Will the two sexes EVER understand each other??? Why, oh why, do we do this to ourselves? It’s just not that complicated!
If you spend any time at all on the social networking sites, you’ll probably be quick to notice the “Wall Plaques” and status messages that say things like, “Why cry over some jerk who left you when there’s someone much greater waiting to find you?” Or, “If you’re stupid enough to leave me, you don’t deserve me.” I’ll stop there. You get the idea. The whole point of these messages is to imply or state outright that because someone left them, he or she is a stupid jerk or a crazy bitch. That’s the underlying message. It’s sad, really.
Every time I read these I can’t help but think, if you’re still giving this person free rent space inside your head, and if you’re still posting stuff like this, baby, you ain’t over him/her yet! OVER someone is when you don’t think about them anymore. OVER is when you really are so busy enjoying or living your life that you don’t give the ex another thought. That’s really being OVER somebody. But what disturbs me even more is the implication that just because someone left you, they are worthless. They don’t deserve anything good. They are trash.
Really? I mean, really? Are YOU trash? I mean, at some time in our lives, we all leave someone and usually, we have good reason to. At least, in our own minds, our reasons are justified and good. That doesn’t make us trash, does it? It makes us human beings (which is what we are) trying our best in this lifetime to find happiness (which we deserve.) All of us. ALL of us.
The reasons they leave, we will sometimes never know. Possibly, if we try to think objectively and ask in an objective fashion rather than ranting, raving and fighting, we would get the answers. We won’t like them, make no mistake about that. To the person being left, no reason is a good enough reason to bail out. But for the one doing the leaving, let’s face it….by the time someone actually works up the nerve to tell you they’re splitting, they’ve already been gone for quite some time, so they’re already emotionally removed. They’d tell you the real reason if they thought you wouldn’t freak out.
I did a survey on this quite some time back. Now, I only got forty or so responses, but every one of them said that by the time they actually found the nerve to say “good-bye” they were already gone, inside their heads. It just wasn’t a snap decision, made on the spot. It had been building up for awhile. All they had to do was pick up their bodies and haul the rest of themselves out the door. They could tell you point blank, without trauma on their parts, why they’re leaving – the real reason – but most of the time they don’t because experience in this sort of thing has taught us all that it’s better to be as vague as possible, as delicate as possible, as illusive as possible…anything but the bare-assed truth, because most people just can’t take it. Most people will claw, grab, cry, fight, reason with you…anything but just gracefully back off and say, “I was actually thinking the same thing because it hasn’t been going well for us at all, has it? Now we can both move forward and get on with our lives.”
What a shock to the system that would be,eh? I bet half of us would do a double take at this point and second-think our decision to leave. The surprise would floor us if anyone made it that easy.
If you’re curious, one of the primary reasons that people left other people, according to this survey that I did was (and this will not surprise you at all):
‘She changed. She was really nice when we started out…but then she changed into someone totally different. She’s not the person I fell in love with.”
“He refused to change. He drinks, he’s rude, he treats me poorly…he just won’t change no matter how much I rant at him.”
Take note here. This is what I concluded: Men go into relationships hoping a woman won’t change. He committed to her because of who he thought she was. Women go into relationships hoping men will change. She doesn’t like this or that about him but she thinks she can fix him. Now, those are broad, general statements, and of course, there are women out there who don’t try to change a guy, just like there are men out there who do try to change a woman…but I’m talking about a majority of men and women here, not the exception to the rule.
That’s where we go wrong a great deal of the time. There are a frillion other reasons why people break up but that one up there, that’s a good place to start.
But listen, the jerk who left you is the same jerk you fell in love with – or maybe convinced yourself that you loved for whatever reason. So now, he’s a jerk who doesn’t deserve good things because he left? He’s the same guy. If he was that much of a jerk, what were you doing with him in the first place? Did you think he’d change for you? Nobody changes for anyone else. Change comes from within. So, be more selective next time. Raise your standards. Learn from it. 
I’ve come to the conclusion that men are simple creatures, really. No, “simple” doesn’t mean stupid or anything bad. Not at all. It means they’re pretty straight-forward. Men are fixer-uppers. They don’t tend to analyze the shit out of relationships. They just roll with the punches. They’re raised to deal with issues, handle them, get them out of the way and move onto something else.
Women are very different. Women can take a single sentence and analyze it for weeks on end, wondering what he meant by, “Your sheets are a weird color.” She thinks, Does he mean my sheets are ugly? Does he mean they freak him out? Do they turn him off? Crap, should I get different colored sheets??! Why doesn’t he like this color? My brother likes this color. All my girlfriends think this color is gorgeous. What’s wrong with my sheets??? Does he think I have bad taste in decor? I bet he hates my couch too. It’s almost that same shade of green… Why would he hate my friggin’ couch? We made out on that couch for the first time! It has sentimental value! What an insensitive jerk! Meanwhile, all he really, really meant was, “You’re sheets are a weird color.” Period. Nothing to do with how they affect his sex drive, his appetite for MacDonald’s salads or anything else. They’re just sheets and they’re a weird color. He won’t think about them again. It’s done with. Back to her. She’s still skimming every site on the Internet trying to learn why that particular shade of green turns some men off, trying to understand the psychology behind his dislike for that shade of green, and other such nonsense. Again, I say, it’s just not that complicated!
