The Five Stages of Grief & How I Handle Love

If I had a whole list of things about the reasons I'm a fucked up person, "love makes me sad" would probably be number 7 or 8.  And "Being Naggy" would be 13, but that's a different story.

When it comes to love in real life, I basically go through the five stages of grieving.

1) Denial.  I don't love this guy, I haven't been with him long enough to love him.  I still think other guys are cute sometimes.  What is love anyway?  Maybe I love him, but I'm not in love with him, there's a difference right?

2) Anger.  How dare I love someone?  It's not like this is going to amount to anything!  How dare he be so nice that I fall in love?  This is stupid!  I'm stupid!  

3) Bargaining.  Maybe if distance myself from him I won't love him anymore.  I won't text back as fast, we won't hang out as often, I won't wear the bracelet he got me and I won't love him this much and it'll all be fine.  Maybe by doing all of these things he'll think I'm crazy and distance himself from me!  Then I really won't love him this much, genius!

4) Depression.  If I tell him I love him things will be too serious, and then they won't work out.  He's going to break my heart, and worse, I deserve it for being such a dumbass and falling for him.  I don't deserve love, there's no way he'll love me back, this is going to end badly. [insert countless versions of a break up scene.]

5) Acceptance.  I've been told it's nice at this stage, I wouldn't know. [insert more of stage 4 depression.]

Since I was 15 I've always thought I was too weird, too ugly, and too overlooked to ever make someone happy.  For the past 5 years that line of thought has proven to be true.  It's what I've told myself after every breakup or version of "heartbreak" that I've come across in my life.  When someone leaves me, it's always because I'm lacking in some way.  I've talked about this a lot in my blog, I know I have, and hopefully I'm not beating people over the head with it.  It's just such a destructive line of thought and I know that it affects me in every relationship I have.

In my current relationship my boyfriend puts in effort to better himself for me (haircut, cutting back a bit on cigarettes, etc), he gets jealous of other guys, and laughs at my jokes.  He'll even stay up for over 24 hours to spend time with me (he works night shift, makes for weird hangout and sleeping hours). He tells me I'm beautiful every day, he says how lucky he is to have me every chance he gets, and I literally catch him gazing at me.

When he does or says these things, I get very quiet and reserved and he always asks me what's wrong.  I don't know how to tell him that I'm scared sick of how breaking up or him not putting in as much effort will affect me.  That I don't feel like I deserve these things.  I'm not good enough for this.  I feel like a fraud, accepting gifts that belong to some other girl.  Some other girl that he will eventually find and leave me for.  I really don't know how to say it without sounding pathetic or ungrateful or without making him mad at how much I dislike myself.  I mean, if I don't like "me," how can anyone else?

Where I'm Going vs. Where I've Been

So I was browsing through my blog and I came across one of my pity party "woe is me" posts about the last guy I was with.  I'm sure my blog is filled with them, but this is just the first one I laid eyes on.
I emphasized a lot about how I was immature and how I wasn't done exploring new things.  The only thing I rested on his shoulders was that he didn't put in enough effort.

I'm with a guy now, who blows that last one out of the water.  It's a testament to how I've been treated in the past, let me tell you.  He won't let me pay for anything, ever (it's a little frustrating sometimes), he's literally become good friends with my parents, he's met my friends, he works night shift but will stay up for over 24 hours to see me, he'll drive an hour to my house just to see me for 30 minutes before he goes to work, he's willing to visit me at school as much as I want, he listens when I say "no," he texts me good morning and good night.  And the biggest thing he did that no guy has ever done for me before?  Asks me and makes sure that I get off during sex.  He takes it as a personal defeat if I don't, it's really quite cute.

That whole paragraph is full of things that he does, that no one else has ever bothered or even attempted to do.  I'm sure I'm even missing a few things!  This whole situation actually makes me angry that I've never expected more out of a guy than for him to like me.  In the past I've gotten a few dinners, a movie date here or there, but no real chivalry.  And certainly no one who gave a shit about how I felt in bed.

