Dating : The Needy and The Cool Dating Behavior Of A Pretty Girl

A series, because I can’t fit my dating history into one story

I believe that our self-worth comes from our dating history and to put it simply, mine isn’t anything short of needy.

Think about it.

Everyone you’ve dated or have had a relationship with reflects who you were at the time in some way. That’s why some people completely change their appearance in some relationships, it is why some people feel rooted to a certain place, or ready to pick up and move at a moment’s notice with their partner.

My dating experience is a long one. Relax, I didn’t “love” everyone, I just liked dating the old-fashioned way, being asked out on dates before dating apps. opened up the opportunity to meet people with no expectations. Sometimes first dates turned into more, other times they were a one and done affair, but familiarity doesn’t hesitate to remind me why they all ended either.

No matter how extensive my dating history seems, I’ve been able to trace the same, familiar patterns through each end of each relationship. Why do this to yourself, you ask? Retracing your missteps, endings, and old relationships give you the clarity you need to examine your own behavior. It explains why things ended in the first place and refines who you are in the present. Like a mirror, your dating history can give you intel into an examination of self behavior.

Let me explain.

If I told you about all of my dating experiences would you read them? Maybe , Maybe not. I think a lot of us have an open mind towards dating. Most of us shrug off bad dates with incompatibility, but how often do we really sit in the why it didn’t work out part? Hardly ever. I believe it is the most important part of reflection.

Because dating histories are worth remembering. Not to pine over lost loves or anything, it’s more logical than that. It is about the the growth you learn from being with others. It’s about the process to learn about yourself. It is how you handle all this information to make decisions in the present.

What past relationships have shown me are the behaviors that have gotten in the way of what I wanted, and it was worth exploring. It took longer than one relationship, unfortunately. I put together this series to recap my own dating history, the experiences I’ve been through to shed light on human behavior, my own missteps, and what took me so damn long to love myself.

My first boyfriend ever was in high school. I was a late bloomer. If you had a chance to meet me in a coffee shop now, you may guess I’m 10 years younger than I am. I’ve always had a young face, and that didn’t help me in the dating world in middle and high school.

The boy I remember as a delightful first boyfriend. In other words, he was a lot to take in. The butterflies I had when I saw him were loud and obnoxious, it literally felt like I was being hit in the chest. He experienced the world’s informal events and experiences with admirable confidence. Asking me to the freshman dance didn’t hurt either.

He was a three-sport athlete on my team, he ran cross country and track, but his strength and passion stayed in cross country skiing. His positivity was hard to break, his sandy blonde hair and tan skin made him look like he walked straight out of a PacSun catalog and the worst part was everyone loved him.

Like many high school girls, I was immature in love. I wasn’t ready for anything serious and I didn’t know how to love anyone. In high school, you put the pieces together of everything you’ve seen in movies, fairy tales, and how your parents act around each other. I absorbed what I had seen on the TV shows and started by holding his hand. The first kiss thing never happened. It took enormous effort on my end to avoid that altogether.

Looking back this relationship seems like the punchline of a joke. I’m not sure exactly sure what audience it was for, but it certainly wasn’t for me.

I often wondered what he saw in me. He, Raleigh*, was the perfect first boyfriend. I didn’t believe I deserved him. I found him to be the most patient person I had ever met, and he knew it. I avoided intimacy at all costs, where he continued to be patient and kind towards me in hopes I’d warm up to kissing him. I had never kissed anyone before and I was too nervous to try and mess it up. So I held his hand and would kiss him on the cheek. I made up every excuse to leave when he tried to kiss me. Then, the relationship faded faster than it had started.

Before assuming the worst, a high school relationship is like a miracle on ice to make any high school relationship work and last beyond those four years. All I did was avoid and conquer, things were straightforward for me, but I couldn’t tell my boyfriend, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I talked him into giving me time, space, I even told him I wasn’t ready to “make-out” and he undoubtedly deserved better. He was good enough for any girl, he deserves someone better. He took risks, I avoided and curled back into my shell at all costs. I helped convince myself that I didn’t need him and that he didn’t need me.

By the time it came time for the real conversation after flashes of holding hands, cuddling on the school bus after ski practices, walking together in the hallways on our way to class, slow dancing at the school dances, the relationship was over in one simple sentence: I have to tell you something, I kissed someone else at this Irish dance thing I had to do. None of this was true. Well, I was an Irish dancer but I found that in high school it was easy to bend the truth because I really thought my life was lifeless. I didn’t have the excitement of going on family vacations to Florida, Cape Cod or Disney to share with my classmates. Every day was the same and I guess I wanted excitement. I had done this to us. I had done this to Raleigh* and he never deserved it.

I killed our relationship with a white lie because it was easier than facing the truth: I didn’t know how to kiss and I was too embarrassed to tell my boyfriend that I didn’t know how to. It was easier to end it than to face the fear of failure.

I’m aware of this now. At the time it felt like a proper way to shield me from pain, embarrassment, and an instance where I was less than perfect. It’s obscure that in high school I went to these lengths to break up with a boyfriend. I simply left him crushed, heartbroken, in the comfort of his friends. I cast myself as a cheater, the worst kind, the imaginary cheater, the cheater that never cheated, I made it all up. I lost a boyfriend, my friends and my reputation all in one swoop. I had struck out my first time up to bat.

I’ve experienced various feelings of guilt 13 years later, considering how wrong the first relationship was, how it was handled, how I could possibly hurt someone without batting an eyelid. I always fell for a good smile and the promise that a boyfriend would fix all my problems. It would make me more popular, it would make me likable, it would make me feel less alone. None of this is true. I believed in high school that what I wanted couldn’t co-exist with what I needed, and to this day I don’t know what had convinced me to elaborate such a lie to someone I liked and tarnish my reputation with imaginary nonsense.

This tendency to “get out” and escape, I now recognize as a way I was protecting myself from being heavily liked because I couldn’t love myself. The first boyfriend I ever had was not evil, like everyone else he deserved love and I was just trying to build a wall to stop these feelings from ever infecting me. It was the first relationship and last high school relationship I ever had that would set the tone for how my relationships would manifest in college. In the process, focusing on each relationship’s pitfalls have helped me piece together the parts of me I never wanted to face.

No matter how I tried to ignore the fears that caused me to hurt my first boyfriend and end my first relationship, those fears came back to manifest in future relationships. You can’t escape your opportunities for self-growth, nor can you ignore how hard you have to work to address those fears head-on. I’ve come around to the fact that there was nothing to be afraid of. Boyfriends, relationships, cannot convince you that you’re worth loving. You must move forward refusing to accept the things you tell yourself in your darkest moments. Even if you’re scared of a simple and meaningless first kiss in high school.

No matter how extensive my dating history seems, I’ve been able to trace the same, familiar patterns through each end of each relationship. Why put yourself through this, you ask? Retracing your missteps, endings, and old relationships gives you the clarity you need to see your own behavior, why things ended, refining who you are in the present, hopefully reframing what self-love means and how it relates to loving others. It would be this first relationship that would set me up for learning what self-love really means, but it took me relationship after relationship to realize the message that was being told to me.

Like a mirror you can look at a relationship all you want, you can remember the good times, the way that person was when you first met, but avoiding the imperfections will never help. You’ll keep repeating the pattern until you finally learn your lesson. This kicked me in the ass four years later.