Be Good At Being Wrong
I haven’t had a chance to write in a long while. With this platform I want to be someone true to my words and I’ve been mulling over how to write about an earlier romantic connection that would seem forever true, considering how putting my words on the internet would make them permanent and last nearly forever. I’ve been struggling to wordsmith the events, my thoughts, and how I feel as they seem to be ever changing in the after-math.
He was someone I saw often in a short two month long stint, to the point I actually felt sorry for his wallet that would pay for most of our dates and I am not a cheap date. There were feelings of “firsts”. The one I was most moved by was a first to experience easy emotional safety. Quick to apologize, asking if I ever needed more time to mull on something, knowing how to ask me more about my feelings or thoughts about a matter. I am someone who struggles to articulate what goes on inside my head and heart and or are afraid (due to deep rooted people-pleasing traits) to say something out loud. Even if I was afraid to say something out loud, he had a way of welcoming all my unrefined verbose dialogue. Acknowledging and confirming what he heard and making effort to have me feel heard and seen, and that I was not “too much” for him even if my thoughts had no logic or specific point to be made.
While sitting across from each other being vulnerable of affirming and bringing to light feelings being mutual, it was also apparent we were both very afraid about different things that would make it impossible for us to keep going. I made the difficult decision to quit that night, and I remember the 3’x3’ table that separated us, all of a sudden felt vastly wider, like a canyon between us with no resolve to be able to bridge us back together. I cried that night and I think I cried into the following day, sad enough to even take a day off work.
Trying to date him and also quitting him felt like another first for me, where I felt like I was being a more responsible dater. I was honest, I owned my own crap, I communicated my needs, I gave him the benefit of the doubt without assuming, pressed into any fears and or anything that triggered me. And even after knowing I gave it my best, gave it my all, quitting him felt so painful as if I made the wrong choice. If I’m making the right choice why is it so painful? Aren’t only wrong decisions supposed to be painful? With the heaviest of hearts, at that time I knew feelings of “wrong” was the right decision and I felt like I was dating from a place of a grown-up heart for a first time in a long while.
I am trying very hard to be a better dater and not to repeat past unhealthy approaches of dating, like truly-truly making a concerted effort. Over the summer, I started to doubt and have thoughts of self-hate for feeling these things for a man that was afraid to really date me. With my long history of dating guys who would never give me what I really want and or need, I started to beat myself up that I was repeating my past dating behaviors. I thought I was free from those behaviors of being easily attracted to those types of guys.
It’s dawned on me that these tensions of “I did good” and “I was wrong again” can co-exist. In retrospect, both are true and perhaps one weighs more in truth over the other. As I continue to process, practice out what I am processing, I need to give myself permission to these thoughts and also dating experiences. I am giving myself more grace to be free to be a good date even if sometimes I might get it kind of wrong and or I will encounter feelings of “wrong”. Therefore the narrative I have from that past romantic connection is constantly changing. I’m hoping and praying that I’m changing even if it’s a tiny inch. Perhaps that’s one good thing coming out of it, I’m learning and trying to grow. I might get it wrong 1,000 times but it only takes 1 to be right, right?