Do you ever leave a situation feeling like someone else has just been an asshole and then realize, in one clarifying moment, that it’s not quite the case? You suddenly hear the truth of it loud and clear in your mind: I’m the asshole. I’m the one who hung in.
And yet you know why you did that—you know what you believe in. First there is the fact that you trust people; that you by policy take them at their word. Next there is the fact that you are open to prospects; that you by policy let things wander, wait and see where they might go. Though you were born with little of that gem of a virtue called patience, when it comes to things of the heart you believe in letting things breathe and grow. You also believe in trusting your own instincts, which is a harder one for you in this arena, because you had to rebuild that skill a long time ago. But you try to believe in trusting your own instincts; you try to remember all the rest of what you believe in, too. That’s supposed to be the buffer against the I’m the asshole feeling, after all. It’s supposed to be the way you know you’re giving your all. You know how hard it can be to go out looking and actually find someone, so you try to just lead your life and be open to everyone who comes along. That attitude is supposed to be your buffer; yet sometimes it leads you straight into disappointment, and then you wonder what it was all for.
Perhaps it’s just a dating paradox, whether you really can have one without, at least sometimes, the other: the utter faith in waiting and seeing, the knowing in hindsight that you probably should already have let this one go.
No comments:
Post a Comment