Overcoming The Boyfriend Blues

Overcoming The

Boyfriend Blues

by SK Sloan

I remember it like it was yesterday.  It was midnight on a Saturday night, and I was sitting in front of the TV clutching my third glass of wine, lighting a cigarette while one still smoldered in the ashtray.  I was angry…disappointed…and depressed again.

I was thirty-two, smartly employed, and accustomed to being described as “very pretty.”  But I was alone again, and it was not by choice.  If it were left up to me, I would have been standing at a party sensuously attired in my new black dress, staring into the eyes of yet another man in my life who did not cherish me.

According to plan, I was to have been escorted to “the affair of the year” by a man I’d only known for two months, and had slept with after two weeks, though I’d only seen him four times.  But he had not come.  And this was not the first time.

As I stared at the talking screen, I recalled all the anxious times I had waited for a man, to either call or come and my heart ached from “battle fatigue.”

It seemed that up to that point, I had scurried from one guy to another, in open yearning for the love I craved.  It appeared that I held up an invisible magnet that drew only those who either wanted me for a while or really didn’t want me at all.  Some relationships were better than others, but none had lasted past the starting gate.

Was it me?… I thought to myself, as self-pity seduced me to sink lower in the chair.  But, how could it be?  I was kind, cooperative and generous.  A character I was taught, would assure me admiration and respect.  But it had not.

Each time, I targeted someone with an arrow from Cupid’s bow and hit a bulls-eye in terms of what seemed like mutual interest, I ended up with a wounded spirit or a fractured heart.  The good times were noteworthy, but too few and far between.

I had loved and lost and had yet to be found.  Was it because I wanted too much or accepted too little?  Did I ignore too often that little private bell that rings in your head, when your heart has made the wrong stop?  I didn’t know, and my heart sank deep in misery.

The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that I was the manufacturer of my pain, and therefore the major cause of my depression.  I turned off the TV, emptied my wine glass, and went to sleep. The next morning I felt better than I had in a while

That was a year ago and since that time, I have developed a method of what I call “bypass pain.”  If it (a male encounter with potential) looks good but doesn’t feel or sound right, I don’t go near it.  I have vowed that the next time I fall in love, the conditions will be conducive to a heart giveaway.  I also haven’t been depressed since making this decision.