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. 

Love triangles and less than terrific timing...

Jessica likes James but her friend Julie likes him too. Julie has banded with Jessica's frenemy who also secretly happens to like James. None of them have discussed it with each other for fear of open competition or acceptance of defeat. They will all continue to court and pursue till James takes his pick. Lucky James.

 James is a little popular and a lot confused. He flirts with all but chooses none. James' friend Jono is more astute in his search. He knows exactly what he wants and that is Jessica but Jessica can't decide if being with Jono is where her life has been headed towards or if she'd rather toss both and go for their friend Jack. Friendships will be tried, loyalties will be tested and hearts will inevitably be broken. For the sake of peace, should all step away and bow out of the battle gracefully or should they follow their hearts with the belief that there is nothing more valuable than finding love?

James was in love once but when it was over, he saw the ugly side of his ex. He shook hands with bitterness, rubbed shoulders with rage and flirted with fury, but he stomped all over regret and refused to let it toy with his mind. Even though the outcome of his breakup would have allowed it. She moved on far quicker than he would have expected.

 Affairs, betrayal and recycling of relationships are something experienced the world over so it was all too important to find the person that shared his ideals and would promise the same security that he promised in a relationship second time around.

Betrayal was the basest of human actions yet James having experienced it in his past relationship had peace. It seemed everyone he knew was dating someone who somebody else loved before and although he didn't like it, he accepted the loss and soldiered on. He would rather an old love have love than halt the love of a heart that could never truly be his. This was simultaneously noble and stupid.

Jessica  had other wonderful friends who had caught partners in the act of cheating. The cheater and the mistress would go on to live happily ever after, while the cheated would be left to contemplate the loss, experience extreme lows and for the first time know loneliness. Fortunately, Jessica's friend was surrounded by wonderful people to uplift her but she'd often question why the person at fault got to know joy first?

Jessica would often tell her that it was important to experience a period of loneliness to build one's character so that when love came knocking she'd be complete enough to answer the door and let love in. Without development of one's self, it would be a relationship of dependance not one in which she could give yourself wholly to her other half.

Enter unfortunate timing for James and Jessica.

James and Jessica were chatting the other day and he sweetly contemplated that experiences lived out without a loved one were empty, futile and incomplete to him. He pondered that until his plus one could share in the joys of his life, he wouldn’t know contentment. This was the most beautifully expressed quest for love that Jessica had heard in a long time. She would have fallen for him instantly if she wasn't aware of the call to be guarded while he was still healing. He wouldn't be ready to love her for a while and so she accepted his friendship and would happily help him heal.

The problem here for Jessica was that while James claimed he was ready to move on, he continued to tell Jessica how perfect his ex (Gretchen) was. He mused on all of Gretchen’s good qualities and feared that he would never find those qualities again. Jessica didn’t voice her issue with this but if she had that night over, she would have asked, why you would want a repeat of your last relationship, if that formula failed you? He was blinded by love and it would be a while before he could see past Gretchen's good qualities. This was testament to his great character, not necessarily hers.  Gretchen sounded awful to Jessica. She tried not to judge..

She was at a crossroads… would she wait for James to be ready? Would she pay greater attention to Jono or Jack? Would she show James what he could have if he chose to love her? She didn’t want to wait because she held firmly to the belief that the man that chose to be with her would be instantly sure that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

If there was one lesson she’d always clung to from her youth it was that the right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing. This was true for James and Gretchen’s relationship and it was true for her situation now.

Jessica could have sat and pontificated on the things James was missing out on by dwelling on the past. She could have sat and tried to win James over. She could have even flirted with a different fate and seen where Jono or Jack could take her but she decided against all of those options because she’d been there, done that, been hurt and grown stronger.

Self worth was the greatest gift she could give herself. She’d let the other girls compete because for her, love was not a contest, it was a blessing, and if James didn’t want her, she didn’t want him either – not because he was bad, blind or a poor judge of character, but simply, because he wasn’t the one…and she would never accept anyone less for herself.

 

Happily ever after…when never is more in sight.

I have been incessantly listening to Adele’s album this week; putting me in a happy/sad/love-longing/depressed/elated/fantastical mood. It pulls on every heart string and stirs every emotion – much like a break-up. I’ve been continuously listening to stories of them too (but that has been less of a choice).

The one track on replay has been ‘hiding my heart,’ about the inevitable heartbreak that comes from a transient relationship.

One friend I have knows all about this. This week I felt, saw and attempted to help her heartbreak as she dignifiedly watches on as an old flame, passionately prepares for his wedding to a new love (less than a year on from their break up). The girl he’s with also experienced devotee devastation when her former five year relationship crumbled. One woman’s treasure, was another woman’s treasure and woman number one was trashed instead. Love had to be cruel to be kind to her and though we know not to play with fire, sometimes we need to be burnt to move on.

It won’t make much sense to her for a while but there would never be enough love, or enough joy to fill her in a relationship where the love she had was unrequited.

I’m no expert on why one girl gets chosen over the other and what makes a man commit but I do know that if he hasn’t committed to you, then he’s simply not the one. I am all for shades of grey… but for healing’s sake, this is one truth that will always be black and white to me. If love exists it finds a way to conquer.

What gives me hope and assurance in this is a friend who has newly found love. Love even visited her in her dreams before she met him. True story.

I love this tale so much because this woman confirms that the right man is worth waiting for. Good things come to those who wait. The cliché is true.

She however is anything but cliché. She is vibrant, intelligent, beautiful (in and out), hard-working and very successful. I can’t fault her on anything. She is everything most women would hope to be (me included).

Women used to be told to downplay their intelligence so as to avoid intimidating the opposite sex. Her intelligence attracted a mental and emotional equal and the prospect of finding something like that thrills and delights me.

This young beauty was single for a while but was a champion for love. I’d hear her talk about meeting a man that brought her joy most days that I saw her. Perhaps her positivity powered this new romance. God knows she deserved that happiness. Everybody does and most people will get to experience it, but not without a period of loneliness first.

I think the secret to this is that in order to appreciate the love you have, you have to experience what it means to live without them so when they walk on set as an extra in your life, you quickly realize that you’d prefer them as a regular cast member with the scenes of romance on replay.

The real stuff is good too. The fights and the way you overcome them. The dark moments and the days their light rescues you from that misery. The moment when simply seeing them where you are is enough to satiate your hungry soul. Hearing their voice will do that too. Then their’s that day it unlocks happiness that was previously foreign to you. It’s this love that I’m waiting for.

It’s also this love that I hope soon comes to my friend. Heartbreak has forced her to hide her heart, but I hope that when the grieving is over and the healing begins, she is able to reopen her heart to find love that friend #2 in this story has got to know.

While love songs do nothing for my patience, they do plenty for my passion. and remind me that that fire is worth waiting out in the cold for. There’s a positive in everything.

Single, taken then dead for catching the grenade.

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.