My 2 Second Shelf Life

Years ago, before I met The Mister, I had bad taste in boyfriends.
The nice ones were “boring” and the bad boys were “commitment phobes”.
It took me a long time to figure out that it was me who was the commitment phobe.

Here’s how I figured it was.
Stay with me…
I was so afraid of committing to loving someone, so afraid of being abandoned without being prepared, that I set up my relationships so that I would know the outcome.

Pretty clever, huh?

That’s right, date an asshole who treats you like shit…voila!...self-fulfilling prophecy with built in, “it isn’t my fault, he’s an asshole” clause.
I did this for a long time.
Until I got tired of the drama and pain…which is when I came up with my “dating system”.
It was shortly after that (very shortly) that I met The Mister.

Love is a leap of faith.
Once you allow yourself to love someone, you open yourself up to all kinds of anxieties (ok, maybe not you…maybe just my neurotic self).
Perhaps something will happen to the person that you love.
That they will be hurt while they are out in the world, and you will be in unbearable pain if this happens.
I believe that fear of this stops some people from loving others.
Men from loving women.
Women from loving men.
People from loving people.
Even parents from loving children.

It takes courage, and not everyone has it.