No matter where we're at in our lives, regardless of whether we're dating somebody else or not, it always makes you think. Even if the relationship sucked, you'll still think of how that person was able to convince another person to reach that stage of Friendship+ with them.
I'm currently in an amazing relationship that today, seven months ago, we committed to. In the same week that she is on vacation overseas, it was the same week that I found out my previous ex was currently in a relationship with someone else.
For the first time in my life, I had two reactions at the exact same time when seeing it. Happiness and guilt. Nothing whatsoever involving anger. Which has been a far cry from my previous experiences in dealing with that news.
Why happiness? It's a long story that I would never get into publicly, but she deserved somebody great to be with. There's a lot of great qualities in her -- like being one of the nicest and hilarious people I know while also being a huge sports fan. That would attract anybody.
Because of our situation and how we handled certain aspects of it, things didn't work out between us. When it was too late, I realized some of the things I did wrong. Perhaps something could have been fixed after we broke up, but in a short amount of time I met my current girlfriend. One that was everything I was looking for in a girl after my previous one. The right balance of differences that meshed perfectly together.
Ultimately it worked out between us and we're still thriving strong. Because of all the lessons I've learned in the past. That's where the guilt lies. I can only imagine how she felt when I quickly moved on with somebody else.
There's not much I regret from my previous relationships. At the end of the day, it's all learning experiences as we grow up in life. Yes, there are things I shouldn't have said, some things I didn't handle well, but it was marred with a long history of girls that were dishonest with me or liked to take advantage of a nice guy.
I finally grew up shortly after college, abandoning the one-night stand life and just going after the first girl that batted her eyes at me and wanted to have a conversation with me before any other dude bros at the bar could have a pathetic attempt to give them a rum and coke and an horrible pickup line.
It was that time that the quality of girls I dated improved. Over two years ago now, there's been three girls I've had a relationship with and all three of them had one thing in common -- loyalty. Unfortunately, it was me that still had to do some growing up.
I still retained selfishness, looking toward the end of a relationship when we hit hiccups and being a little too comfortable with myself. I love being sarcastic and poking fun at my significant other, and unfortunately I would reach a level that they wouldn't like. I also wasn't happy with my personal life -- my job, money situation -- I focused on that more than just being happy with the girl, talking to them and putting them ahead of me more.
With my current girlfriend, I'd have to say I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. We met at the perfect time. A moment that I'm finally learning to be a respectful boyfriend while she couldn't be more cute, sweet, beautiful, and there's so many more adjectives I could list.
Back in the day, I used to complain and bitch about why things with girls didn't work out. Well, you quickly find out that the stupid rules you learn through life aren't necessarily true. A girl doesn't distinguish whether they want to be with a guy or not in the first 15 seconds they meet them. A guy may think about girl(s) every 15 seconds but that doesn't mean they're always thinking about somebody else they aren't dating.
No guy is ever "friend zoned" -- they just need to learn how to talk to women. It's something that took me a few years out of college to figure out. Experience that all of my previous relationship blog post garbage never had implemented in them.
This is why I'm happy that my old blogs have either been shut down or terminated now. All the history of nonsense is out of pool that is the interwebs and it was gone before I ever get into the journalism world. Nothing I say on here could ever actually help as advice. The bottom line is everyone has to experience it themselves. For better or for worse, we all have to learn. Success and failure will be had many times.
Who knows what will happen with my current relationship. I hope it lasts forever. I love her to death. But anything could happen to affect it whether good or bad.
But finally, the feelings I have are calm, cool, and collected. The anger of my past fizzled out years ago, and now the process of actually being a decent guy is settling in because I improved the life around me.
Perhaps the best relationship advice anyone could ever give are the following: Just live your life and go along for the ride. Try not to let the emotions completely take over. Time always heals everything no matter how bad something gets. Don't let a couple of bad relationships in the past spoil potential great ones.
That is something I should have written in my very first blog post I wrote on relationships. It should have also been the last like this one will be.
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