So Frustrated I Can't Even Come Up With a Proper Title

It's been seven posts since I talked about a guy.  Pretty sure that's a record.
So now I'm in the dilemma of trying to see how long I can go, or getting some things off my chest by writing about a very confusing someone.
Fuck it, I have no self restraint and this is what I wanted to talk about anyway.

First of all, I'd like to restate that I'm fucked up.  I'm an emotional mess, a total weirdo, and as indecisive as humanly possible.  With my last relationship issue (talked about in My Holiday Heart-to-Heart...and about a million other posts) I was left feeling inadequate, lonely, and confused.  I don't regret a thing, but I still think about that guy every day.  You know what else I think about every day?
SEX.
I'm at a sexual roadblock in my life right now, and it's starting to really piss me off.
I don't want to have a one night stand, I don't want to sleep with some random person, I don't want a relationship, I can't handle friends with benefits, I don't want to fuck up any friendships with sexual tension, and I'm honest to God scared of any emotional repercussions of sleeping with a new person.
What am I supposed to do?  I just about loose my damn mind when I try to figure it out.

So here is where the guy comes in.  I'd like to let everyone know that he is the most frustrating, infuriating, annoying, twisted, man-whore, bastard who really lights a fire under my ass.  And he doesn't even have to do anything.  In fact, half of the time not doing anything is my problem with him. Let's call him Cole.
Cole and I have issues.  Actually, I'm most likely the only one with issues, he's probably completely oblivious.  I can't even explain what it is about him that infuriates me so much.
Maybe it's that he slept with my roommate in a drunken stupor, maybe it's that he then apologized to me and then kissed me, maybe it's that he calls me his friend but doesn't put his money where his mouth is.  It's quite possibly the fact that he's such a fake.  He always acts like he's superior and nothing bothers him, but he's intelligent, quirky, and occasionally poetic.
It's probably the fact that I want him to fuck my brains out, but can't get over all of these negative qualities.  I don't think I'd ever recover from liking a guy like him too much.
Why do I like such assholes? Fucking genetics.

My Holiday Heart-to-Heart

I'm going to tell you all a secret:  I'm really bad at keeping my own secrets.  You know how sometimes you're dared by your friends to "tell them something you've never told anyone?"  I never have one of those, because I share everything about myself.  The gross stuff, the sex stuff, all the times I fall up (and down) the stairs.  I have never done something interesting & not told at least one person.

Until now.  I recently did something stupid and it's a personal dare for me to keep it to myself.  However, since I don't know anyone personally who reads my blog, I'm thinking that writing about it won't break the dare.  Also, I think that it's a really good lesson.

I'm not afraid of my mistakes, which is good since I make a lot of them.  I'll blush and be embarrassed, but I'll own up to them, because in the end they're (usually) always a good thing.  That sounds very Yoda or Gandhi, but I swear it's the truth.  So when I told someone recently that I loved them knowing they didn't feel the same way, I at first considered it a mistake.  It was awkward and sad, but it was also possibly the most amazing thing I'd done in a long time.

My love for this person wasn't the right kind.  It was heavy and depressing, and it made me feel like I had an obsession instead of a romance.  I couldn't leave this poor guy alone (or more accurately, I couldn't stop sleeping with him).  I kept thinking, "if I stick around for just a little bit longer he'll want me.  He'll see how great I am."
Yeah, that didn't happen.
What it finally took was me telling him that I loved him.  I was passing this heavy weight of love from myself to him.  He was to walk away knowing that he's looking for something I already freely gave.  And you would think him not loving me back would make me sad, but it actually makes me feel better.  I gave everything I could and it wasn't enough.  What a sad man he must be to not find happiness with one of the most amazing things a person can offer.

So that's my secret, it doesn't seem like much on the internet, but my friends would shit a baby if they knew that I even contacted this guy again, much less told him I loved him.

So here's to no regrets, I loved, I lost, and I learned a lesson.

Happy Holidays, everyone!