An Assignment.

HOW I MAKE WOMEN MY GOD

By Ani M.

“I give myself very good advice...” I’m very good at that, yes.  “...but I very seldom follow it.”  Turns out I’m even better at that.  This quote from Alice in Wonderland was the first thing that popped into my head when I began to brainstorm exactly what I was going to write upon the topic of “how I make women my God.”  I’m not quite certain if it’s a direct quote from the original book or just from the Disney movie.  Regardless, it about sums me up in a nutshell.  I am certainly good at giving myself good advice.  Unfortunately though, I’ve realized that reason goes completely out the window when it comes to romance.  Listening to my mother talk to me about relationship advice was rather funny.  It was certainly good advice, but funny because it clearly echoed things I have told other people regarding romantic relationships...  Good advice certainly, I can spew it out but when it comes down to my own romantic drama, I can’t even see the true from the false... The good from the bad.  I love love.  I am a hopeless romantic.  Nothing could be more false.  The truth is, that when it all boils down to the one thing I can’t stand the most, me, I am full of self-loathing and absolute insecurity.  Sure, I can put on a good front...  In fact, in my fuzzy drunkenness of yesternight, I recieved several comments on how attractive my confidence is.  Wow, really?  Well, as long as somebody else is acknowledging me on my attractiveness, I’m okay, at least for now.  This morning I woke up next to a very attractive naked woman, not that I had really slept much, really...  Nose candy will do that to you.  Anyway, she liked me.  That felt kinda good.  Last night, at least.  Yet, this morning, I felt as empty as ever.  That’s the problem, I think.    

I’d love to go into past relationships... The patterns are drone and repetitive, yet new and exciting whenever I find a new love interest.  I won’t though.  Sadly it’s practically the same story every time.  The only difference, as hard as it may be to believe, is that although I keep putting myself in harmful and unhealthy situations over and over, with every time I get my heart broken I put yet another brick on a wall I have slowly built over the years to protect me from getting as hurt as I was the first time, with my first serious relationship.  Sure, pity me.  Just kidding, don’t.  Naturally I don’t tend to gravitate toward healthy or sane people, but truthfully, they aren’t the problem.  The problem is me, and my bottomless emptiness that I mentioned before.  My self destructive tendency is to test people...  To see if they “really love me.”   I don’t necessarily do this consciously, but part of my problem is to see how much people can really take.  Because if they can take it, they must really love me, or even need me.  Then, when they are fed up with my unpredictability and abuse, for lack of a better word, I pity myself for having a broken heart...  Clearly, I did nothing wrong.  I so long to be loved, because I am not a complete person.  

That void.  It gets bigger and bigger with every heartbreak.  I keep trying to fill it with the same thing, over and over.  A girl.  How selfish is it of me to give someone that kind of a burden?  How selfish is it of me to expect a human to complete me and fill my emptiness?  It isn’t fair to them, and I am never satisfied.  It’s never enough.  I “fall in love” so quickly and so easily, putting my love interest on a pedestal and obsessing with nurturing the relationship, when in reality I am doing nothing but sucking the life out of the other person.  It’s quite possible that I don’t even know how to love someone.  Anyone.  I can’t even love myself.  I care about people, and, in my limited tunnel vision, am an extremely giving person.  I give and I give, and they take and they take.  The truth is, I’ve never not had an immense part in the process of getting my heart broken.  That was a double negative.  I don’t love people, I need them.  I need them to make me feel good about myself.  It never works, and that’s where the insanity comes in.  This time, it will be different.  It never is. 

So, here’s where the solution comes into play.  The question is, am I willing to suffer through the pain of being alone in order to come to a place where I can truly love myself and eventually have a healthy companionship to offer another person?  Time.  It all just takes time.  Easier said than done, mind you.  I am a thoroughly impatient person, and I am addicted to that wonderful warm fuzzy feeling that comes with the initial excitement of finding a new love.  It’s nice, to be loved...  The thing is, though, that these girls I get myself involved with are quite possibly as sick and as empty as I am, more or less.  So, most likely, they aren’t really loving me either.  They depend on me to fill them up as much as I depend on them.  Whether or not that works in the meantime, it’s always doomed to fail.  That’s where I’m stuck.  That’s where I’m messed up, because, as I write this, it makes perfect sense to me, but as the pain of each current heartbreak consumes me, and I need someone new to take it away.  Rebounds, they call it.  So the pattern repeats itself.  Repeatedly.  Always hoping that this time, she’s the one.  This time it will be all roses and bliss and puppies and we’ll live happily ever after.  Unfortunately, though, not until I can be complete will I ever be able to offer anyone else anything genuine and substantial.  So, either I can keep doing it my way, or I can try something different.  I think I’ll go with the latter this time.