It's Been Three Years

Dear Reader,

It's been three years since I've written on this Single Girl Soapbox blog. Maybe it's because life got away with me. Maybe it's because I found love and wasn't jaded for a while. Maybe it's because I was busy enjoying my life, and writing took the back burner. Maybe it was all of these things and more. Suffice to say, a lot has happened in the last three years.

I did find love. Surprising and unexpected, and of course it ended, as almost everything good in my life seems to. But my heart began to open in ways that it hadn't in a long time, and despite the extreme pain of having to let go of someone I loved, it was a good thing for me, because the feeling wasn't reciprocated in the way it should have been.

I have always hated dating. Like, forever. I have literally hated dating for the entire part of my life that one should be dating. Not only did I find it absolutely ridiculous and kind of like some form of prostitution (let me buy you dinner so I can have sex with you), but I was maybe a little ahead of my time in some ways, and kind of acted like a 50-year old when I was 15. I watched everyone around me...mostly because my dad wouldn't let me date until I was 18, so I didn't have anything better to do. But I was also genuinely curious...and still am.

How does it work, this thing called dating? How many social avenues should we share? When is it okay to respond to someone, reach out to them? How many times do you try before you look like that desperate girl with all the cats? It's confusing. And worse, there's not even a right answer.

Everyone has an opinion about all of the above, and more. "Oh, you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have posted that there. You should have said this. A little more slut. A little less librarian. Wear this. Don't wear this. Wear your hair like this. Don't wear too much makeup. Don't laugh too much. Don't get swept away. Don't kiss on the first date. Don't be afraid to kiss on the first date. Don't let him pay. Don't let him NOT pay." And on, and on, until I'm so confused I'm no longer able to be myself, my lovely flawed self. But to be honest and flawed is bad too, because as history has proven to me, guys don't like honest girls, especially at first. They want mysterious girls that pretend to want them, but don't, and then are only honest when their crazy comes out. I have no time to figure out how to pull off this scenario. I'm too honest and too genuine. These games annoy me and destroy my beliefs about humanity. I'll leave that to the young and clueless game-players.

At the end of the day, despite my love-gone-disappearing act, I'm still single. Less and less concerned with having babies, more focused on my career, and more interested in finding a person that I truly enjoy, respect and love, to actually do life with...in whatever way works best for us. Guaranteed we will be fabulous, because we already are on our own. On the chance that we collide in this lifetime and find a way to stay with each other during the whirlwind of our lives, we will be a force to be reckoned with.

And I'm sure he's out there. Somewhere. Maybe he's currently married. Maybe he's going through a divorce. Maybe he's just getting out of a really bad relationship, and trying to get his life back on track. Maybe he's finally got it all together, and is missing the one thing that will really make him happy. Maybe he got hit by a truck. It's really a crap shoot at this point, People. Honestly.

If you're reading this far down this page, you're probably an important person in my life, and you look at me, what I've been through, and who I am, and you think to yourself, "I wish she was with someone amazing, who knew how amazing she is." I still hold out hope for this as well, in this little tiny corner of my heart where hope for love lives on. But the rest of me is still the same independent, brave, surviving, sarcastic warrior that I have always been, not willing to settle for just any kind of life, with any kind of guy, who thinks I'm just the same kind of girl he dated three months ago.

A turn-off? Only to the wrong person. The right person will see this as the biggest love story in action, and I could certainly use a good love story to write home about.

Stay tuned for more single girl soapbox moments, 'cause I'm going back out on the market, People. It's a new world out there on the internets. I'm sure I'll have some fun stories to tell, and hopefully in the end, a really, really good one.

-Stepping Off...