Jump In With Two Feet

Relationships. Uggghhh. The word makes me cringe. I cannot say I hate relationships; in fact, I love being in a great relationship. Truth is though, not every relationship is great and therefore you must survive those not so great, or even terrible, relationships to find the great ones.

It makes me cringe because of all those connotations that it brings to mind. Work. A lot of work. Mistakes. Choices. Heartbreak. I am the type of person who sees the line that should not be crossed, refuses to, and then for some insane desire for self-destruction promptly crosses that said line. We all want to believe we are the exception to the rule, and sometimes we are. But dealing with not being the exception is far worse than simply acknowledging your disappointment and moving away from that potential relationship in the first place.

Dating an older man? Why not. Dating a boy my mom hated? Let’s do that too. Taking back a guy who had dumped me for another girl? Just couldn’t help it. Dating my brother’s friend? Well, let’s just say I was smitten at the time and not willing to admit that it was a bad idea to begin with. I have never been the exception to the rule, but at the same time I keep trying, and ending up asking myself the same question: why do I do it to myself?

For my senior seminar project, I took up dating self-help books to examine and compare them to established philosophers. This meant I spent the majority of my semester engrossed in books that told me just how to catch a guy’s eye, play hard to get, and whether or not I was emotionally stable and secure enough to be in a relationship to begin with.

The funny thing is, even the few books that I found to be full of common sense and reason I began bashing to pieces as I compared them to Aristotle and Epictetus. Who made up these “rules”? Rather than principles to live by, the books tend to espouse themselves as the absolute end all be all of dating. Every single one claims to know the secret to finding the love of your life and how to keep them. And what I believe now is that the whole genre of self-help dating books is full of crap.

So I thought what my own rules would be:
1. There are no absolute rules. Life is complicated, and dating is more so.
2. Jump in with two feet, give a relationship all you got. (Not in a psycho way, in a living whole-heartedly way.)
3. No matter how much your friends hate him, or how many books tell you to dump him, you have to learn the hard way.
4. If your heart gets broken, it gets broken. It’ll make you stronger and pickier next time.
5. Sometimes, despite heartache, doubt, and tough times, it does work. And that’s what makes it worth trying.
6. Everyone says not to waste time wishing for someone you’ll never have. Don’t wait for him to call, don’t waste your tears crying when he disappears. Thing is, you will at some point in your life. Even if it’s just five minutes. So just don’t let them know, and your secret is safe.

No, they are not perfect rules but they will change as my relationships change. And maybe someday the word “relationship” won’t make me run and take cover.