“When was the last time you were single?”
“Uhh, before I dated my ex, duh.”
“No no no – when was the last time you were SINGLE? Like, not talking to a girl, not going on dates, just being you, single?”
[I gave a half-hearted chuckle] “Ya know, I don’t really remember.”
It was true. In college, I had more rebounds than most of Mississippi State’s basketball team. I had just missed a rebound attempt and was realizing I was dealing with the hurt of two failed relationships at the same time, and it was clear what my friend’s point was. ‘Sure, you’ve ended things with each of those girls, but have you truly dealt with things emotionally?’
I spent the next year in solitude dealing with emotions I’d suppressed for a long time. It was awful. It was necessary.
I found myself going over relationships in my mind from well into my past – relationships that lasted days, relationships that lasted years, and everything in between.
All I can really say is that it’s kind of like when someone constantly complains about their roommates. Some of my friends could talk about poor experiences that they had with each of their roommates from every semester of college. And it hit me one day – if someone constantly struggles to get along with their roommates, then maybe they’re the bad roommate. This isn’t to say that there aren’t shitty roommate situations, but if you have chronic roommate issues that don’t get much worse than, “OMG she brings her bf over and they snuggle in the living room and I can’t be in there but I mean it’s a SHARED SPACE why can’t they go somewhere more private?” then you’re proooobably the bad roommate. Somewhere in my year of solitude, I realized I was the bad roommate in my relationships. I had plenty of failed relationships yet I always found ways to make them the bad guy. In reality, the only common denominator in all of my failed relationships was me. Here, let me type that again in bold: The only common denominator in all of my failed relationships was me.
The problem I was having was that I wasn’t taking enough time to reflect on my relationships before I moved on to the next one. I would come up with some way to blame the girl I’d dated for being ‘a bitch’ or ‘crazy’ or ‘a princess’ by taking something she said or did and blowing it out of proportion or taking it out of context. But, while it’s important to understand why you’re breaking things off with someone, exaggerating that reasoning to the point where you shift all of the blame from yourself isn’t healthy. It’s definitely good to know why you’re breaking things off with someone, but it’s equally important to know why someone is doing the same to you. Breakups suck, but they’re important for, ya know, growth as a human being. Are you going to keep making the same mistakes or are you going to get better? Will you rush into the arms of the next person you match with on Tinder or are you going to be deliberate with who you choose to date based on things you’ve learned from previous relationships?
That’s a decision you have to make.
Decisions, Decisions... 