In Repair

What is it that makes relationships/dating so hard? Fundamentally they seem to look easy on the outside. I mean I see a bunch of couples everyday who are happy, who have successful relationships. Yet I’ve found it to be one of the hardest things in life. I wonder what it is that makes it hard? Are people scared to take chances; so they hide behind clichés such as, I don’t wanna lose you as a friend. Or is it that they’re unwilling to take a certain chance, the chance of opening ourselves up to someone. Letting someone in and see our faults. Some of us are so guarded and to a degree I believe that it’s a good thing. They don’t get hurt as often and they can really disassociate themselves from a relationship or person with out really getting hurt. In my mind relationships should be easy, especially with someone who is alike. I know we’re afraid of getting hurt but I think all too often we forget what the good could be like and I think it heavily outweighs the bad. It’s like jumping off a diving board, at least in my mind. You’re standing there at the edge and the water is far away, and if you’re like me, afraid of heights. It’s a scary thing to do, you’re standing up there people looking at you and getting impatient because you’re not jumping, the lifeguard waiting and hoping they don’t have to come out there and pull you off or push you in. Its all so much pressure, we’re out there on a limb literally. But we either do one of two things. We turn around and do what I like to call the walk of shame, or you close your eyes, take a breath and jump; and speaking from experience its fun, that split second when you’re in midair between the water and the diving board. You eventually hit the water and if you’re not careful you can hit your back or stomach and that hurts, but if you do it right you slide in the water and go in…. over your head. Which is scary in itself. We don’t like being over our heads not knowing what to do, but we kick towards the surface and pop out spitting water and I like to think of it like a slow motion movie, coming out the water like that and in the end we go back to the end of the line to do it again. Relationships are somewhat like this, we’re scared initially and we have people we talk to impatient with us because we’re scared to do anything, they get annoyed with us. Our parents or peers are watching hoping that they don’t have to push us in or come get us off the limb we’re on. But if you have any guts you make your move, you jump. Things may end up badly you’re in over your head and you freak and you’re not sure what to do. But sometimes you immediately know what to do and you kick towards the surface and everything’s ok. I also think that people are too unwilling to look past mistakes made in the dating process. Things like moving too fast or deciding quickly that you like someone. To some people stuff like that ends it right there, but you know what? I have come to realize that the perfect dating process, and early first stages, doesn’t exist. Ever. We’re really afraid to be ourselves because we’re worried that the other person won’t like us. Now I know some people are reading this, at least I hope they are, but if they are they’re saying. I’ve had bad experiences in the past and they’ve left scars. I understand we all have that. It affects us no matter how bad we want it to, but to what degree is up to us. We need to stop dwelling on them and move on. Another thing I think we need to work on is first judgments, we tend to decide very quickly whether or not we will like that person, or whether or not we think we could date that person. You need to get to know them first. Then make your decision, and not based on looks either, I know that it’s important, there has to be some sort of attraction there. But I’m asking for the ones of us who God hasn’t blessed with good looks. Look deeper, look inside and I think you’ll be surprised at what you find. Girls complain they want good guys, but what they really want are attractive good guys. Those are somewhat mythical, like Bigfoot, or the loch ness monster. Guys want the perfect girl, we all have our lists and I’m not going to try to put them all down, but I’ll tell you something. Perfection is hard to find, I don’t really think that perfection is good; we all need a little dysfunction to a certain degree. If we don’t disagree on some things then we really are not doing any growing. Just remember that you never really know what’s going to happen. You don’t know who’s looking at you. You don’t know who you’ll end up with. In the words of one of my new favorite songs, “Sometimes bombs fall quietly”.