30 Day Writer's Challenge | Day 7

To start, this was not my initial topic of choice, but after a very long and enjoyable conversation with my girlfriend Katherine, I feel like this needs to be said, because honestly - it's not said enough. 

I told her of my infatuation with a certain boy.  My history with this certain boy has gone pretty well.  We have mutual friends and have hung out.  Eventually, my emotions for this boy turned into like.  I really like this certain boy, whom we will call Fred.  Fred and I have hung out on many occasions under the pretense that we are both just friends.  We had talked occasionally on the phone and we see each other at church, but Fred and I have only just been friends. 

After several months of hanging out, I decided to take this ridiculous leap into the "not just friends" zone.  I was totally going for it.  We hung out that night and on the way home, I made the crazy decision to call him up and tell him.  The conversation went pretty well.  He didn't blow me off, but it still ended with me not quite knowing what was going on.  A week later...scratch that...a grueling week later, he called me back and very graciously turned me down - not that I was standing at an alter or anything.  We talked for another hour and I was feeling very good.  See, in my head, I saw this as a step toward something good.  The cards were all played on the table and we were still friends.

The next evening we had plans to meet with some other friends for dinner.  I was a nervous wreck not really expecting what would happen after our previous conversation.  So I show up before him and I begged my Holly and Juan to come out with me.  I need some reinforcements. Fred eventually showed up...with a girl.  What the heck?!  I mean, we had this great conversation and I really KNEW that nothing was every going to happen, but this was just completely unexpected!  I had every reason to believe this couldn't happen, right?

Here in lies the problem.  I'm still into this guy, but clearly HE'S NOT INTO ME.  This is something that I have known for months now, but I put myself through these ringers, hanging on to every whim out there - completely fantasizing this "What if - " scenario that's never going to exist.  Now there's an incredibly underrated movie that is based on just this.  He's Just Not That Into You is a movie that every female should see because it lays out a very simple, very easy truth that EVERY FEMALE should remember...

We're not the exception, we're the rule.

 It doesn't matter if your best friend's fiance's brother's girlfriend had *this* happen to her, all odds are - you're the rule.  So, with this laid out, why is it that I...we...still put ourselves through relationships or meaningless encounters with guys when we know deep down inside that nothing is really going to happen?  Or that we...I...get hung up on a guy when I know deep down inside that it's not going anywhere.  It's a universal problem that seems like will never go away.  And why?  Because there will always be women, like me, who fall prey to this.  Women who have this concept - this idea - in their head of how a relationship should go based off of one word or phrase.  I am so guilty of it.  For as long as I can remember I have been her.  I am Gigi.

Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope. 

 

Did I really just be that honest?!