The Problem is me

[CrazyKatLady]

So, I have flipped and flopped back and forth on this site--hating and loving, happy then sad, remorseful then vindicated, and I am now in a point in my recovery where I have obsessed over my life and relationship situations to the point where I just can't take in anymore articles or books or journals about fixing myself and that discuss break-ups and love. However, I will continue to frequent this site, mostly because I enjoy the interaction with other people while still maintaining a safe distance and my own schedule.

I recently ranted in a post about messaging back and forth with a new "friend" on match and then finally meeting up to hang out...that poor man!

I was not ready to move forward-hence why I called him a "friend" that I met online. He was very understanding and mature and I feel pretty awful that he had to experience my lack of control or nonexistent attempts to really fix my problems before I met up with anyone again in order to date. Like I said, that poor man! I was able to apologize, but apologies only go so far before you have to take a real hard look at the root of the problem--and you know what I found...Myself! Yikes! I finally accepted that I can have some sort of control over my own situations, the situations that I put other people in while they are around me, and that acting in a certain manner will usually produce a certain result--that result being--A). people are happy B). people are unhappy or C). people are pissed at you and don't want to be around you and will block you from every point of access into their lives! That is not a good sign, especially if it could have been prevented. I can't please everyone, but for those that I can--I should be making a better effort because I have bettered myself and I then I will be certain that I know better than to keep throwing the blame in every direction other than my own...and who knows--maybe I will get better at treating others the way I would like to be treated...just saying...it's an idea I had.

So, I closed down that online dating account immediately--not because I had a bad experience with the man, but because I have no experience with myself dating a man the way I would like to, and that a man would enjoy also.

I am learning the ropes about what it is that I am looking for--I am not sure that I ever thought much about that before. Love was always a feeling for me with very little "real" thinking involved. The few nightmares I have experienced while dating (and I am well aware that I was not anybody's ray of sunshine in the relationships either) are starting to make sense to me now--I was mostly choosing to either let someone repeat the same mistakes with me over and over again, or I was choosing to engage in my own set of repetitive bad behavior in the relationship if I felt let down or put down or underappreciated or because I just act immature sometimes...yada, yada, yada...(if Seinfeld urks you, my bad!)

I think I am ready to take some of the responsibility for my prior failures in my relationships and grow from them in a healthy way instead of using these episodes as a crutch until I can hop onto someone else's caboose and try to lean on them for a little while...until eventually I unbalance the entire situation by coming into it "injured" (i.e. my own self-perceived pain from the last relationship usually) and using a crutch.

I can change these issues. I can make improvements--heck, that is an understatement! I can build and create a new way of doing things in my life, and in my thinking, and in my approach to dating, and how I treat people, and what it is I want to offer someone or what I would like from them. That is a lot of "ands"...sorry! I have a lot of work to do!! But, I am excited. I credit that kind man I met online and the one meeting we had for an hour at a public restaurant table that hundreds of other people had sat at before us. He provided me with a lot of insight into what I was doing wrong in comparison to what he was doing right. He was respectful enough, courteous, open to meeting--but also closed to my automatic rejection as a real date and meeting as friends only, in person. As well he SHOULD have been. My immaturity and desire to make sense of the pain I had been going through that was interspersed with short-lived confidence was not based in reality--it was based in past mistakes and let downs.

I still believe that I have experienced real bad times through others manipulations that I had no control over at the time because I was not presented with the truth of the situation until that person just vanished into thin air...but that is pretty rare, I hope.

Either way, I CAN make better, more thoughtful, insightful, and regulatory choices that can provide me with the happiness I am seeking when I want to date again. And it also gives me a sense of relief to know that I can bring something of value to a potential partners life--if nothing else, nobody will be say I'm crazy ever again

I guess we all have to grow up at some point, better late than never, right?