Forward

You know, that was a pretty profound piece of insight I found myself having the other week.

If I don't like a guy in the first place, he can't break up with me.

If I find something, or somethings, about you right away that will turn me off of you or if I go to meet you and I hold myself so tightly away from you that the mental emotional wall I'm putting up can not be ignored and you won't want to hang out with me again and so that'll turn into something else I was right to not like about you you can't break up with me.

If I don't let you in, you don't ever get to leave.

If I make sure I don't fall for you, I can't get hurt by your breaking up with me.

If I never love again I'll never get my heart broken again.

I've said it before, it's easy being single.

Sure it's lonely and I miss the intimacy and closeness and having someone to talk to and hang out with but it's also safe.

There's no risk to being single.

The hurt is a fairly constant one, maybe hightened at Christmas or Valentine's Day or when you watch a romantic movie, but it's not the intense, heart-wrenching pain of a break up. It's not the torn to shreds feeling of being left by someone you wanted to plan forever with.

It's easier.

So knowing this. Knowing that I can be happy in my alone-ness. Knowing also, though, that I've had up walls and boundaries in anticipation of a hurt that can't possibly happen with those walls and boundaries up I need to ask myself if I'm ok with taking the risk again.

I think I am.

I think I know myself better than I did with Smith. I think I've grown in a lot of ways and I think I'm stronger and I think, I hope, I can do it. I also think that I like myself a whole lot more than I did when I was with Smith and that this makes me more willing to believe that if I let someone get to know me they will like what they get to know and if they don't, it's more their loss than mine. This is a confidence that I certainly did not have when I was together with Smith and while it waxes and wanes, it is there and growing.

I think these discoveries have helped me let down my guards. I think it has, well, embarrassed is not quite the right word, but it has opened me up to a not very helpful way of thinking I didn't know I was harbouring. It has enlightened me.

And so I think I'm willing to meet men again, but to be honest and open, honestly, to seeing if I'm attracted to them or interested in them instead of finding the flaws in them I can use to mentally keep them at bay.

I think knowing this about where I've been has made me able to move away from where I've been.

And I think I'm looking forward to that.

But I'm a little bit scared of it too.