Boy, oh, boy..

Today is my wedding day. But, I’m not getting married.

Dramatic opener, eh?

Well, it was the date myself and my ex chose as our original wedding day. It would’ve been postponed due to his Master’s study and workload steadily increasing, but I thought what better day than today to talk about my rollercoaster of a dating life over the last 7 months. What can I say, I like to mark an occasion.

I’ve had connections with a few guys since I started my dating life at the end of last summer. One with a younger, free spirited, opinionated, creative, another with a strong-willed, quick-witted, passionate guy and another with a super chill, caring, intellectual. Each with their own lovely quirks, but all three with the same issue for me.. They weren’t ready for a relationship*

*Edit – Since writing this post, I’ve come to learn more about one of the guys in question and that the issue wasn’t “not being ready”. I like to be transparent, so wanted to edit x

What I’m about to say on the matter isn’t me slating these guys personally for not being ready, as they had all told me variations of the “Not sure what I want” line in the beginning, but more of an insight into this type of situation and what I’ve learned about myself and guys in general throughout. However, in my opinion, they each handled the situations badly.

My honest gut feelings on it are: Fuck you guys. Whether you knew what you wanted or not, I was open and honest about what I wanted from the get-go, so knowing that, you shouldn’t have carried on seeing me if you weren’t sure where it would go and that it would probably lead to hurt.

But, I also carried on seeing them knowing they weren’t sure too.. And that’s the frustrating part. You can be angry at the guy for making you feel duped or easily discarded, but in reality, I’m more annoyed with myself. I should’ve known better. Especially after the first guy and yet, I got into two other similar situations, didn’t I? Stickler for punishment, me.

I’ve always liked a project. Not trying to reduce men down to a piece of work (although, hey, amiright?), it’s just something I know about myself. I’ve only had the one truly magical, mutual, easy breezy relationship, so when that didn’t happen again immediately (expectation vs reality, bite me) I thought “Ok, this is probably a fluke. I’ll find that same magical feeling with someone else on the double”. Except, not with people who aren’t “ready” Vic and also, that doesn’t happen as easily as I’d hoped. After the year I had, I thought I had a good idea of what not to do. Clearly not, but that’s also down to my hopeful spirit.. So, I’ve realised that most of the time, relationships are a piece of work and now I’m ok with that.

I will admit now, I probably started dating too soon after the ending of such an important/pivotal relationship, but I felt at the time that it would either be exactly what I needed or it would make me realise I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for a long time and then out of the blue, I was. That’s why the ending of that first foray into something more substantial hurt so much. I had opened up again and they fucked me over, damnit! But, I was glad to know my heart still worked, that it wasn’t too bruised like I had worried it was and that I was incredibly impressed with my resilience. The feelings were all there and the people were great, truly, but I knew that they were unsure of what they wanted and that it would inevitably end not long after it started and I won’t say that I didn’t care. I just had hope. Some may call it stupidity, some naivety and to some extent I would agree with those beliefs. But, I’ll never give up hope, however stupid I might look.

One of the guys in question called me a “hopeless romantic”, but dya know what? Fuck that. I’m a hopeFUL romantic. It’s exactly what it says on the tin really – Love is out there, but you’ve got to grab it by the cojones. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, but it can be pretty goddamn magical sometimes and while you’re optimistic, the hard work that must go into relationships at times doesn’t scare you. That’s me and I’ll never apologise for being this way.

Will fill y’all in on the funnier side of my dating life soooon. Do come back and have a laugh at my expense!

Also, this article is great – Hopeful Romantic – Tabitha Blaisdell

Be well, lovelies xo