Monthly Archives: November 2018

Nov25

Gaining Pieces.

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I don’t know how to date anymore. I don’t know how to open myself up to someone. More accurately, I don’t know how to let someone in.

I lost pieces of me, each guy taking a small enough piece of me for me to never notice until the other night when I was on a date and I realized I don’t know how to do this.

The reality: I don’t know if I want to date.

Confidence: that was the last piece taken from me. What can this guy possibly see in me to make him choose me.

I don’t easily lack confidence. I know who I am, I like my body, I’m happy with my health, I know I’m good at my job, I know I’m a great mother, I’m comfortable with who I am. I can look at the woman in the mirror and applaud her instead of pick her apart. I am confident with who I am.

I am not confident when it comes to guys wanting me or feeling like I’m enough for someone.

I get asked out a lot and I don’t say yes to many guys. Most guys I turn down will ask me, “Why not just give me one chance? I could turn out to be the one who makes you happy.” They seem to think they can like me enough to make me like them, they can persuade me into liking them. I don’t want someone to have to talk me into liking them, it doesn’t feel genuine and I highly suspect it will lead to doubt and insecurity on their end later on in the relationship. Many guys accuse me of being shallow, that it’s all about looks as to why I’m turning them down. It has nothing to do with body or status.

It’s this magnetism. I hate admitting it’s the knowledge that I’d feel no different if they had never come around. I don’t get excited to tell them big news, I don’t wonder how their day went, I don’t ask them if they want to hang out. That lack of enthusiasm is why I say no.

I remember before Evelynn came along being asked why I could simply forget guys so easily after they betrayed or lied to me; and to me, it was because it was that simple: if they didn’t want me, I didn’t want them. If they couldn’t respect me, I didn’t want them. If I wasn’t enough to be the only girl they saw, I didn’t want them. There was no room for “buts” in there. The philosophy still applied even after Evelynn.

Then I met a guy when I didn’t care, when my guard was down, and I let him just walk right into my life with no reservations. I didn’t plan for him to stick around. He wasn’t meant to be anyone other than just a one-night stand. The rules were simple. I didn’t care what I told him or what he thought of me. I didn’t care if he saw the real me and rejected me because I wasn’t planning on him staying around.

He had other ideas.

& I let him talk me into more than just one-night expectations. I let him talk me into seeing him again.

We didn’t see each other again. He met someone else soon after and it turned out him getting me to want him was just a game to him. All the talking and texting and planning after was just to feed his ego. At the time he had told me he met someone randomly, immediately after me, and they just clicked like nothing else. It wasn’t until recently that I found out it was also all just a game to him. That’s what he said at least.

I know what you’re thinking: stupid, stupid girl. He was kryptonite, though. Where everything you find attractive is in one person and you’re just like damn. Which is why it was to be just one night, I knew I could fall hard and fast…and we’ve already discussed in previous blogs, I’m not one to fall, especially not fast. I never have. And I wasn’t ready to let someone invade my life just yet after I was still dealing with a toddler hung up on the last guy I had seen. I already had hang-ups about dating.

And before you go getting all high and mighty on me for having a one night as a single mom. Well, I’m a single mom. I’m pretty sure I somehow made the first move on him (apparently my “tinder eyes” do work). And this isn’t a common occurrence. However, sometimes, just sometimes, you need to do things for you and that day I decided to live in the moment and fuck the future—no pun intended.

I had no intention of having anything with him but he pursued and I gave in. I can’t get over that. How I could get it so wrong—fucking kryptonite. It’s a mindfuck when people purposefully fuck with your emotions like that, though. That’s where the pain and second-guessing came in. & this wasn’t the first time I had it wrong. This was just months after I had it wrong and that first time, Evelynn was caught in the crossfire.

