Once upon a time, not so long ago, I became involved with a particular lady who let me in on a few
trade secrets pertaining to how she evaluated her men. Take heed my male friends, because apparently some sassy lassies out there are particularly devious in their trickery to reveal a man's inner, spineless
shoe-gazer.
I did actually manage to pass this particular lassie’s early three trials before falling deeply and madly for her.
- Trial by fire. Car rides equated to a mini hell on earth... as far as temperature was concerned anyway. She purposely cranked the heat just to see if I'd say something before sweating embarrassingly through my t-shirt.
- Judgments on my appearance. More specifically, if I appeared to acquiesce to her requests of wearing dresses, wigs, or make-up then I obviously didn't know how to speak my mind.
- The bedroom test. I was to sit calmly on her bed, in her impossibly small bedroom, as she talked on the phone with her surgeon ex-boyfriend to see if I'd show any signs of intimidation.
These obviously weren't the qualities that made me love her, but that's neither here nor there.
Towards the end, when things had turned south for actual and rational reasons, I subsequently became a huge and irrational
rube of incomprehensibly large magnitude. I became overly chivalrous to prove my love, and through laborious demonstration of my feelings thought that I could thusly save our 'ship! Basically I spent money moronically, looked for any reason to skip out of work to help her with “whatever,” and always held her hand like she was going to
quantum leap into a new relationship with the lead singer of a punk rock band who owns his own successful side business... which she eventually did.
Long story short, I carried some of that desperate-to-be-loved crap into my dating life afterward and it wasn't doing me any favors. After much work, however, I have come up with the following
gems of advice which I will share in the hopes of helping some other recovering hairy jellyfish (Ew indeed) with any desired metamorphosis.
- Get out and date as much as possible. If that means doing something incredibly emasculating like paying an online matchmaker then swallow your pride and get to it. This will help fill your schedule and you may even run into some people who are mirrors into the needy, co-dependent Sally you have become. Consider it a pride down-payment that will come back through experience in spades... especially if you let yourself branch out and lay off the selectivity a bit.
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Get busy with your bad self. Start a weekly poker game, join a weekly sports league, or have a weekly kickass action flick night. Hell, maybe your thing is more weekly DnD, weekly LAN party, or weekly Shonen Jump. The point is to have something non-negotiable that you are into with platonic friends who are into the same thing. Girls seem to respect guys who keep busy with stuff they care about.
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Watch Swingers at least once, laugh, and then ignore any advice given… especially the thing about waiting a few days to call a girl after getting their phone number. There is such a thing as being so non-needy because you don't want to seem needy that you begin to emanate neediness and look even needier! In my experience it is a dick move to wait too long to call a girl, and a quick message the next day saying that you're looking forward to taking them out on the town sometime soon goes a long way if you are busy... and hopefully by this point you genuinely will be busy.
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Get into the mindset that nice doesn't necessarily mean putting aside your needs and comforts for the needs and comforts of others... especially when you don't know what those are necessarily! If you are feeling overly warm in temperature, then for goodness sake ask if anyone else is too. If you decide you want to stay in when you had planned to take a girl out on the town, then ask if she might want to stay in for the night. If you want to try a role-playing fantasy that you hatched at the latest Sakura-con anime convention in Seattle, then when the timing is right ask if she might be into doing a little role-playing. You are never being mean by simply expressing what you want, and will actually learn what things are important to the person you are with by asking if certain things are in fact important or not.
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Get away from destructive influences. Quit listening to emo music and shopping in places where men wear women's jeans. Those lyrics and beats are mesmerizing and will turn you into a girly, Nancy-boy. No girl likes a guy who looks better in her jeans than she does.
(Note: This point was mostly in jest. If you just said to yourself, "Fuck that. I like emo ditties and women's pants fit me wicked awesome!" then you are already doing fairly well my friend. Video games don't make kids violent and sensitive lyrics don't make you a pansy pushover.)
Well all that said I am still not entirely convinced that being so excited and smitten by someone that you want to be with them a little too often is a bad thing. I do know, however, that in a healthy relationship they probably want to be with
you pretty often too, and for that to happen it is very important that you
show a little spine and don't make everything about them.
Also for you cruel-hearted temptresses out there, please take heed as well. Most of us lowly, hairy jellyfish have likely been hurt or neglected in the past, and if you do happen to step on too many of us then you are eventually bound to get
stung and subsequently peed on!
* One last note: This was not written for the purpose of getting over a past relationship so much as getting back in the game when you are ready. There is a large difference between the two. Also, as a disclaimer I do not have any sort of formal training qualifying me to give personal advice in any way... this is just my 2 cents.