I've been played

[EarthGirl]

Is it ok to just give up all together and be happy by myself and not even try anymore? or do you think that that means I've given up on life and God too? There's so much more I want than love and there's so many other things to do in this world. I don't want to waste all my time all my life hoping then hurting, hoping then hurting...and on and on. I just know it can be so much better than that.

[jv032889]

Don't give up! Just do you. Live your life. Go out make friends, explore the world, laugh. Enjoy life and eventually when yourleast expect it you will meet that special sumone . I was recently dumped after 2 1/2 years. I've taken this time to try and improve myself. I enrolled back in school, made new friends.

[boogieboy]

It can be much better than that, but what is your definition of "trying"?

How often did you put yourself out there to find love before this last guy?

[EarthGirl]

thank you for the cheerleading JV. It's awesome that your going back to school and learning new things and meeting new people and having fun. I really have a lot of things I want to do and am excited about, a few of which I've gotten just a little headway on so far.

 

I just have gotten to the point now where I don't really understand how it would be possible to trust love again...you know you start out one way, and you change with experience. You have hope again and again but at some point when you're disappointed yet again, something in you changes, and love itself...or rather the idea of it, the feeling of it, the hope of it, regardless of who it's with or for, is just not the same anymore. I don't really know how to explain it...I'll have to think more about that.

 

I don't mean to sound really depressing or to depress anybody. I am really not depressed myself. Hurt..but i have been for a long time, that is nothing new, I have learned to live with it..I still have a lot of hope and life in me, there is nothing wrong with me. For me I feel this is a normal reaction to all I've been through.

 

I don't have low self esteem either because of all this. I have been there done that, and now my self esteem is very high and healthy. I just want to experience all life has to offer besides this area which for whatever reason has not gone too well for me.

[EarthGirl]

To answer your question boogie boy...probably not nearly enough to be successful if you are thinking about it in a mathematical probability way. For one I am very shy and therefore I tend to only end up dating people I might know through a mutual friend that I see multiple times before one of us gets up the guts (usually the guy, I've only put myself out there the first time a couple of times in my life)...or that I see at a place we both frequent, again, multiple times...or of course over the internet which is sort of how I got into it with the last time..well we met in real life first and then got in touch over myspace, etc...Anyway I do find it much more comfortable to talk online, even if I have met the person in real life before..but of course I long for in person exchanges and intimacy and all that.

 

Anyway I have only "put myself out there" for a handful of guys in my life (27)...the problem is I have put myself out there so much for these guys who played head games with me and did not treat me with the most respect. but I just kept trying and trying and trying with each one till I finally knew it was hopeless and time to give up. I guess the other reason besides being shy that I have not had a lot of experience with guys is just ...well no that I am picky, but just because I have met only well...a handful, of guys in my life that I have been very very attracted to, and I really am only ever interested in someone if I feel that way about pretty much right off the bat. I do admit it's somewhat about looks, and am not ashamed of that by the way, but I am also a very intuitive person and I just get feelings about certain people and their personalities very quickly. It's not always romantic or attraction either, and in those cases looks may have absolutely nothing to do with it, but there are certain people I may meet and within an hour of meeting them I can see that they may end up being my best friends for years to come and a good and true one...and indeed a few times I actually did say that in my head, it did in fact come true with some of my closest friends.

 

And indeed in the cases of the guys I've been interested in, they did turn out to be quite fascinating, smart, funny, everything you could want really...even incredibly nice guys...just not nice to ME. Well I guess it's true that sometimes there are other people that they weren't nice too and I guess I was warned in some cases, like a fool of course I paid no heed to the warnings...but just so you understand that I am not into the whole "bad boy" thing...yeah I like a guy in a leather jacket, but that's as far as it goes...the thing was I was attracted to the GOOD in them. PLEASE don't go saying that it was some unconscious thing I was doing, cause there may be some truth to that in some cases, but I am not the kind of person that believes everything just because they talked about it on Oprah. I was attracted to these guys because they were goodlooking (yes, I admitted to that), funny (that is a huge turn on for me, can't help it), and they were sweet, called their mothers every week, helped old ladies cross the street, were always there for their friends...all that stuff. They just weren't there for me.

 

And I know that I went about it wrong and I should have been getting "out there" more and should not have given so much power to them, but no one gave me an instruction manual.

 

I'm really wary of the whole...well all the rules and the whole "game". I have never wanted to follow rules when it comes to love. Like how many days to you have to wait to call..and then after the break up all this no contact stuff...playing hard to get...all that cliched stuff. It's not like I was totally clingy and desperate, I just like to play it by ear because that's how I feel it should be. I don't want to dissect it. And I refuse to even if it means giving up on love, because I just don't want to get it that way. Maybe that is totally stubborn and stupid, but that's the way I am...I am not clingy, but sometimes I feel I am too nice and people (not just guys that I'm dating) feel they can walk all over me, so maybe they are tempted to, just because they can?

 

I know sometimes we as humans like to do stuff just because we can.

 

Still I refuse to stop being nice and "play the game" because that is who I am, and I feel like if I give up who I am, then in the end it's me who's losing the most important thing of all anyway. I will stand up for myself if I really need to, or for someone else in need, and when I do, I can REALLY stand up for myself or the people, what have you. I can write (or even speak off the cuff) speeches that could be in some war movie for the last speech before the underdog country with tired dwindling troops finally surprisingly whips the other guys' butts.

 

I also feel like if I try to keep a guy by touching him in just the right places, and saying just the right words at just the right time, like I read in some Cosmo magazine...I just can't see how that could be real love anyway. And I would not want to be with a man that only had fake love for me even if I really loved him.

 

well this sure has turned into one of my rants.

 

I think I just need a break from love. I think I'm just gonna say no more love for a year, maybe forever..but just try not to think about it at all, and then when a year is over I can reassess. Maybe after a year of not thinking about it everything changes and there can be a clean slate. I haven't had one of those in so long (I've gone from one crush or relationship to another for years), and I think that is a really big part of the problem. Perhaps then I can take boogie's advice and just put myself out there and be open to the possibilities of the universe.