Dating : Stop blaming yourself for your love life

Here’s what you can do instead

I have had a lot of bad experiences in my love life. For a long time, I tried to analyze what was wrong with me. Be more assertive? Be more understanding? Communicate more? Gotta be prettier? Or just too naive?

My higher-level explanations of my own misfortunes involve complicated psychological theory. There’s a whole series of books and articles explaining why empaths are attracted to narcissists that consistently fascinates me. Or on the other hand, perhaps the internalized shame I feel about my neurodiverse style of intelligence has caused me to lower my standards and accept anyone who will have me?

And then there’s the blaming myself for my lack of faith. Surely if I believed more strongly that God loves me, I would have higher self-esteem. And if I had higher self-esteem, I would have realized earlier that there are easier ways to secure positive attention than listening endlessly in the face of condescending mansplaining!

And why do I so consistently mistake a gratified ego’s response to my complimentary nature for a person who genuinely values and loves me? It’s all my fault for being fooled into thinking things like “I love you,” actually mean, “I love you.”

Have you noticed what I’m doing? I’m trying to figure out why being kind, intelligent, humble, complimentary, trusting, and a good listener have led to me having my heart broken over and over.

Of course I have bad qualities. Everyone does. I’m as pretentious as a dead poet and as stubborn as a pig (to start with). But honestly, it doesn’t seem to be my bad qualities that have set me up for heartbreak. It really does seem to be my good qualities that are the problem.

Or to take a new tack, maybe the problem is that I’m not a blonde. Surely blondes don’t get treated this way. Surely blondes have wonderful love lives. Should I dye my hair or keep my integrity as a brunette? It’s such a tough decision!

I hope you’ve figured out my point by now. My point is, YOU also have explanations for why your love life has hurt you so much, don’t you Dear Reader??? You have long complicated theories about what happened with your marriage, or about why the people on Bumble or Tinder of Whatever-the-Fuck don’t write back, or about those times you were dumped or left behind or betrayed.

Those explanations all focus on what is wrong with you. Take those explanations. Put them in front of you. Stack them up in a pretty little pile. Take a match out of your pocket…. that’s right, take it out of your pocket…!!!

And SET THAT SHIT ON FIRE.

Have your lovers mistreated you? It’s because they chose to do so. That is the one and only reason.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. There is no amount of bad or stupid behavior that can guarantee you a dumping, and there is no amount of good or wise behavior that can guarantee you a happily ever after. Because people don’t make sense.

Be whoever the fuck you are and see what happens. It’s just as likely to work as anything else. And the bonus to that approach is — you don’t have to kill your soul to make it work.

And by the way, I’m never going blonde. Or if you do see me blonde one day, you can safely assume I have lost my soul and become a vampire. ::wink wink::