In early September, Evelynn and I did a weekend road trip out to Lake Michigan—we hadn’t been to the beach yet over the summer—and we saw a couple friends on our way back through Grand Rapids…and we ran into the guy she still sometimes asks about. He didn’t acknowledge her, and what little respect I had left for him disappeared. Her demeanor fell. She was tired, hungry, but her shoulders and face fell. It was like a cloud completely washed over her. She looked down and got busy with a napkin and never looked up. He never said hi to her; this little girl who would beg to go to his house or didn’t want to leave after weekends spent there just less than a year before.

I didn’t think my heart could break more watching her.

Until we left to drive home.

I heard crying in the back seat, then, “Augie no like me. Augie no say hi to me.” She cried herself to sleep. Luckily, in less than five minutes but I couldn’t believe it. All hope of that cloud in the restaurant just being her overtired from the long weekend: shot. All hope that she didn’t really remember him because she was only 3 at the time: gone. All hope that whenever she had asked to go to “Augie’s house” or to see him again that she didn’t know who she was really talking about and just throwing a random name out there because she was only 3 at the time: dead. She remembered exactly who he was.

I came home lost to the dating scene. I had no interest in bringing a guy around Evelynn. I had no interest in bringing a single father and his daughter around Evelynn.

I had no interest.

I stopped trying. I stayed off dating sites. I ignored guys when they asked or it was always a no. Until a few weeks ago when I said yes to a guy, a really great guy with attractive qualities, and I couldn’t stop thinking about just how fucked up dating is in 2018. Or maybe it’s just me. I couldn’t stop wondering how much was an act, how much was genuine, how much interest did he really have?

Pathetic. I have a hard time jumping on the bandwagon of making guys prove just how much they want or like me before I show them any interest—that’s been the advice I’ve been given over the last couple years. Feels like a game to me then. I hate the whole “hard to get” attitudes. I’m not a fucking mouse for you to chase. You’re either in or you’re out. You either like me or you don’t. Magnetism. Mutual magnetism.

Lucky for me I’m still that bounce back queen. I know exactly who I am. It’s been a month—I’m over the pessimism. I won’t lie, that feeling I had that one day: hell yeah I’m going to chase it. That feeling of just giving into someone and letting go because you’re attracted to them, life is short, and fuck the overthinking mind. That used to be my approach before Evelynn came along, used to be why I was asked how I could so easily move on once being into someone. I knew a better feeling would be out there. I wasn’t going to dwell on the hurt.

The way I see it, take all the pieces—with each piece I gain something within myself: resilience, strength, determination, self-respect. And if you think I gave each piece freely, well, takes two to date. Take all the pieces. I might be someone who can’t get out of her heard but I’ll choose magnetism. What’s dating without raw attraction unforced? An arrangement. No thanks. Take all the pieces.

As for that confidence? She back.

Next.

Nov1

No thanks money bags.

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There is nobody who runs faster from a man with money than me. To most girls, a guy who has a sizeable bank account is a plus…or maybe the reason she chooses him. Most fathers want to know their daughters are secure financially and would love for her to date a man with money, albeit a respectful man. Then there’s me. I don’t do guys with money. Nobody swipes left faster on a guy who dresses, acts, or claims to have money than I do. I bolt faster than Usain. Money doesn’t always mean responsible. To me, a man with money equals manipulation, condescension, and disrespect.

I can’t do money, i don’t do professional athletes (retired or not), I can’t do single fathers, I can’t do bums. But only one of those do I find an acceptable excuse to immediately write off a guy. No, I’m not happy that I immediately have reserves about the other two—I don’t like to make a habit of judging, conscious of it or not.

Sometime in the spring of 2017 I went out with a guy who had money. And he never forgot to remind me. He drove from Flint to Chelsea during rush hour—and he didn’t let me forget that either, that’s strike one—to take me out to dinner. He had me download a song that “just spoke to him”: Kane Brown’s Better Place. Said it’s what he wanted to give a girl. Throughout dinner we discussed goals, where we wanted to live one day. And he flat out said: “I’m number two in the world for sales, I’m not fucking moving. You’re going to have to live with being Betty Crocker because I’m not leaving my work unless someone guarantees to match what I’m making and what I’m making is too good for anyone to match. Grand Rapids is out.” First date. First fucking date and this mofo is already telling me where I’m moving to and that I’ll be quitting my job because there’s no way I can make more than him and he wants the wife home with the kids–oh yes, that was said, too.