We, as women, like to attach all sorts of complications to men that don’t really exist. We say things like, “He’s sending me mixed messages.” Honey, not, he is not sending you mixed messages. You’re sending mixed messages to yourself. If he says hi in the hall every day but never asks you out, it’s because he doesn’t want to go out with you badly enough to make the effort. Hi means hi, and nothing else. The most shy man on the planet will FIND a way to ask you out if he really wants to go out with you. The most attached man on the planet will devise a hundred different schemes to be with you in secret if he really wants to be with you, so the “Oh, he’s married but it’s me he really wants” mentality won’t fly here, either. Read my lips: Any man who is in love with a woman will FIND a way to connect with her in ways that she cannot mistake for anything else but attraction. The buck stops here. That’s how it is, like it or not. It’s just not that complicated. There are no mixed messages. Only wishful thinkers.
“Love and a red nose can’t be hid.” Thomas Holcroft. Think about it.
I’m not really going anywhere with this long dissertation, in case you’re wondering. There’s no last paragraph to pull all of that nonsense together in a way that will make sense. Don’t look for it. It ain’t there. All I’m saying is that men and women are so different. After all these years of co-existing on the same planet we still can’t get it through out thick heads that we can’t and should not try to make men think like women, or women think like men. And we still can’t seem to reach a place where we can embrace our differences rather than put each other down over them.
Girls, did you know that a man will do just about anything for you if you just learn to ask him the right way? No bitching, whining, complaining, nagging, guilt-trips or any of that BS. Men LIKE to be heros. Let them be heros! Ask…ask nicely (and if you can do it wearing a bustier and some high heels, it will work that much better!) and ye shall receive! They like to let their bad boys come out to play now and then too, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog for another day. Just let me say that if you encourage his dark energy to come out and play with your dark energy now and then, instead of having him let out that dark energy behind your back, you will BOTH be much happier by three AM…if it stops that soon. Get my drift?
Men, did you know that women wouldn’t bitch half as much if men told or showed us more often that we were appreciated and loved? We might even forgive you for leaving the toilet seat up if you give us a hug and smile with that apology. Wait, let me guess. You didn’t apologize. Well, it wasn’t your ass dunked in ice water at 3:00 am. Was it? Go apologize. She’s worth it.
What I think, I guess, is that we just need to stop trying to demystify what men are about, and just take ‘em as they are. Warts and all. If we did that, maybe they’d quit trying to run for the door. And if what they are is unacceptable to you, without alternations, then don’t get into a relationship with them in the first place. It’s not your job to “fix” a guy. He doesn’t want to be fixed. Get your dog or your cat fixed but don’t try it on men. They tend to resent that sort of castration. If they want to change certain things about themselves because they can see that doing so would make you happier, they have to do that on their own. Your nagging won’t enlighten him. It will only push him away.
But if they want to leave, let ‘em go. You don’t want someone who doesn’t want to be with you anyway, do you? But when they DO leave, I would suggest spending less time hating on the guy and trying to figure out how he could be so stupid…and perhaps, a little more time learning from everything that went wrong in that relationship, so as to avoid the same mistakes in the future.
If it sounds as if I’m blaming the whole thing on women (my own sex!) I’m not. Believe me, I have met my share of total jerks and even been in relationships with some. There were some that only a mother would love and some that EVEN their own mothers couldn’t love! And some that didn’t show their nasty sides till well into the relationships, so men can and do change too. But at the end of the day, after I got out of those relationships, I had to look back with honest eyes and an open mind, and admit that I KNEW they were jerks from the start. I knew it. But I went ahead and got involved anyway. I should have listened to my gut feeling. Live and learn.
The one thing I don’t do and won’t do, is allow myself to spend any time hating on someone or dissing someone after they’re gone. Why? It’s a waste of time. Hating on someone is the same as going up to a Bitterness Station with an empty tank and saying, “Fill me up. I need some more bitterness to run on, to get through this day.” That won’t make anything better. It will just prologue your misery. If he really WAS a jerk, then just be glad you finally did get out of that relationship, so you can now be free to find someone more suitable. But in the process of letting him go, don’t cling to the bitterness. Let it go, too. Let it go, so that if you DO meet a really nice, caring man, you won’t be subconsciously making him pay for the horrible way the previous guy treated you. Fair’s fair. It’s the only way, because if you cling to that crap, it will blink like a neon sign on your forehead, warding off every man within thirty feet of you. You won’t find a good replacement until you take off that sign, because if there’s one thing men ARE good at, it’s reading bitterness on a woman’s face, in her eyes, in her walk, and in the way she looks at the world.
To receive love – genuine love – one must be able to give it. You can’t do that as long as you’re hating someone.
Be well and be blessed, brothers and sisters.
Until next time…Namaste.
