FML

Single by Choice?

A few years ago I ended a three-year relationship. Other than school breaks our entire relationship was long distance. He was my first in almost every way so as you can imagine ending the relationship took a great deal of consideration and caused severe pain to both of us. In fact, he claimed he would never love again and pulled some not so flattering drive-by’s in the days following the break up. However, we have since moved on; and he did so especially quickly, hooking up with his now fiancé just a week after I broke up with him. But hey, don’t they say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone…and then put a ring on it? 

I guess my issue now seems to be the inevitable question of “he has clearly moved on, so why haven’t I?” To answer that question I first attempted to heal my heart and didn’t try to jump into anything too soon. A year later I tried online dating, but that got weird fast. I decided that was not going to work for me. Then the universe provided another option, and I met “Rick”. Other than an uncanny resemblance to my ex, Rick seemed pretty nice. We dated casually until he stopped calling or texting back, forcing me to have an awkward conversation with him in which he listed his excuses as to why we needed to break up. By the way, we had dated for less than a month, and I never once called him my boyfriend. Rick’s explained that the 45 minute distance from my house and the school we both attended was “too much and he was no-go at communication.” Direct quote, FYI…I never said he was a poet. 

So I was back to being single. Now a full three years after my first break up, I’m single and staring to question if it is a choice or due to circumstances. All my friends are engaged, getting married, or deliriously happy in their relationships. I have attend more weddings in the last year then I can stand and just saw my ex’s engagement announcement in the paper, which stung more than I’d like to admit. 

I guess I’m single by choice…but am I really? I want a relationship, I want a best friend and a partner, but once again that elusive “great guy” is nowhere to be found. So, I think I’ll continue to claim the moniker “single by choice,” if only because the frogs I’ve seen lately are not going to turn into princes no matter how tight I close my eyes when I kiss them.

Garage Sale

The Two Worst Ways to Get Asked to Prom

1.  By your ex.

Having ended our relationship two months prior, I wasn’t entirely surprised when my ex asked me to Prom. Actually I don’t recall a question ever being asked - - I just recall a Facebook chat message reading, “Well if neither of us has a date, maybe we should go together” Gah, adorable…just how a girl always dreams of being asked to Prom! Despite me seeing the invitation coming, my horror at the idea was still significant. Our relationship had lasted all of 5 weeks, and I’m really not sure that we ever actually went out on a date, but I did not want our first one to come after the relationship was over. Things weren’t exactly peachy after we broke up, and it had become awkward enough for me to develop strategic routes for traveling from class to class just so I wouldn’t run into him. My heart stopped every time I saw a blue jeep because I thought it was him, and I avoided Facebook altogether so that he couldn’t chat me. It’s safe to say that I wanted to move past our so-called relationship, and going to Prom together was not the way to do it.

      2. In a stairwell by someone who’s bawling his eyes out because his girlfriend [literally] just broke up with him.

It sounds made up, and I wish it was. But yes, one fateful day a week before the big dance, I experienced the epitome of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had gone to the fall Homecoming Dance with a friend of mine, let’s call him Ray. It was completely platonic, but following the dance Ray developed a crush on me, and who could blame him, really. In his attempt to figure out how to talk to me, he began talking to one of my girlfriends, let’s call her Summer. In the process of Ray trying to get to me through my friend, he actually fell for Summer! This worked out well for me because I had absolutely no interest in Ray, but ended up backfiring six months later when Prom time rolled around. Apparently Summer felt like days before one of the biggest events of the high school experience was an opportune time to break up with her boyfriend, and leave it to me to walk through the door just as she was handing him the break up letter. 

I did my best to doge Ray; I put my head down and sped-walked towards the exit, but he managed to catch me. He was incredulous as to why Summer would do this to him, and more so than being concerned that his relationship of six months was over, Ray was worried about losing his Prom date. And, with tears still in his eyes and snot running down his nose, Ray looked at me with the most pathetic expression I can ever remember and said with a cracking voice, “well, would you go with me?” Crap. How do you say no to such a sorry creature? But I knew it is what my answer needed to be, for Homecoming several months prior was a horrendous experience I had tried to block from my memory. Let’s just say the highlight was a toss-up between when the strap of my dress got caught in the pin from his boutonniere and when he refused to open the car door for me after dinner. Ah, but then there was the gag-inducing hardness I felt through his pants during Flo-Rida’s “In the Ayer”….I had countless reasons for not wanting to go to Prom with Ray, now I just had to figure out how to break it gently to someone who was emotionally fragile. So, naturally, I chose to lie. “Well Ray, I would but I think I’m already going with a guy from another school” (a perfect excuse—make up a fake guy from a different school that Ray’s never heard of and he’ll never know the difference). “Oh, I see,” said Ray, “well could I at least join your group for dinner?” Double crap. “Shucks, Ray I really wish you could, but our reservation is for 12 people and the restaurant said that there was absolutely no way to squeeze anyone else in. And you know restaurants, they never have extra chairs or silverware. Such a shame, we’d love to have you.” Whew. I managed to dodge a bullet. By second period the entire school knew about my humiliating invitation to Prom, and by fourth period Ray and Summer had decided to go to the dance together as friends despite their break up. I ended up going to my Prom solo, and it was the best decision of my life.

Skills

Crushing on a Guy Who’s Taken

Crushing on a guy who is in a relationship with another girl is practically a rite of passage for women. It always starts off good (and that’s usually because we’ve yet to find out that he’s not single), harmless flirting, a few inside jokes, and some casual hanging out. But then it reaches the point where you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve fallen in love with this guy, and he’s convinced himself that it’s time to go home to his gf. Fuck. 

In some ways you feel dirty, like you’re the home wrecker he’s cheating on his girl with. I mean, his texts to you end with winky faces and he compliments your cute outfits! Guys don’t just do those things with girls they aren’t at least a little bit interested in….but then you think ahead, like girls do, and consider what would happen if, just like in your fantasies, he left his current relationship to be with you. How are you supposed to trust somebody who had feelings for someone who wasn’t the girl he was dating, even though the person that he had feelings for was you?! It sounds completely convoluted, but it also sounds completely logical; you wanted to be with him when he had a girlfriend, but if he leaves his girlfriend to be with you, how do you know he won’t fall for another girl in the midst of your relationship?

But wait, let’s back up a second. Because guess what? He’s still dating his girlfriend. He didn’t leave her for you, and you’re still alone. You’re trying to understand if you only want him because he’s taken, or if you want him for real. Ladies at this point you are the walking definition of the friend zone and he’s taking complete advantage of it. He gets to have his girlfriend AND you at the same time, and he doesn’t get in trouble. 

You lose sleep thinking about him and you plan your day around seeing him. You get yourself so worked up in his presence that you end up making a complete douche out of yourself - - and for what? All the time you spend making sure your hair is just right and your outfit is put together, all the time you spend thinking about what you’re going to say to him, it’s all time wasted. In your fantasy he declares his undying love for you but in reality, he plays you. So, how do you put an end to it? How do you stop the never-ending cycle of feeling something for someone who doesn’t feel it back? 

You go cold turkey. You look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you are better than this - - that you don’t deserve to be second fiddle, to be somebody’s “emotional mistress.” You erase every dream you ever had of being with him and set your sights on that which is attainable. Don’t let him be the focus of your day when you’re only a small fraction of his. When you stop obsessing over something you can’t have, something that’s not even good for you, you open yourself up to the possibility of a real, true, healthy relationship. You cherish friendships for being just that; friendships. And finally, you tell yourself that when the right guy comes along, he will realize how lucky he is to have you in his life, and he will make you a priority, not an afterthought.