A close friend of mine and I were talking about relationships and the how both of us seem to need a little work on how we deal with such matters. The basic question being why we seem to be able to so easily drop one person when we find someone else we're interested in. I mean, that's not normal, right? It's never done in a mean spirited way. It's done more in an...ADD kind of way (for me) and maybe even a subconscious kind of way. It's not necessarily a bad trait to not be able to date more than one person at a time. But the way we go about it is the problem. My friend put it this way, "Years down the road we're gonna end up with 'My Name is Earl' lists of girls and guys that you and I have to go door to door and apologize to". Everything in me wanted to argue that statement but I realized she's probably right. (We also determined that given my daughter will likely be old enough to sell girl scout cookies by the time these door to door meetings take place, we might have to take her with us so that "people don't shoot us on sight".)
I've openly admitted that I have a tendency to go girl to girl when I date. For a long time it was about escapism; if I didn't like what one had to say about my issues, I'd end the relationship with some other lame excuse. I don't know how many knew that the entire relationship had been built on so flimsy a foundation that one mention of all the bad stuff I was doing to myself could implode it all in a heartbeat. I thought back to the actual moments during which I'd ended these affairs and realized something I didn't really know before - I was a bastard. I think I told myself that they knew I was damaged going in so they shouldn't have been surprised when it ended. And for a long time that justified the behavior in my head but I think I always knew that it wasn't right. It's like I just now realized what a gigantic ass I must have been in a lot of those break-ups. And that is going to karmically kick my ass for years to come (and I deserve every punch that's landed). Obviously I should have tried to correct the behavior then but I didn't and so it just kept repeating, something that still happens today.
I felt bad that I couldn't help my friend solve her problem but I also realized that I have absolutely no clue how to go about doing that for myself either. I know it sounds so simple; if the goal is to not hurt people and drift from one person to the next, then just don't do any of those things fool. But it's actually much harder, especially because it's so ingrained in me after having done it for so long. The only thing I can think of that could be a start to changing it is being more conscious of what I'm doing while I'm in the moment. Which means remembering to be conscious in that moment, and memory is hit and miss for me. But I guess if it's important enough to me, I'll figure out a way to remember, right?