I couldn’t leave that date fast enough. I had no idea he had money, though a very large part of me believes he was overexaggerating, and I quickly got petty to make it go downhill and for him to be done.

And do I mean petty.

He had a beer gut. He had commented about how he is on some plan to lose weight, who he used to be in college, how a desk job has just given him a belly. I love fitness and health, I’ll talk about it all day, but he disagreed—according to him I knew very little about fitness and lifting (I had difficulty gaining weight then still and was 5’5” weighing 120lbs. and that alone was his argument). I started asking if he really wanted that dessert. Did he really think it was a good idea for his future wife and future health for him to stay “behind a desk” at a sales role? When he mentioned he could run faster than me: “Oh? You can do 120 yards in less than 10 seconds 10 times in a row with only a 60 second break in between, and a mile in less than six minutes?” and I looked him up and down as I said it. He turned red. Oh yeah, I got petty af.

And I’m not proud of it. I’ve never been one to judge someone so blatantly on looks or weight—I don’t even notice weight with people unless they show a change in weight.

PS I’m fast and competitive, don’t tell me I’m not unless you feel like knocking heads with a bull.

One thing to piss me off more than anything with any guy is to attach a monetary value to goals and success and how decisions in a relationship will be made. I may never make as much as him, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have a say in my lifestyle. And he’s sure as hell not going to tell me how to raise my kid whom he’s never met yet.

Don’t preach how you want to give me a picket white fence or city lights, whichever I want, if your job and ego are really making the decision. I’m out.

And it was the FIRST FUCKING DATE. Did I mention that? Way too soon to be talking. Yikes.

Yet, this wasn’t the first incident or the first guy to turn me away from money.

I’ll never forget when I passed the test. I was dating a guy who was a firm believer in not going dutch—he paid, every time, and I was not to argue about it. I’m fairly neutral about this. I am always willing to pay and I make it known but it doesn’t bother me who pays until it’s something expensive. Like a road trip, sports game, concert, hotel, and bar hopping all within 24 hours. This time I didn’t just offer a couple times, I put my foot down. His response: “Good. You passed the test.” What? He was happy to find out I wasn’t with him for money. Let’s be clear, he had a stable income and made more than me—wasn’t hard, I was a full-time server with a 22-credit college load—but he was by no means wealthy. Our relationship didn’t last long after that weekend.

He may have been able to trust me but I lost trust in him.

Rule of thumb: I don’t want to know you have money until we’re months in, when we both know it’s not about the money.

Money is not a conversation I care to discuss.

I won’t even ever choose to have a first date in a nice restaurant.

I won’t get in a car with a guy who drives a very nice car as a means to show off his finances.

I don’t accept flowers from guys who buy them out of ease and regularity because he was getting them for his mother so why not get them for his girl, too. Stop. Don’t. I’d rather no gift at all.

Let me know you want to know me. Don’t bribe me and treat me like another accessory to your perfect white picket fence life. If I’m so replaceable for you to buy the next girl, I’d rather you not even look my way.

It’s crazy to me how folks are so surprised to learn that I love camping and the outdoors because they’ve somehow pegged me as this luxury gal…until they know me. I don’t need money, I’m more interested in connecting with a guy. Money might bring security but it’s never been my language.  I want to know that if the money were to all disappear, the guy would still stick around and be interested. I want to know he’s not trying to dress me with his money as just another means to impress others. I want to know his money isn’t how he identifies himself. It’s sure as hell not how I identify myself.

Besides, I’m a girl who has a borderline phobia to commitment. Any commitment. The only commitment I’ve ever been able to make is to motherhood. I’m not about to commit myself to green dyed paper.