Wax On, Wax Off

I've been waiting for something interesting to happen to give me something new to blog about. And just when I thought I’d have to resort to regaling you, dear reader(s), with stories of oil well production figures (I hate myself for this) BAM! Something relatively interesting happened. A few entries ago I wrote about my Friend, the miner. It’s now been decided that he’s been downgraded to friend. I had been half-expecting it, as lately we had entered that very grey zone of Friendship where you’re not entirely sure what is going on anymore. Do I like him? Do I Like him? Does that mean I can’t like anyone else? Would I be mad if he was with someone else? Would he be mad if I was with someone else? And on and on and on. So friends it is, and I've surprised even myself with how rational and calm I've been about it all. I might actually be turning into a man. Which would be both disturbing and amazing.

You see, this is how the record usually plays: I meet a boy, quite by accident. We start chatting and go on a date. We sleep together and then the magical spell of my lady parts is cast, and we basically start dating. Two weeks to twelve months later we start fighting like a pair of crazy alley cats and it all starts to fall apart. This has happened 5 times since I was 17. Cumulatively I have been single for about 1.5 years since graduating high school. What is that about??? Until I recently did the math I could actually say with a straight face that I was not a relationship person. But I now know that would be akin to Taylor Swift saying that she is not a relationship person. On the bright side, I don’t write whiny irritating songs about my exes. Yet…

My last so-called relationship spanned almost a year and a half, with countless nights of tears, dozens of emotional emails and three or four breakups. My friends have long-since learned to tune out my declarations of “it’s over! For realz this time”. Letting go has never been my forte. I think it goes back to my previously-admitted weakness of needing to be needed. Even if I was in a terrible relationship, I would be afraid to cut and run because hey, what if No One Ever For The Rest Of My Entire Life Wants Me Again? I have vague recollections of making lists of potential interests in case a current relationship ended. Not to sound conceited, but this kind of thinking is totally insane. At the peak of this behavior I was only 22! Who is a 22 year old spinster? In this electronic age I have access to billions of people, surely I could have let go on the faith that worst case scenario I could get really good at online gaming and meet that special someone? But that’s not how I saw it. Somewhere in my mind I believed I was lucky to be getting any attention from ‘him’, even if it didn't make me feel good about myself. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of girls feel this way.

Going on the central thesis of “He’s Just Not That Into You”, if a boy pushes you away, it’s because he doesn't want to be with you. So maybe he has trust issues and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and keeps a gun under his bed and doesn't answer your calls and drives by your house at night to spy on you. Maybe in some twisted corner of his mind, he does want to be with you. But that absolutely does not mean that he deserves to be with you. And I have learned from unfortunate first-hand experience that you cannot change this boy.

I’m not 100% sure what my issue with having an intense desire to be in a relationship was about for all those years, but I finally know that I’m getting over it. Dare I say, that I am over it. What I can comfortably call my first down-under-fling was a very positive experience, with only a tiny amount of drama that was - if you can believe this - not caused by me. It truly is an Easter Miracle. And I head off into the weekend with a generally clear head and a light heart...who knows what will happen next?