FRIDAY!!!

Let me preface this post by saying that I am medicated. It's prescription and I'm not abusing it. I threw my back out badly so I'm taking some muscle relaxers. Thus, if the blog seems a little more incoherent than normal (if that's possible), I have an excuse.

I am watching game 3 of the Red Sox/White Sox series. It's do or die time, down 2-0. We are at home though which is plus.

Today on my way home, I put on the Christian station and there was a preacher talking about the cost of gas these days and comparing it to marriage. When he said the words, "Fill up your love tank", I had to draw the line. I can only handle so much of that. Maybe he had good things to say, but the "Love Tank"??? I just couldn't do it.

I got an email today from a friend of mine from EC. We have just recently gotten back in touch. We were talking about people that I dated and he said that, for the most part, girls just prefer to date "assholes". I had to think about that for a minute. There are very few girls that I know of that just intentionally date guys that are losers. Don't mistake that to mean that everyone I dated was a gem, because there were definitely some BIG mistakes made. For example, the time I went on a date with a guy that told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend. She and I weren't the best of friends but I would have never gone on that one date if I had know the truth. They were still together and I had no way of knowing that. I told a couple of people that we had gone out and the next thing I know, I was getting pulled aside in chapel to talk about what I did. I felt awful, but it was not at all my fault. I didn't have any fun on the date anyway and had no intention of going on another one, even before I found out he was still in a "committed" relationship. Then there was the guy that wooed me with his sweet words, presented himself a certain way to lure me in, and then decided to give me a huge dose of reality. I should have known that he hadn't really changed all that much but by that point, I had my pitiful little heart involved. He brought me down in so many ways. He was a nice guy and anyone that knew him would say that about him. But he was a terrible boyfriend! I once drove 5 hours to surprise him on Valentine's Day and I was just so very proud of myself. When I got there he was so shocked to see me, and not pleasantly shocked. I had gifts and he had the gift that his roommate bought for his girlfriend that he borrowed to give to me. Nice guy, bad boyfriend. I stayed with him and was miserable, but I thought he was cheating on me and it became my goal to prove it. Several years later I saw him and we went to dinner. I asked him straight out and he fessed up. I had my closure. There was also the friend with benefits. At EC we called it "Arb". At Southeastern College, where Brian went it was called NICMO (non-committal make-out). Now, as a girl, this was not at all how I wanted things to be. It happened with more than one of my guy friends, unfortunately. I always thought that the natural progression was that we were friends and once we kissed, it would dawn on him that he had loved me romantically the whole time (like on Monica and Chandler). I was wrong about that for sure. Those hurt the worst because then the friendship was ruined. I regret that I allowed myself to want more than friendship with two of those people specifically, because things were never the same. I would rather have the friendships.

I think that too many girls get a bad reputation for dating guys that treat them poorly. It's usually a pattern, different face, same relationship. That pattern usually stems from insecurity. A girl may seem very sure of herself, even pompous, and pulled together, but that doesn't mean that she isn't just a great big faker. When you're insecure about any area of your life, be it physical, intellectual, emotional, financial, pretty much anything, it spills over into your relationships with the opposite sex. I think that there is a misconception that most girls that are insecure have been physically or sexually abused, or that they have bad relationships with their dad. I know that in a lot of cases this is factual, but insecurity in anyone can be caused by the most miniscule of things. For example, and this is going to sound silly, but I went walking one day for some exercise around a lake in town. It's a pretty busy road but there is a path around the lake for people to bike and walk. I had on some shorts and a t-shirt, hair pulled up, looked like everyone else out there. A car full of guys drove by and screamed at me out of the window. "FREAK!!!" That was all they said and it made me so self-conscious! I began to wonder if I walked funny or if I was just hideous out there. I couldn't figure out why someone would call me a freak! I have returned to walk around the lake but I always think about that day and I am careful about what I am wearing, how my hair looks, how I'm walking. It's so stupid, but it made me insecure.

Regardless, I feel very sorry for those people that date the "assholes" but everyone deserves someone, right? It just needs to be a case where mean people date other mean people and leave the normal ones alone.