Day Three

Sorry I couldn't come up with a catchy title.

If opposites attract, does this mean I’m the same as every guy I come in contact with?

You know what I wanted more than anything this year? A boyfriend.  An honest-to-God boyfriend. You can go ahead and laugh, but I’ve spent the past twelve months being ashamed and that’s behind me now. Why should I be ashamed because I want a lover of my own? Is it such a terribly unimaginable thing that I want to love and have my love reciprocated?

LOL. That was a bit intense.

Well, if I want(ed) a boyfriend so badly, why didn’t I get one? It’s not exactly like I can pluck a boyfriend off a tree, you know? *sigh* If only it were that simple though. Wouldn’t that be grand? Have a boyfriend plantation where every kind of boyfriend you could possibly dream up is grown (and sold at unbeatable prices, of course).

Romance, as I’ve often imagined what it should be in my spare moments, is dead to me. All the sweetness, and the happily-ever-after stuff you see in romantic movies, I have no idea what that’s like. Well, it would be more accurate to say I’ve never really experienced it first-hand. I’ve watched several of my friends fall in and out of love, and I’ve watched relationships blossom and wither. Did you know I once considered going into work as an official third wheel? Seriously. I mean, people are cool and they try not to point it out or be obvious, but I’m always just there – sitting beside a couple making out, walking beside or behind a couple holding hands, acting as a buffer between fighting couples – and it kind of sucks because I should at least get paid for doing what I’m good at.

But that is beside the point.

I told a friend of mine that I’ve never actually been wooed before and she burst into a hysterical fit of laughter. It really wasn’t funny. And that was what I wanted this year. To have someone actually woo me. Not necessarily with serenades from below my balcony at midnight or any of that stalker behavior, but a nice middle ground would be nice. I want someone to check up on me just because he misses talking to me or hearing the sound of my voice, and to stay in bed with me and watch series all day. Someone who I can tell absolutely any and everything to and not be judged, or laughed at, or made to feel inferior. All this may be because I’ve watched too many Rom-Coms, but who cares? The heart wants what the heart wants.

To be fair, I did come pretty close this year. I met someone who I thought was perfect for me. And he was. A man who is sweet and kind and everything I would imagine a perfect person to be if ever such a person existed. And for a while, what we had was enough. So what happened? It’s simple, really. I’m a girl. I get emotional and I fuck shit up. It’s what I do *shrug*. A friend of mine once told me I panic and hit ‘self-destruct’ when things start going good for me, and I really need to get some help. I thought it was a stupid thing to say at the time, but it kind of makes sense now. I’ve tried to console myself by tricking myself into believing I had to call our arrangement off because he wasn’t ready to commit and it was for the best, but who am I kidding?

One day, I snapped and asked a couple of my male friends what would make them not want to date me. A lot of the possible reasons I got were snide and hurtful and those guys would be dead if I didn’t love them so deeply, but one kind of stuck. Instead of answering my question, he turned it around on me. “Why wouldn’t anyone want to date you, Coco?”

I haven’t exactly had the best track record when it comes to relationships (that’s a post for another day) and I was okay with it for a really long time. This year, I’ve come to understand that it’s not as easy as I thought to fall out of old habits. You just get so used to a certain kind of lifestyle; you can’t just up and change it one day. And I really did try this year. I worked so hard at being someone that someone would want. Someone he would want. But try as I might, it was all just futile.

I’ve always seen myself as a particular kind of girl, and I was pretty damn proud of who I was for the longest time.  Now, the year’s about to end and I don’t want to go into 2013 that same girl. A lot has happened this year to help me realize this. I told my closest friends I was going to change and I will. I’m working on me now – getting to know myself better, accepting myself, decide what I really want, work on my discipline – because I understand now that I truly have to be completely and utterly in love with myself if I want anyone to feel the same way about me. No matter how long it takes for me to get where I need to be, I’m going to do it. And then I’m going to find my Happily Ever After.