I fall for the wrong guys - the liars, the cheats, the emotionally-unavailable, the jerks - all the time. I fall hard, I fall fast, and inevitably, I end up broken, battered, sobbing and alone, leaving my poor friends to, once again, pick up the pieces and attempt to cheer me up.
Part of it is that, deep down inside, I want, more than anything else, to matter to someone. To be someone's first priority, to be the reason they get up in the morning (or log on, as the case may be), to have someone who is mine, just as I'm his. To have someone accept me as I really am, flaws and all. To have someone love me.
My RL history is just as dismal as my SL, so it leaves me wondering if the problem isn't actually me. Do I want something so outrageous that it's impossible? I don't think so. I see it going on all around me, all the time. But I can never find it for myself.
So what's the secret?
- Maybe it's confidence. I just find it hard to even fake a confidence when my past experience has been so dismal so many times. Confidence, for me, comes from seeing success, and then building on that. When there's nothing to build on (and lots to pull things down), it makes it hard to attempt this one.
- Maybe it's about relaxing and just having fun. If you're reading this, you know me well enough that this isn't something I do very well. I'm one of those 'carry the weight of the world' people, and more, I tend to over-think and overanalyze everything. Add in a healthy dose of skepticism and pessimism, I find problems before they occur, and tend to insulate myself as a self-protection mechanism. I've tried letting my guard down and relaxing before - all that's happened is I take one in the jaw that knocks me on my ass all the faster.
I've even tried faking these - you know, the old adage "fake it till you make it" - projecting an image of confidence, of being perky and bubbly and carefree. The problem for me, is that these masks never become reality, and eventually people get a look at what's behind the mask. They see the shadows lurking in the depths, and if that alone isn't enough to scare them off, then they see the early "act" as a deception, and nobody wants to be with someone who lies to them about who they are.
- Maybe it's about taking things as they are, not as I want them to be. I'll be the first to admit that I read into things. Reading between the lines, pulling out intentions and meanings is what I do - hell, they've spent the past 2 years training me to do it even better. But when it comes to relationships, I have a habit of pulling out more than is really there, and drawing the wrong conclusions. Cue defence mechanisms once again.
So what do I do now? Obviously my current strategies and attempts aren't working. I'm stuck in a limbo between two extremes - the mindless casual sex, and the "friend zone". The guys I do meet either want one or the other, but never anything more. The guys I want don't want me, and the guys that want me either want a just another conquest or just a friend. The former generally see nothing but the pretty pixels, and the flirtatious public demeanour of DJ Becka (I tend to let a lot more of my wild side show when I'm on the air), the latter are generally guys that I've gotten to know, that I've opened up to more, and they decide that they like having me as a friend, but don't want anything more than that. Hell, I get asked for advice on women, and guys complain to me about how they can never find the right girl - sometimes I just want to shout "HELLO!!! Girl here! One you know you like already!" - but they just never want to take that step to give a friend a try as a girlfriend.
A friend said I should learn to accept the whole "no strings attached" idea. To just have fun, and not always be looking for something more. As much as I'd love to be able to do that, I know it's just not who I am, or what I want. Sure, I could try to fake it, but as I just said, that never works for long.
Maybe nothing will come of this, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Someday, I might tell you more of the backstory, then again, I might not. Advice is welcome, even if I may not follow it.
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