounded him for over a month and just thought it best this way). That was my first true heartbreak. I bounced back easily enough though. I hadn’t begun the pattern of drowning in my own misery and self-harming thoughts.
I dated a lot of boys between the ages of 11 and 14. I lost my virginity at 14. It was nothing special. I wasn’t even dating the guy. But I was in love/lust with him for sure. He had already broken my heart once by that point, so the disappointment of the night wasn’t so much of a surprise as another in a string of disappointments. Then I met my abuser and for the next five years lived in a near-hostage situation. Few people know or can understand what that was like, I have no doubt that that relationship shaped me and made me the fearful and un-trusting gal I am today, but I wouldn’t go back and change it, either. I wouldn’t be with my husband if I did. Ya know?
When I finally escaped the abuser and started my life again, I went right back into boy-overdrive! I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted and was still pretty shaken (though in denial) from my recent past. So you can imagine the kinds of guys I was attracting: assholes, losers, etc. It wasn’t until I had had the worst breakup ever, was at wit’s end and not looking for love at all, that I met my husband. I’d just been promoted and had to do the interviews for x-mas help at a music store. B was my very first interview. I hired him, we became good friends and later (Doy!) we started dating and eventually got married and junk. He was the first friend I’d ever had feelings for or dated. So glad I broke that stupid rule! Ha-ha!
So now I’m at that point where I’m looking back and I see that what I had wanted all along and only ever once received (from my husband) was to be loved for me, as I am, without a desire to change me (from the guy). All I ever wanted was love, affection, poetry, to be desired like nothing else. No boy ever wrote me poetry or songs. Every boy I’d ever dated played guitar! Every single one of them. It’s freaky to consider. But none wrote me a song (that I know of). None surprised me with romantic proclamations or silly spontaneous acts of love. Romance? I’ve barely touched her waters. My husband used to try at least. He wrote me a poem once, I have it on a wall. Though I shared many things and too much of myself with many boys, I don’t think I was ever seen as something to cherish or hold onto or of serious value. There could be many reasons for this and perhaps they did and I was unaware. Never the less, I am happy with the boy I chose to keep.
After talking with an old friend a couple of weeks ago though, I realized that I missed out on a lot of things. I missed out on a mature dating environment. I missed out on being chased and wanted and desired in a mature-sexual way, rather than the immature kind which is all I’d ever known. None of those boys/guys wanted to make a woman out of me. None really even bothered with trying to give me an orgasm. At some point I stopped caring about myself entirely and became the pleaser in ways I’d rather not recount at the mo. I know these things happen due to my own conduct and choices as well as those involved at the time, but one cannot help but wonder, ya know? Not what ifs in the sense of any certain person or time. Just, well…
I want to be wanted like nothing else around. I want someone to want me like a fish wants water to swim in. I want someone to want me sexually as though they cannot go on until they have me. I want silly displays of love and romance! I want deep conversations and lost time! I want to laugh and love and give the same in return. I miss all of those ridiculous crushes and the ride of emotions that went along with them. I want spontaneity and lust! I want surprises again! It’s been so long!
And when I get glimpses of these things in my marriage I glow a glow that no one’s glowed before! I float upon feathery clouds. I smile all day the next day and no one knows why. Last Tuesday my husband made me feel so wanted and loved and just amazing! He knew what I wanted/needed before I did or could form the thought. No words were spoken. There was a moment where I felt drunk with fulfillment and pleasure. That moment was like no other I’d ever felt before. I felt both lost and perfectly in my place. Swoon-y would be how I might describe it. It only touches the surface, but it’ll do. Ha! But then it was over and the next day we went back to our weekday routines. The previous night a fantasy or a dream. A ray of lucidity in an otherwise manic world.
And so I long for that feeling again. I long for getting lost in a moment in time with the man I love like no other. I can’t look back on the past and wonder what went wrong when some things are so right in my life right now. I just don’t know if it will come again. But at least I had it, right? I just wish the routine wouldn’t define our lives so. I wish he could see or know or feel what he does to me. I fear he’s fallen out of love with me, but then on that night I had no doubt we were one. Since then (it’s been a week) it’s been different. And yesterday he said something to me that cut so deep I told him, “I don’t think you realize how hurtful that was” and burst into tears though I tried my best to keep ’em in. He’s never done that before. And when I said, “Why are you even with me then? I don’t think you know anymore.” he said nothing in response. It’s always one step forward, two steps back. I try not to get down about it. Life is what it is and all. But what he said really hurt and how could he not know it? He was very remorseful, but I can’t get passed it. I still can’t forget the last time he lashed out at me. He’s so serious and quiet lately and I am in so much need of attention and companionship that it is painful.
