We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

I once heard that any relationship is like baking a cake. You put a lot of hard work and sacrifice in it, and it still may not come out looking exactly like you wanted it to, but it always tastes good.

If I had heard that saying during some parts of my life, I would have laughed my head off at the person who said it. It's easy to be bitter about relationships, to sit on the sidelines and mock those who try to make them work. Trust me, I did it for the majority of high school and some of college. I was one of the snide people who sat through weddings and made pithy comments like, "That'll last two years before ending in a horrible divorce."

There was no real cause to my reluctance to love. I had had a perfect example of a healthy relationship while growing up. My parents were married when they were still teenagers, and to this day are happy in a marriage that is close to being half a century old. Others should be so lucky. So why was I craving something so different? Why did I idolize the middle aged men who dated the college girls, like in the movies. Why did I picture myself as one of the ones who were terrified of the thought of marriage and could barely utter the word "love"?

Before my senior year of high school I was bitter about love because I hadn't felt it yet. I was falling into the all-too-familiar trap of hating what I didn't understand. I was like an outsider looking in. Therefore, in a desperate and badly disguised attempt to hide my envy, I bashed those who claimed to be in love. After high school, I was bitter about love because I had found it, only to have it ripped away much sooner than I had planned. And by my freshman year of college I was back to my old self, hating anything to do with love.

I remember the exact second my attitude changed. I was working for a country club that was hosting a wedding on the lake. But the where doesn't matter, it's the why that counts. It dawned on me that day, while the couple was getting married at sunset by the lake, why I hated relationships. Simply put, it was the easiest way out. It's so uncomplicated to say, "I quit," and give in to depression and heartache. It was in my nature to be self-loathing about my situation of loneliness. My way of dealing with it was to just run from it and laugh at those who were in relationships. But when you are in the presence of a happy relationship built on trust, there is no denying its power.

I went back to school after that summer with a new outlook. I realized what I had been doing wrong with my relationships, and I finally understood why they had failed. I had been trying to date people who were just like me because I thought it was the safest bet, when in fact it was the furthest thing from it. If the girls I dated weren't like me, I tried to make them that way. And if that didn't work, I would simply quit.

A couple months later a girl smiled at me in Spanish class. I finally got enough courage to talk to her, only to find out that she was nothing like me. That would have been the point where I would have normally said, "I'll call you later," and never talked to her again. But time and time again I kept seeing that it was the little things, like buying me chapstick, that made our relationship work and not how much alike we were.

After two years of pleasant, trouble-free dating, all I wish I could do is tell myself five years ago some simple advice. Embrace differences, appreciate the small things, don't sweat every failed relationship, and try not to date people that are just like you; it's probably a good thing they aren't.