How to Get the Girl...A Real Life Scenario
If personal growth could be measured with a yardstick, I'd have grown about 47 million yards in the last year. And though it can't, sometimes life gives us the opportunity to see just how far we've come.
Saturday morning, out of boredom, I decided to do a search on MySpace to see if there were any men I might be interested in. The second profile that came up in the search was the ex b/f's. Out of curiosity, I decided to check it out. Reading the profile, I realized he's really been through some rough times.
An hour and lots (and I mean lots) of thought later, I sent him a friend request and an email. He accepted the request and emailed back saying he had actually thought of sending me a message recently but didn't know how it would be received considering how badly things ended.
Now, before you all start telling me what a bad choice I made, let me qualify. I literally offered friendship. I wasn't, either in my mind or in the email, looking to get back together. It was simply a gesture of friendship. Period.
We exchanged a couple of emails and texted for awhile catching up. Later in the day, he texted that he was shopping for clothes and hating it. I texted back that the problem was he needed a fashion advisor and met him at the Mall to help him spend, spend, spend. And might I say, dude looked good thanks to me and my girl Bria who works at The Buckle. Later that evening, a few more texts were exchanged. We talked about me meeting him for some beers, but I decided to hang out at home instead.
Next evening we got together for some appetizers and margaritas. And that's when it happened. Hella flashbacks followed by a huge revelation.
As usual, he spent the entire evening talking about his ex wife. Only now he also has an ex fiance to talk about too. Now, I understand that, as a friend, part of my job is to listen and I'm okay with that. But what I realized is that if I had just listened and paid attention when we were together, I would have understood that he was in no position to be dating me or anyone else. I could have saved myself a lot of pain. The revelation was that I wouldn't date him right now if he were the last man on the planet.
A year ago I'm not sure I would have come to that. Not at all. I was still in such a place that I would have looked at the whole thing, the acceptance of the friend request, the shopping trip, and the margaritas, as an opportunity to get him back. Now, I am so proud to say, I know this is not a man who needs to be in a relationship. Maybe he never will be. He has so much healing to do; so many old beliefs about himself that he needs to clear before he can be in that place.
And yet, he's dating. I don't know that he should be, but there you have it. In the wake of the devastation he's been through, and believe me it has been devastating, he's actively dating. Honestly, I don't know how long it's been since the break up but in this case time really doesn't even matter. State of mind does.
Remember How to Get the Girl...Advice for the Men? Yeah, dude so needs to read it. In his current state of mind he so isn't going to get the girl...any girl. And sadly, if he does manage to find one, she will be one who is where I was when he and I started dating. A girl who herself is in no position to be dating. And that, my friends, is a lose-lose situation.
(Photo Source)
|