Don’t Seek and Ye Shall Find

I was catching up on some back Dear Prudie’s on Slate.com from when I was away. There was one woman on there who hadn’t had a relationship in 2 years. She would get a few dates in with a guy and he would disappear. The guys she liked ran away and the ones she didn’t would cling. She said that while she was 27, 2 years of nothing made her want to give up on love.

Prudie’s advice was to ask her friends to be brutally honest about what they think she’s doing wrong and to just not date for a while. Prudie speculated the girl might be giving off subtle signals she’s not catching that are turning guys off. This is the perfect advice.

I was in a similar place. My relationships would only last about a month or two (never a full 8 weeks). Each reason was different and could be explained but the only common denominator was me. I had no clue what I was doing wrong but I knew I was picking/attracting the wrong people.

To add some baggage to the situation, I had a size 4 best friend who I was regularly and openly passed over for. I could feel myself starting to get bitter so I walked away from dating. If something came along, I wouldn’t say no but I wasn’t seeking anything out. It was one of my better romantic decisions.

I started to enjoy my life, forget about the men who pursued my friend over me, and kept myself out in the world. I had a few offers from some guys who were nice but I really didn’t want to say yes to them. I even had some outside pressure to go out with them but I just couldn’t do it. Not too long after that I met Boy Toy.

We haven’t been together all that long but it has been going really well and I have no reason to expect it to be different going forward. He’s not what I expected but I’m happy. If we stay together for all of the stuff we hope to do together, it will become my second longest relationship rather quickly.

The cliche of finding love when you’re not looking for it was true in my case. Maybe it’s a cliche for a reason. The more desperate you are, the more obvious it is. When you’re just out enjoying life, people tend to see a better version of you and that’s attractive.

Current Music: If I Lose Myself Tonight by OneRepublic

P. S. Don't over-read into my use of the word 'love' in the last paragraph. It was the best word for my purposes. When the L-Bomb drops, I'll blog about it. Until then Boy Toy and I deeply  in like with each other, smitten, and other applicable happy recent relationship phrases.