We all know that Bruno Mars song and every one who has loved swears to being the victim of relationships past. We are single, we are taken, we are taken by love, we give our all, and we end up broken. Love always hurts if you let it and if you don’t.
The hurt that the young girl in my story knew this time around was not love, it was delusion. For a moment, she was single, was taken by a man’s charm and was shell-shocked when the truth about his character detonated in her face. The news exploded into her world and her faith in someone she once cared for was shattered. She was not entirely the victim this time though, because I believe that in love there are three central themes upon which the success of a relationship depends; choice, chance and change. In making the choice to give someone a second chance while expecting them to have changed, she was at first unlucky, but the second time was a fool.
This is how the tale unfolded. Once upon a time, there was a young girl; naïve and with a heart wide-open. She fell for a thief masked as a prince and had her naivety stolen from her. For years she had focused on finding a prince and one day, just as she planned, the prince had found her. It was a fairytale. She made a choice to trust him because chance had brought him in her life and her earnest hope was that life thereafter would blissfully change. What changed however was his attitude towards her. Afraid of commitment and embroiled in scandal, he sought sex appeal over sincerity, many women over one, freedom to be a boy over assumption of a predestined role to become a man. Very quickly the fairytale failed the young girl who thought love came once and without difficulty or heartbreak. She was blissfully ignorant till he came along and while first time around she mourned the loss of him, the young man continued to live happily ever after. This is not one for the kids.
The second time around the man returned; changed, seemingly reformed with new charms and greater sincerity. It appeared his former mask was removed. He had new things to offer so the young girl with an open heart, let him in again (because it seems they hadn’t sufficiently hurt each other enough the first time). Flaws in his new plan to court her surfaced as each line came without promise, each compliment came with a catch, each good deed was overshadowed by a bad one and then the final straw…he was seeing someone else while MAN-ipulating the young girl’s heart. Shame on him for tricking her once but shame on her for allowing him to trick her twice!
Sound familiar? Good girl meets bad boy, bad boy leaves good girl ,bad boy moves on to break more hearts, bad boy occasionally returns to validate his ego and confirm to himself that if he wanted the good girl, he could have her. Bad boy needs a naughty corner.
The sad truth is, the good girl will always compromise for the chance at love. In keeping with the self-sacrificing Bruno Mars theme, another song I was listening to of his was called ‘The Other Side.” Great song! It was all about a straight-laced girl falling for a shady boy and all she had to do was make the choice to cross the road and submit to his debauchery. Life, lust and a chance of love were all choices that the girl had to make but if she dared cross the road, there was no guarantee of exclusivity or of a happily ever after.
At long last, an answer I thought – all things ‘relationship’ before finding love are about making choices when chance encounters tempt you. Expecting change is the error that most good girls will make when faced with the chance to choose. What we all know is that a leopard never changes its spots, so we mustn't expect it to. While animal print is always alluring, it is only a seasonal trend.
Armed with the experience of the choice/chance/change effect, the little girl in this fairytale made a new choice. She decided she’d give no more chances to those that needed to change. She'd no longer expect a change in others but would make changes in herself and the choices she made. She admitted that the prince she once knew was just a thief in a prince’s clothing. She didn't try to change him but choosing to believe that he could have and giving him a second chance is a choice she'd change if given another chance. Ignorance may have been blissful in her adolescence but knowledge this time around was power.
After being single, after momentarily allowing herself to be taken by a bad boy, she knew that this bombshell was a lesson to not toy with explosives. She’d leave heroics for the boys she’d meet in the future and just like that, she emerged a hero. She may have been single again, but this time she was better for it.
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