I am so grateful to have him in my life. I am so madly in love with him that sometimes it freaks me out. Mostly because I don’t think he is in love with me anymore. He loves me, maybe even likes me, but it feels like we’re just roommates sometimes. And that hurts more than anything else. We’ll be okay, I know. But I’m a fool for love and boy crazy for sure. I’ll be the funky old lady with the brightly colored outfits no one can understand telling the young folk to live it up while they still can. They’ll think I’m drunk or senile and by then who knows, that may just be true. Ha-ha!
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your worries, TMI or otherwise, questions, etc…in comments.
<3
S
Oh dear. The roommate-y feeling. I understand totally… I broke up two weeks ago with my boyfriend. I loved him, but there were no more sparks. When I asked him where he pictured ourselves five years from now, his answer was ”just like we are today”, say living in each our apartment, with no kid, no house, no marriage, no no no… I couldn’t keep up with that. I could live my life without reaching these goals. I wanted to feel wanted, immensely desired, to be seen as the mother of a future child, to share a cute small house, to travel just the two of us before we start a family, and so on. My feelings of deep love had vanished since some time and I just hadn’t notice it before we had this conversation over which we broke up, in excellent terms, remaining friends.
Sometimes, it’s so hard to do the right thing to achieve your dreams. I have been cruelly dumped three times before, and the guy before my current ex was THE ONE. Everything I ever wanted, we were engaged, we were longing for the same things, and all of a sudden he left me because he ”lost his love for me” thinking that things could get complicated because of our different origins and countries. We have been in a distance relationship three years and were ready to take one step more, and he just… trashed everything. To this day I still don’t understand why he did not simply tried to talk me about his fears at first. I asked various times if he was seeing anyone else, and the answer has always been no, even after we broke up. It would have been easy to tell me yes afterwards so I leave him in peace, but he always told me that he was always faithful, and I believe him. Well… that did not prevent him from making me feel like a princess during three years and then like a pile of shit in one single moment.
It hurts like shit and I feel like I will never get someone to share my life with. All my friends are now in couple and majority of them have babies.
Sometimes I still feel my fat is preventing me from attracting good men, that STAY. Not men who use me and leave me, or men that don’t really want to get involved. Or wonderful men in situations that prevent them to go further with me.
sometimes I am so fucking fed up.
I understand how you hurt and how you long for being desired, wanted, etc. I with you even if I don’t know you personnally. I hope things will clear up for you, or that life will put right things, right partners and right people on your road.
That’s very interesting to me. I insisted upon a few things in our relationship plan as well. I wanted to go to Europe (went on our honeymoon), buy a house, get a pug and then have two children. Now? We’ve almost bought a house 3 times, but so happy we didn’t, we’d be homeless. After working in the mortgage industry, I’m a bit soured on the idea now, but my husband still hangs his hopes on a house with a garden. We have the pug and now I’m not so sure a child is the right choice for me.
I do believe that the key to any successful relationship (no matter how one gauges that) is to find what makes you happy first and to just do that. The rest will follow. When you are your authentic self? You’ll attract the same! It really is that simple. The complicated bit is finding out what that means for you and how to nurture and honor that authentictity on a daily basis. I find that I am working on myself so much, but my husband is growing more bitter each day. I do not think yoru fat or anyone’s fat is holding them back from a good relationship or meeting a mate. That is society’s bullshit pressing in on your insecurities. Don’t buy into it! You’re worth more than that!
It’s easy to get fed up and wanna cave to the pressures and powers that be. It is harder to follow your own beat, ya know? You’ll get there.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Take care!
Thank you for sharing your story. Very inspirational.
Oh, really? Thanks. I hadn’t realized it was inspiring at all. Ha-ha! =0)
Growing up I was so super boy crazy and received almost no male attention (I’m mostly hetero) whatsoever. It was pretty much constantly soul crushing, yet for some reason I didn’t get really bitter. I ended up with a pretty great boyfriend at 17 and that is the wildest love I think I ever knew. I spent a lot of years after that ended, as you said, maybe giving away a bit much of myself, but then I met my now husband and I remember a touch of the crazy, jittery love, but it wasn’t the same as when I was younger. We’ve only been married for two years and I can’t believe how cyclical our relationship is. It goes from swoony and sweet to roommates to resentful/almost parent-child, and back again. I read so much crap about “getting the passion back” that it makes me feel like something is seriously wrong. But maybe I’m just the boy crazy, twitterpated type and he’s not.
Anyway, thank you so much for sharing your always open and grounded perspective on this. I’m so happy that you and yours will be ok, but also know you’re not alone on that whole roommate thing. If you ever have a magical epiphany on how to change that, do tell! Hehe. <3
I like that you say you’re “mostly hetero” as I would say this about myself. I recently said I was situationally hetero. Ha-ha!
