All-American Girl

Not much to report. I haven’t been bombarded with handsome men asking me on dates (that doesn’t happen in college anyway). Luckily, on Tuesdays I work at my internship for the majority of the day. This eliminates the high probability of me bumping into any ex-flames, which is a substantial concern when you go to a university with less than 5,000 undergrads.

Something nice happened today, though. I realized how much I love my eyes. I never noticed how green they are until I was fooling around on my iPhone this afternoon and took some pictures for an eye collage that I put on Instagram. I love the way they scrunch up when I smile. I’ve never paid much attention to my eyes before, but I know now that I’ve really underrated them.

I’m also starting to realize the less I focus on other people’s perceptions of me, the more I get to know myself. Obviously, this is common sense - and if I ever read this on someone’s blog, I’d roll my eyes and scream ‘DUH’ at the top of my lungs. But I can confidently say that there’s no way I’d ever notice how much I love certain parts of my body if I was so preoccupied wondering if a guy liked me. I forgot what it’s like to have ‘me’ time. But if it means only focusing on yourself and not concerning yourself with the opinions of others, I can definitely get used to it.

I’m going to try to catch up on some sleep.

But campus is unusually loud for a Tuesday night.

So the first day of my love cleanse comes to a close. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a discussion P and I had in the car on Saturday. Mostly about karma and how life is literally an outcome of choices you make. And it got me thinking - was what happened with B karma for how I handled the situation with N last year? This question has been haunting me for the past 48 hours. And if it is, damn karma, you are one fast-acting motherfucker.

It’s a long story, but I think I can sum it up pretty effectively. N and I started hooking up around October 2012. He liked me way more than I liked him, but he was a good guy, so I felt obligated to continue my fling with him because a) he was so nice to me and b) everyone else told me I’d be crazy not to like him. (This was where my people-pleasing urges came into play). Unfortunately, we had NO chemistry. Zero. Zilch. A big, fat goose egg. There were times I actually kept my eyes open when we were making out because I was that bored. Ultimately, we decided to break it off and I broke his heart. Literally the next day, B texts me. We talk for the entire spring semester. He’s in the National Guard. He’s got tattoos and arms you’d probably spend nights dreaming about cuddling up in. He loves kids. He’s also a gigantic asshole, but I’m irrevocably enamored with him. We’re on and off for about a year. He treats me like shit and never once calls me beautiful or even attempts to introduce me to his friends. I drunkenly lose my virginity to him. He continues to treat me like shit. I delete him from all my social networks. Winter break passes. We reconcile, and things are okay between us. We try to start things up yet again. He leads me on for about two weeks before finally telling me he’s talking to another girl.

She’s now his girlfriend.

I hate to spend so much of my time and energy writing about him, but he is the sole reason I’m doing this cleanse in the first place. Our ‘relationship,’ if you could even call it that, was toxic as all hell. I want to forgive him, but I also want to kick him in the balls. Maybe both. I’m not sure which I would do first though.

Probably the balls.

It’s been said that the hardest part of a break up is not remembering who you were before. I’m finding there is so much truth to that. I’m already crazy, but B brings out the Alanis Morissette in me. The cynical, sarcastic, pessimistic, and overall miserable parts of my personality I normally try so hard to hide became so apparent while he was part of my life. As cliche as this sounds, it was nothing short of an emotional rollercoaster. Because nothing made me happier than talking to him.

And nothing made me sadder, angrier, more frustrated, or more paranoid than NOT talking to him.

The constant wondering if he liked me as much as I liked him. Is he thinking about me? What does he tell his friends about me? Wait, do his friends even know who I am? Am I just a piece of meat to him? No, no way. He’s so genuine. He likes me. He tells me all the time I’m the only one. What we have is real, I know it is.

See what I mean? I based my entire emotional well-being on whether or not I was in good standing with the guy. Toxicity at its finest.

I just want to go back to when I hadn’t lost anything. For once, I need time in my life during which I have absolutely nothing on the horizon in my love or sex life. I’ve been in situations like this, but not as a result of my own will. Having no prospects used to be something that gave me anxiety, typically because I’m always thinking of the future and trying to mentally map out my 5-year-plan. Now, the idea of not worrying about men, sex, or dating is fucking liberating.

But of course something (or rather, someone) has come up. Because that’s how the Universe works, right? You make plans and God laughs, I guess. So here goes.

I met a guy at a friend’s house party on St. Patrick’s Day. He wasn’t my type at all (long hair, not over 6’) but he was cute and really sweet. We flirted the entire day, but he was in the middle of a game of pong when I left, so neither one of us got to exchange numbers.

Until this weekend.

My girlfriend who was throwing the party gave him my digits (with my permission, of course). And honestly, I kind of regret it. We talked for a while and he made it extremely clear how much he wants the two of us to see each other again. But I just don’t feel ready for a connection like that with a guy yet because I’m just so afraid of being fucked over again. I feel like such a dude sometimes in the sense that the race excites me so much more than actually crossing the finish line. I obsess over something, but once I get it, I immediately go into blackout shut-down mode. I can’t let anyone in. THAT gives me anxiety. I can even feel my pulse increasing as I’m typing this. Part of me feels like I don’t deserve to be happy because of all the shit I put myself through with B. I cry a lot at night because it hurts to feel so used and alone. It feels good, though. Crying. I suppress my emotions a lot because it’s easy for me to hide them under a lot of sarcasm and cynicism. But I think I’m using grief and sadness as a means of hanging on to what I had with him.

I know I deserve to be happy. But as much as I try, I can’t feel it. I just don’t feel happy.

But I guess it won’t happen overnight.

“Take your time, don’t rush into anything.”

“You just need a break.”

“Take care of yourself.”

This is just some of the advice we hear when we tell people we’re going through a breakup. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sound advice; mainly because many of us want to find love so badly, that when one relationship ends, we rush right into the next.

Well, that’s a mistake. After cutting the cord with a man who left me with extremely low self-esteem, I decided enough was enough. I’m deciding to do a “love cleanse.” Not sure what that is? It’s not as intimidating as it sounds, believe me.

I first learned about it from The Single Woman. She wrote about it at her examiner.com relationship blog. She actually got it from Mastin Kipp, who has written about it over at Huffington Post. In case you don’t feel like clicking those links, I’ll sum it up.

A love cleanse is a thirty day commitment to yourself. No romantic entanglements - no sex, no kissing, no flirting, no dating, no trolling dating sites (or your ex’s Facebook or Twitter profiles). It’s basically a time to just focus on yourself: to know what you want, what makes you tick, and, duh - what makes you happy.

It probably sounds unnecessary. Like, does it really need a name? Can’t you just call it a break from dating?

Not in my opinion. Here’s why:

We don’t just wrap ourselves up in others when we’re dating. We do it when we’re flirting, we do it when we’re working on our Facebook or Twitter ‘about me’ section, and we even do it when we’re having casual sex with our friend-with-benefits. I’m realizing that these are all situations where another person’s feelings and opinions take precedence over our own.

A love cleanse eliminates those other entanglements. It sets firm guidelines, with a firm time limit, and firm goals. There’s no wishy-washy, “well, it won’t hurt if I just peek at his Twitter timeline…” Yeah, actually, it will. Why? Because you promised yourself you wouldn’t, and you’re more important than him.

A love cleanse takes all the energy you would give to someone else, and redirects it back to you. For thirty days.

I’m going to get to spend some quality time with a super cool chick.

Me.