I was listening to a Pandora radio station I follow on the way somewhere and the song, “Circles” by Post Malone came on. Now, I’m not a big Post Malone fan.  In fact the onslaught of new music in recent years has left me less than excited to follow any particular band or musician with the exception of maybe Lizzo, now SHE is someone I can get behind! But, I digress!  I listened to this little gem of clarity and as I did, it became clearer to me with each grasp of lyric, how profound the message was of the song and how relatable it was to my love life, particularly in the last few years. 

The lyrics poured over me and I started to actually cry because I reflected upon my life and relationship with a few specific men.  It makes you take a trip down memory lane to reflect upon the line of gentlemen callers; the good ones, the ones that got away, and the one you throw darts at mentally in your head!  To understand me, I’m a 44-year old single woman who has been dating for technically two decades.  To quote Charlotte York from SATC, “Where is he?”  I’ve dated many guys, but have never been able to quite get certain ones to stick around.  My bright, shiny, optimistic 20’s were that of #goals to find a guy, marry, and have lots of babies, and to live happily ever after because that’s what I thought you were supposed to do.  I met my first love in Baltimore. His name was Ben and he was everything I wanted but nothing I was really looking for in particular. After months of exclusively dating, he ghosted me after a fight we had.  I’ve never gotten over that. I mean who does that?  My little 20-something heart, which was quite innocent when it came to affairs of the heart (if you are catching my drift), was shattered. After that, my trust when it came to guys was very skewed because I didn’t want to get hurt. My 30’s were a darker time and I really didn’t date much until my late 30’s because of weight and self-esteem issues.  Again, the guys I did date were unavailable idiots.  The stupid, stupid mistakes I made were unbelievable because I was trying to show my worth and value to guys who were less than worthy.  

Oh, the stories I could tell, but let me get back to Post Malone. His lyrical words are very true! When he says in the first verse, “Feed the flame, cause we can’t let go.”  When you meet someone and the chemistry is so intense and you can’t walk away from each other, that is what I had with someone in my recent past.  No matter how many times I tried to walk away, because I fully knew well, he was not someone who could or WOULD give me what I wanted, I ignored red flags. Shame on me.  I went back.  He continued to come back or even say things like, “Well maybe I will be available after a few months.” Go back to Post’s lyrics of “I knew that this was doomed from the get go. You thought that it was special, special, but it was just the sex though, the sex though.” But I realize that his need for a physical outlet and inability to exit gracefully says everything about him, as much as it says about me not walking away permanently and continuously going back for more.  What a crushing thought, right?  My realization that I was just a physical outlet for someone, while I was hoping to turn it into a relationship.  I admit,I still turn into that crushed 20-something, innocent girl. You would think after having my heart hurt so many times, I would be hardened. Nope. I still believe or want to believe that I am capable of love and finding love.  

We all meet people who come into our lives for one reason or another.  They teach us lessons about ourselves.  The hope is that we LEARN the lesson.  Fast forward to a conversation I had with one of my sorority sisters Jen. We’ve had many heart to heart conversations in the last year, particularly about love.  She brought up two things to me in a car ride about my yearnings to be in a relationship.  I will paraphrase our conversation.  First, she said you are a 40-something year old woman.  You are in a different time of your life. The men you meet will most likely have baggage of some sort, whether divorced, children, past scarring from relationships, poor life choices etc. You can’t think like your 20-something self.  Jen was right, life is not a sorority candle pass or meeting some guy at a fraternity party. I will not get all the things that my 20-something wanted.  Some things like weddings, children, even, marriage, may not be a possibility at this point in my life.  Maybe just living together might be something I may have to settle with at this point. It’s like what I would say to my students, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.” Which leads to the second thing she asked me, “Are you looking for a partner OR are you looking for just ANYONE to fill that position?”  HOLY SCHNIKES! She was right! I think I have been blindly going through dating and not patiently wanting to fill the position.  When things did not fit my cookie cutter ideal, I threw it out. She said, “There is no cookie cutter. I hate to tell you that.” I chased in circles (Oh Post, you got me!), guys who were NOT EVER going to fit the bill, causing undue stress, heartache, anger, and bitterness. The challenging ones who were diamonds in the rough, I let go of too quickly because maybe they were not perfectly giving me WHAT I wanted, or what I THOUGHT I wanted, or at exactly WHEN I wanted it. So, to all those sappy, love songs that I listened to in my youth like DMB, that spoke of love and putting a girl up on a pedestal, yeah ok, let’s be real, love, relationships, aren’t like that. Life happens, life is messy. Relationships are definitely messy. I don’t know about you, but I’ll stick to being real like Post Malone!