Grow up Douchebag!

I've written before that I understand from a male's perspective why you would hesitate to settle down. A fun night here or there, a different girl or guy to hang out with daily, a different scene, a new party, a lack of attachments, an altogether good life but at some point you need to look beyond what is menial and think about your legacy. Who do you want to be? When will you be it? When will a future with someone be more important than a life on your own? What will all of these reckless, empty nights mean when everybody stops singing to your tune?

This is an open letter to all of the douchebags you ladies have had to put up with and an apology for the heartbreak they caused you.

In recent months, I have heard the most shocking series of breakup stories I’d ever come across. Nobody wants to fight for love, they all just want to fight. Others are left with no choice but to leave because of the unforgivable deal-breakers that break trust and evaporate love in a relationship. As a big believer in love, I will admit, the negative stuff shakes your faith a little. While we all hope and pray and believe in the greater good, the greater male community (or just the ones we’ve crossed paths with) prefer to be bad in epic proportions and while it’s never good form to trash your ex…they’re not my exes, so I’m going for gold on behalf of my friends.

Here goes…

Dear Douche,

You're not a bad guy. We say that because we want to believe that our investment in you was worth it. It wasn't but against our better judgement we believed that you'd grow up and out of the phase you were in. You didn't.

You grew older but age somehow bypassed your brain. All of those brash nights out with your brainless bachelor friends will do that to you.

Those long wish lists we had when we were eighteen reduced because somehow by default our self-esteem dropped with everyday that we were with you until you felt enormous and we felt minuscule.

It became increasingly difficult to love you when you constantly let us down. You didn't care. When you thought you had us, you reverted to your old ways. You stopped putting in the effort to be better. You stopped valuing us. It became about you again. It's what you knew best.

Maybe you didn't have the capacity to love in the way we had loved you. Maybe you did but simply didn't want to give us your heart. We spent days, months even years pining over you and just as long getting over you. It took you seconds to replace us.

You gave it all up for a lifetime of hollow nights out. You gave up purity of heart for a few fleeting and flattering words.  You gave up joy for lust. You gave up love for youth. You gave up youth to temptation. You gave up a future to build yourself a past. Was it worth it?

We stopped waiting. So did the girls you hooked up with.

Everyone was searching for love while you sought superficiality. You might settle down one day but you'll be much older. You won't be wiser. You have no brain cells left to make that possible.

You'll find a girl who is content with your lukewarm heart. Those that seek true love will look far beyond you for it. You will lead separate lives because you've spent your whole life living for you and when you circle the earth searching for the one who completes you, she won't be there - because you never were. This is the bed you made for yourself...now lie in it.

You’ll find something, but I doubt it will be happiness because you failed at giving it and when you're too old to hit the clubs, when the girls you know become the girls you knew when the friends you have become the friends you had - will that life you chose be worth it?

We may have cried for a week, a month, a year but you will be replaced. Eventually you will feel like a figment of our imagination. It may take you a little longer to feel our grief, if you feel at all, but what you did and what you will always do, will catch up with you. We accept now that you cannot change and we’re just glad not to be waiting anymore. We get it. Finally.

You never realised what was in front of you. Sure enough, someone smarter than you will. That's when we'll be the ones that got away, but we'll be too far away for you to ever reach us.

You lost when you were so used to scoring. Foul play should keep you on the sidelines forever.  We still pray you one day grow to be the person we hoped. If not for us, then for the gratification that the effort we put in was worth it for someone.

We've been patient. We have waited for you to grow up. We have believed in your goodness. We've seen your potential for perfection but potential is nothing when everything you are is everything other than what you should be. You don't want to change. You never will. Because of that, we'll never want you twice. 

We accept we can never lose what we never had so this is no loss at all.

Good riddance and goodbye. 

Weiner and Woods get women wondering about love.

This week, Congressman Anthony Weiner’s private life was exposed because his private parts were exposed to women other than his wife. The Weiner’s and the Wood’s (Tiger that is) have something in common, where balls are involved, games will be played and the first ladies are put second to the lustful sport of adultery where little men in powerful positions gamble love for garbage.

It’s no wonder women are constantly losing faith in the male species. I almost did this week until scrolling through my twitter feed. A subscriber of all things loving and romantic, one person I followed tweeted ‘don’t say there are no good men left, say I go to all the same places expecting for the scenery to change and to meet new people,” (I’ve paraphrased but that was more or less the point…and WHAT A POINT IT WAS).  Here I was wondering where Mr.Right was when I was hanging out on Dormant Drive – there would be no volcanic, earth shattering romance here – I had little option but to keep walking, keep searching…anywhere but here.

Then a funny thing happened….Mr.Right-Now came knocking at my door. Now I can say with certainty that he is not right for me, but he is present in my life, this minute. He came…also on Twitter (and yes, it is fall of twats) with another perspective on what it would take for me to give him my heart. He said, ‘an intelligent man opens your mind, a handsome man opens your eyes and a gentleman opens your heart.” How nice I thought. I want a combination of all three.

While he claimed gentility, his words when not attempting to court me suggested otherwise and as I questionned his inability to maintain the myth he'd portrayed, alas, an answer came through Lara Bingle. Also trending on Twitter, she said, ‘women fall in love with what they hear and men fall in love with what they see…that’s why men lie and women wear make-up.” Who knew Bingle could speak with such profundity? Experience educated her – her beauty reeled Cricket Captain Michael Clarke in to love but her scandalous photos and foul play made what was visible less desirable and so Clarke’s sweet-nothings ceased to be whispered, making Bingle single.  

Some couples are able to weather any storm though with Weiner’s wife pregnant in her first trimester, she has (as far as we’ve read) promised to stand by her man, seeking guidance from none other than Hilary Clinton on how to wipe the slate clean. I guess the lesson from Hilary for women is, when your man doesn’t know how to conduct himself in public, keep him private… and then wear his pants.

Edmund Burke (not on Twitter) said “the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” These men, clearly unable to prove worthy of their power and abusing it when they have it, need women like Clinton and Beyonce to ‘run the world’ to keep them from misbehaving. Clinton wears the pants and Beyonce doesn’t wear any – perhaps finding a happy medium between the two is the secret to good governance of MANkind.