Everyone deserves to be in an adult relationship with someone who they love and are loved by in return. You do.
I would like to think I do too but as I said when I started this blog, I will be honest and sometimes brutally so.
I love women. I love everything about women. But for the love of all that's holy, I can't figure them out at all, which is probably a very big reason why my few attempts at relationships have always ended the way they have.
Growing up in a broken home and seeing my mother get divorced twice by the time I was 11 years-old, I had a very clear idea in my mind of what sort of lover I didn't want to be. By the time I was a teenager, there existed a codified, inviolate set of rules in my head that I not only felt set me apart from most other young men, I thought they would help me establish myself as someone worthy of a woman's affections.
They are:
1.) Under no circumstances will I ever strike a woman, no matter how angry or upset I find myself.
2.) I am not superior to any woman and I will not treat them as objects or possessions.
3.) I will not cheat.
4.) If I do something wrong, I'll own up to it and do all I can to make it right.
5.) I will not push a woman any further than they are willing to go. No means no.
And I decided that I would conduct myself in a manner befitting a gentleman. I would be as respectful, kind, genuine, honest, polite and mature as possible, because the father figures I had for most of my life were the opposite of all those things. I would not be my father (or worse my stepfather) and I would earn someone's love. I wouldn't take it by force.
Now I figured with that framework in place, I could show a girl that I wasn't an axe-murderer or my singular goal was to get into their pants, because I knew those kind of guys. I saw them every day around school and overheard my female classmates complaining endlessly about them. I hate those guys. I hated them then and nothing in all my years has softened my disdain for men who think they can treat women they claim to love in such a belligerent, cro-magnon fashion. And I figured as long as someone like me was out there, you ladies would realize there was always someone better for you.
Then I suppose a funny thing happened. Nothing happened.
Seriously. I couldn't get a girlfriend if I begged for one, and by the time I was 18, I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider that option at least once. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was about me that seemed so terrible.
When I finally found myself in a position to finally have a "real" relationship, I jumped on it, in part, because I honestly didn't know if another such chance would come around again. So I started a relationship that spanned 16 years, 10 as a married man, and after my ex-wife traded me in for a younger model, I was even more confused than I was before.
In my lifetime, I can say I've been in what I can only describe as honest, genuine "love" three times. And all three times, I've whiffed. Completely. And that is not the fault of the women who had my heart at that particular time. From my perspective, I was trying too hard. I thought I had to be the PERFECT guy, because otherwise, what was the point?
At this point, I have no idea at all what women really want or even if I can connect to them in a way that makes a potential relationship possible. But I want to know and I want to understand. Hopefully I will, because we all deserve to be with the person we grow to love.
Even me.
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