A Short Essay…
A Short Essay On The Fragility Of Women
or
Women That Have Been Close To Me
Today I decided to go on a drive to think about life, clear my head, and listen to music loud. After a while my head was pretty clear and devoid of interesting thought when I suddenly started checking out a girl walking down the side of the road. She turned out to be an ex-girlfriend.
That got me thinking about other ex-girlfriends, women I have tried to start relationships, and women who I was very close to, best friends even. What do they all have in common?
Fragility.
Now, if you are a woman reader and you feel I am calling all women fragile, please do not take offense. It could very well be that I am only attracted to fragile women, or it could be that everyone, man or woman, is fragile. I really don’t know. I don’t think it’s bad either, because when two people are together and really care about each other, they become less fragile.
I wonder though, am I generally attracted to women with low self-esteem, or are they attracted to me?
Back in 2007 while I was living in Portland, I was contacted by a girl I had dated when I was in 8th grade. Now, I understand that Jr. High relationships aren’t serious, but this was the first girlfriend I had that felt like a girlfriend. We didn’t even breakup on bad terms. It was one of those mutual, ‘I don’t think this is going anywhere, we’re better off as friends’, breakups. Interestingly, she dated a pretty nice guy the following year and then I moved away, High School continued for everyone, et cetera. Apparently while I was away she married said second boyfriend (and I believe he was literally her second boyfriend ever), and she had a baby girl.
Then they divorced.
So back to 2007, she contacted me, came from the coastal region of Oregon that I grew up in, and we spent a day hanging out and visiting and trying to catch up. It was horrible. Not to be overly superficial, but she was not looking very good. We were both 20, but she looked much older, as though life had been rough on her, which understandingly it had been. Beyond that, we had nothing in common anymore, and she seemed to think that there was still some kind of spark between us left over from the 5 years we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other. There wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, she is still a nice person, but there was literally nothing left in common. Also, she seemed to have quite a mask over her fragile, depressed, lonely inner self. So I felt pretty bad when I made up an excuse about having to take a bus across town to meet up with my friend when she asked to stay the night. It seemed like something was bound to happened, and I hadn’t had any female contact in a long time, and I let it go, without a second thought, because I knew it would lead to a bunch of drama and unneeded grief for both of us.
The next girl that I dated, we’ll call her A, was 2 years older than me and the sister of my then best friends girlfriend. I was a freshman in HS and I thought I was the shit for dating a junior, and I kind of was, I was a lot more popular when I was with her. But that is besides the point and completely unimportant in the long run. I hadn’t even thought of it until I started writing this paragraph.
Anyway, A was clingy. She was adventurous and great to talk to and my first make-out girlfriend, so I was completely cast under her spell. The reason we broke up was because of my family moving away, but we actually tried long distance for a couple months. We talked every day. Way too much emotional bullshit, never do long distance. Long story short, we got in contact later in life and it seemed like she was trying to get me under her spell, but at this point in time I could see it and let communications die away. She also married the next guy she dated after me, and divorced him. She also looks like the years were rough on her.
My next girlfriend most people who read this will know, so I will call her M to confuse some of you. I don’t really have much to say about her, besides that she was emotionally manipulative, demanding, and more fragile than I think she knew. She is also a strong, independent woman and has many redeeming qualities, though I tend to push those to the back of my mind because she was a cheating whore. She married lives with the guy she last cheated on me with, has a baby, and will be getting married in the near future.
Interestingly, during a breakup period with M, I went on a one-time date with a girl I will call L, who I really liked, and unfortunately because of my own fragility and stupidity I ditched her for M, and blew my chances of becoming more than friends with L. I kept a very healthy friendship with L for many years and was her shoulder to cry on many times, did everything a boyfriend should do without getting a single perk other than friendship. She is getting married soon. I threw away a very good connection for a whore. It’s starting to look like I am the cause of many of my relational hardships, doesn’t it?
After M, another girl from my past who I was very close to and talked to for hours at a time back when i lived on the coast, found me on myspace and we started talking again. She certainly thought we still had a major spark. Then she came to visit me. After I told her not to. She drove through the middle of the night. With her retarded 38 year old brother. Not cool! Ladies, you don’t want to be stalked down by a creepy old friend do you? We don’t want that either. Seriously.
There is another girl I was very close to for a long time throughout HS, we’ll call her D. She even had a crush on me I found out later in life. While I had been with M. She always dated the wrong guys. She always knew she was with a scumbag but she couldn’t help herself. We were very close and talked about absolutely everything. I wanted to be her knight in shining armor, but I never told her. I just tried to be there and hope she figured it out, but she never did. Every once in awhile I will here from her and she says she misses me. Then we talk. Then she has a new boyfriend. Then she drifts farther. I never see her anymore and we have drifted so far apart that its depressing. Life has been rough on both of us and pushed us in different ways. I’m sad that we’ll never know what could have been.
I tried to date a coworker. Don’t do that.
I tried dating a girl I met on craigslist. I don’t really know what went wrong there, she just stopped talking to me one day. She seemed to have huge commitment issues, trust issues, the whole nine yards. But we seemed like a really good fit, and things seemed to be working happily for both of us until the last time I remember seeing her as her boyfriend, she seemed distant. Then she was gone. Overall I am glad she is gone, but I want to know why communication just stopped.
I have always been a very sympathetic, caring, and kind to all of the girls mentioned above as well as many more who I never dated. I am sure this article sounds a bit harsh and crude in some respects, but I think it is because all these women have made me cynical. I have bent and contorted my self and my personality to be what I felt they wanted me to be while also trying to be myself at the same time, which I felt was quite possible with all of them. There was always good communication.
So now I have a hardened heart and I rarely put myself out there because, honestly I have been drug through a lot of shit. I don’t want to find another whore, or another girl who will run away because she is afraid she can’t commit, or another obsessive clingy I’d-rather-be-dead-then-live-without-you stalker. Don’t get me wrong, I love all sorts of women and my heart will probably go out to many more women like these because I can’t help who pulls my heart strings. I’ll always love the women who don’t love themselves. I’ll always be a shoulder for them to cry on. I’ll always give my best advice and try to fix them. I’ll always let them take me for a ride. Until they through me on the curb. Then I will dust myself off and try again until I find The One. If there is such a thing.
In conclusion, I think that everyone has issues, everyone is fragile, and everyone wears a mask. It’s not until people see each other without masks and let insecurities go that these kinds of cycles will end. Either I am to smart for my own good, to cynical for my own good, or unlucky. Fuck it, being single isn’t bad, I can wait for someone who isn’t afraid to get close and stay.
