Point Of View – How I Turned My Love Life Around

Point Of View

How I Turned

My Love Life Around

by Kayla Wynn

It was our seventh date in less than five weeks and I was convinced I was out with a guy who really liked me.  I was excited as I anticipated a future with him…but that night something wasn’t quite right.  I couldn’t put my finger on it and neither did I want to.  There had been some sort of strange aura coming from him since the beginning of the evening, but I had tried to ignore it.

I just wanted to enjoy the moment and picture the possibilities.  Then he made a statement and I pretended not to hear him.  He cleared his throat and repeated it again.  “I have a confession to make.  I have become engaged to another woman, and I have been seeing you in an attempt to sort out my feelings about her…and I have.  I don’t mean to hurt you, but I realize now that I love her, and I can’t see you anymore after tonight.”

We were riding in his car and I ended up saying things that I could not repeat here.  I couldn’t believe that those words had come from the same man who had walked on the beach with me in the moonlight and spoke of love at first sight.  I slapped him hard and got out of his car at the red light.  However, that incident changed my life and my search efforts.

This was not the first time I had been in the middle of a “dream” relationship that suddenly ended in the midst of euphoria.  I had been bruised before and left to lick my wounds with a bitter tongue, while I scratched my head in wonder.

After that incident, I became very discouraged over what seemed to be an epidemic in a high proportion of idiotic men who played with the feelings of a woman like a cheap toy.  Some of my experiences would make a best-selling novel.

But from those experiences, I learned two things that saved me from dating despair.  I realized that they weren’t picking me, I was picking them.  I had ignored all “disaster signs” like…”I’m busy”…”I can’t”…and “not now”… for my ongoing need for male attention.

I decided that the best way to save myself from the clutches of male disappointment was to begin really listening when I met a man and seek his friendship before I sought anything else.  I discovered that what a man says and does is a real inroad to who he really is, and how he feels about you.

Of course, I had to force myself to become immune to the “blinding lights” of good looks, fake affection, and successful credentials, which often serve as a superficial cover to a guy’s true character.

I also learned that men don’t fool us, we fool ourselves.  We do this because we want what we want so badly, that we chase reality away with an oversized broom.  I discovered that if you can find out enough about a man to like as a friend, you have an excellent basis for romance.  I realized that if I had been paying close attention to the signs along the way, I would have realized the guy was distracted all along and had his mind elsewhere.  But I colored him smitten and stuck with that opinion. 

I’ve also found that if I use my friendship qualifications as a barometer for connecting with an attractive man (this barometer allows for more objectivity), I’ll lessen my chances of being hurt or disappointed, because my expectations and the need for personal desires to be met, will not be a distraction from the real issue, which is what I want in a man…outside the glitter of what’s visible.

My only regret is that I allowed myself to become intimate with someone, who was purposefully comparing me with someone else.  At first, after it was all over with, I felt like I had lost something and then I realized I couldn’t lose what I never had.