As I navigate the perils of real estate, I began to see the similarities between selling houses and dating boys (or girls). I put my Virginia house on the market and it sold 24 hours later. I got a full-price offer, they needed no help on closing costs. The best part was that they were going to let me stay in the house until May, which meant that I could stay in my job. This was, to be frank, the most perfect situation ever to occur.
And so everything was signed and finished and we had a close date and then…the buyers pulled out due to personal reasons.
So I went from feeling like everything was working out perfectly to back to square one.
I was texting with my mom and I told her I felt like I jinxed it because I got excited and told people about it. Although everything was going great and things seemed to be perfectly perfect…I feel like “I don’t get perfect.”
And then I realized that selling my house is exactly like dating, right down to how I feel when it doesn’t work out. When something too amazing for words comes along, I get all excited and start dreaming about what could happen. And in both cases, when it doesn’t work out, my initial reaction is:
“Well of course. I don’t deserve something that good.”
The idea of deserving things is definitely something that’s been at the forefront of my mind lately. When I threw it back to this blog post on Thursday, I read through it and realized that I’m still suffering from some of the same self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that I struggled with last year:
“…[e]very time I end it with someone (or vice versa), I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed in some way. I’m ashamed of myself, like it’s always my fault that everything goes wrong.”
I wrote in the blog post that I shouldn’t have to change for someone to love me. I mean, perhaps I should be a little more open and vulnerable. But I shouldn’t have to change my quirkiness or my personality in order to be with someone else.
Here’s the dirty little secret: I didn’t believe it back then, and I don’t believe it now. Not really.
Strangely, this is not a problem with loving myself. Since I wrote that post in March of last year, I have grown in leaps and bounds. I now do love myself, I’ve faced my fears, and realizedwho I am as a person. When I looked in the mirror last March, I saw a stranger. Now I see myself, and I think I am the prettiest, most awesome chick on the planet.
Until I meet someone I really like.
When I don’t care, as Demi says, “I can play them like a Ken Doll.” Sweatpants, messy hair, don’t care (#campaignfornopants). But when I really find someone special, that’s when I really start to grow insecure. I’m back to my old, bullying ways of second guessing everything I do or say. Every pause in conversation is undoubtedly them realizing that I’m too weird for words. Every time it ends, I know–absolutely–that it’s because of something that I did.
I think it’s because, subconsciously, I don’t believe that I’m worthy of something that good. Deep down all of those insecurities boil down to this fear they’re going to find out how truly unworthy I am and leave. Because they deserve better than me.
So when they do invariably leave, it’s a confirmation to those fears that I was right all along: I’m not worthy. That confirmation, more than the person leaving, kicks me right in the solar plexus.
Intellectually, I know not everything is about me. Sometimes people got Stuff that has nothing to do with me. Hell, maybe even they think they’re not worthy to be with me. But as Aerona says in Empath – Fear is not rational. And just like Lauren in Empath, instead of dealing with my fear, I prefer to avoid the fear by not dating anyone ever again.
This has sort of been eye-opening for me, honestly. I really thought I was past all of this stuff. As it turns out, I’m still struggling. And unfortunately, this is one of those things that I can’t blog my way through. I actually have to pick myself up and put myself out there again. And again. And again.
Not just romantically, but in general. I’ve been (basically) alone for two years up here, and now I have to figure out how to “people” again when I move home. I have to re-learn how to be a friend, and how to be present in a conversation.
More than that, I need to comfortable being my authentic self–the girl I see in the mirror–and trust that this person is worthy of love and attention.
