The Crying Game.

By now everyone knows that me and Bearded Lumberjack have made like a banana and split.

The first few days were rough but thankfully I have had work to distract me.

I am slowly moving on (and all that cliché break-up stuff) which is good for me but there is one thing that has me tripping balls.

I have not cried.

The reason why this is odd for me is because I tend to be a crier... a silent soundless crier... but a crier nonetheless.

Also, I think I cried more when we were together because of how emotionally invested I was:

1.       In one instance I cried because I was heart sore about something.

2.       In two other instances I cried when we were having a bonding moment.

---- I am an emotional guy okay. I think my emotional nature was why I managed to help out with an autism study actually so it’s not a bad thing I would like to think, but wearing my heart on my sleeve does come with many issues ----

This year –in fact, the last four months actually– has been one major learning experience after the other. They say you never really know yourself until you are faced with challenges and I have been learning a lot about myself, both good and bad.

Previously I wrote a whole blog post moping about not being able to fall for someone and all that angst related stuff that I said was not angst.

Well fast-forward to now and I’ve been through a relationship which only lasted a month.

Actually the one before this lasted two months – though I did see both of them about a handful of times, so clearly I am simultaneously getting better and worse at this relationship thing.

At the rate that I am going, my next relationship will last two weeks and I will have seen the person a handful of times too before we break-up.  I will laugh if that happens actually...not really, but somewhat.

ANYWAY, my weird humour and short-lived dating life aside, I must say that I have learned a lot from both relationships.

As much as it would be expected of me to bitch about the bearded lumberjack ex, this blog post isn’t about that because I am not that type of person. Bad mouthing the ex seems like a waste of energy to me especially when there is equal fault.

Basically, this post is specifically related to how difficult dating can be:

Honesty when Communicating

Honesty is important, like your relationship can sink or swim depending on this.

You need to be honest about how you are feeling but you also need to be sensitive about how you tell someone something. This is the dangerous dance that not everyone manages to get right.

Sure, being honest is hard, but lying helps no one. Added with that is the difficulty of trying to be honest while not hurting the feelings of the person you are dating.

It is so easy for things to be misconstrued so there needs to be a certain amount of tact when telling someone something.

Often times some people will tell you about the issues they are having with the relationship when it’s too late and then there is nothing you can do which will help or fix the situation.

Commitment

You have to be willing to stick it out and can’t be bailing after every fight or moment of anxiety about the relationship. Sure sometimes relationship do come to end but I make sure that I don’t regret not having done everything I could to prevent the relationship ending.

If I know that I have done that then I don’t feel too bad about the ways things turn out.

Life happens and sometimes something ends because there is something else further along the path where you need to be.

Timing:

Never start relationships weeks before they are about to write exams...

That is asking for trouble and it will only cause issues.

Also don’t rush it...I got too eager and invested too quickly and that in turn put pressure on both of us.

I made both of these mistakes and it ended poorly.

Letting it go

When all you want to do is hold them as close as possible, it is then that sometimes you just have to let them go.

Some people want to run away from happiness and commitment for various reasons, there is nothing you can do sometimes except just letting them be.

As long as you know that you tried your best to fight for the relationship, and you have no regrets about how things turned out, then all you have left to do is pull an Elsa and “Let it go”.

It’s never easy but there is nothing you can do about it.

I at least made an effort and the lumberjack just wasn’t interested and felt like I was being manipulative about wanting to get back together.

I was insulted by that sentiment because it made it seem like all I was concerned was about my feelings and what I wanted, but I had to learn to let it go.

We were both left hurt and frustrated but getting uptight now helps no one- we just have to deal.

We are all doing the best with the life we were given...sometimes you hold on for dear life, other times you need to let go.

That is just how the cookie crumbles.

Homosexuality:

This is not exactly something that can be avoided in my case but a consequence of coming out late is that while your heterosexual friends get to play the field and learn about stuff, you only get to start playing catch up and learning the rules.

Basically what this means is that I have only recently been learning the in and outs of dating...and boy is it hard.

It is not easy... it’s a steep learning curve that nothing can prepare you for.

Conclusion:

Obviously given my poor track record, I think that it is a given that I am going to be single for a while. I don’t have the emotional energy (nor am I ready) to start something new. I need to focus on me and make me a better person.

Maybe I am just a date one person a year kinda guy? Who knows? But clearly if we are going according to that statistic, then my quota has been filled for now and I will just wait until 2016 or beyond.

Title: The name of this blog post was titled “The Dating Game” but I changed it to “The Crying Game” because of a song that a friend from school (Rachel) suggested I listen to.

Theo. Over and Out.

PS - I also feel that my creative writing will be all the better for it too. I don’t write fiction as much as what I would like, but when I do, it makes me happy.