Anyway, thank you. Yes, relationships are tricky and if I do find some secret, I’ll be sure to share with all! I think a big part of it for my husband and I is that we were each other’s center of the universe until we got our pup last March. This on top of my cafe and perhaps we’ve simply forgotten that we have to nurture our relationship more because our attention and focus is on other things most often. Just a thought. It is nice knowing I’m not alone in this. If you ever need someone to vent on, I’m here for ya babe! <3
(sends huge hugs)
You know what? I married a musician and he’s never written me a damn song, either! Humph! When we first got together (after five years of casual friendship), he actually told me he’d written a song for every woman he’d seriously dated. Me? Not so much, as it happens. Sigh.
I remember being on the other side of that marital divide. There was a period when I was so depressed that no matter how much I loved Mr. Twistie (and oh, how I love that man!) I couldn’t make myself really express it. I know how much it hurt him, and I know how much it hurt me. I’m just relieved that one day I suddenly snapped back to more or less my old self, but a lot of damage was done along the way.
And then I look back at my pre-Mr. Twistie romantic past and I am so, so glad I had the good sense to grab that man when he showed an interest. Up to that point I think I didn’t really believe any man would want me. I’d only had a couple serious boyfriends up to that point, and they’d been – as I realize years later – emotionally unavailable men. What’s more, neither one really seemed to want me. They wanted an image of me they had created in their heads.
One wanted me to be a gorgeous, sexy, free-thinking woman who would agree with every single idea he had, and the other put me up on a pedestal where he could safely ignore me for week and months on end. He took me out and dusted me off when it suited his needs. My needs weren’t that much of an issue for him.
It kind of freaked me out at first being with someone who was really thinking of what I might enjoy, what I wanted, what I needed. But it was also kind of awesome to finally be able to act on my nurturing instincts with my guy.
I’ll never forget the first time (there have only been a couple, but they have happened) that I told Mr. Twistie I didn’t like a song he’d written. Even as the words left my mouth, I couldn’t breathe. I was in a panic. I think I expected him to dump me on the spot. Instead, he gave a huge sigh of relief and said that he was finally absolutely sure he could trust me to always tell him the truth. He’d had girlfriends lie to him in the past about his music, and even how attractive they found him.
In general, we’ve been on the same page from day one. Even our first date was my dream date I didn’t even know I had. He took me to Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley where we went to every used book store and used record store (What? There were still LPs back in those Dark Ages), shared garlic fondue with me at Fondue Fred, then took me back to his place to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Our first kiss was that romantic moment when the passing knight slashes the throat of the Famous Historian. Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.
To this day he sometimes shows up with flowers for no reason, or suddenly brings home some candy he knows I like, or calls me in the middle of the day because he’s heard something he knows I’ll want to know about.
And when we disagree – as we rarely, but sometimes do – I can trust that he will listen, he can trust that I will be honest, and we will find a way to make things work out reasonably for both of us.
I’m a damn lucky woman, and I know it.
You ARE a lucky woman! And I am so happy for you! Honestly, my guy used to try. He used to surprise me. I think he’s simply given up. I think he’s at a point in life where he’s just tired of it all. He isn’t fond of his job and I know that drains him. Then pouring all of his affections on our pup. I do it, too. We’ve forgotten what our lives were like before the dog. Before the cafe. It’s been such a strain. Hopefully soon this burden will be lifted. It has just been tough on us both. Yesterday I had a moment of realization that tall of the problems in my life have the same missing piece of the proverbial puzzle: Money! And I can’t do shit about that and thus I was devastated. I hate feeling helpless, but I must presevere until I either find a way to make it work or simply walk away (from the cafe, not the marriage).
Thank you for being you and always having the right things to say. While I don’t even know what you look like or how old you are or any of those types of things, I feel like you are a great friend looking out for me. Thank you! <3
Merci, Not Blue at All. You made my day.
Vous êtes très bienvenu. Content je pourrais quelqu’un éclaircir le jour !
I have felt like this in my relationship too. My dude isn’t the most romantic (although he did surprise me with flowers for our last anniversary!) and I’m a very romantic person. I find that the more I accept that he isn’t a natural romantic, the more he opens up to me. When I need to cuddle, I tell him. Sometimes he’s too grouchy (and I can’t always help being a little miffed) but a lot of the time we take a few minutes to cuddle together and reconnect before he hurries off to practice or me off to class.
I know what you mean about feeling kinda cheated out of a “normal” dating experience, what with marrying my abuser at 18, and after I finally left him, letting myself be pulled into a relationship with a user. It can be hard, especially when you get those “oh HAY redhead!” glances. What would it be like if I had actually had those chill dating experiences, instead of being pressured into marriage? But I know that I’m lucky to have my guy, and I would never fuck that up. A good human is hard to find.
Twistie, I know what you mean- my guy is also a musician, and I’m always asking him when he’s gonna write me a song 🙂 “It doesn’t work that way, Rachel!!” Whatevs, babe… 🙂
You speak the truth, my dear. Thank you for that!