checking out

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y'all may have noticed from careful perusal of my comments section or my latest post that i'm talking about dating in a slightly different way. or maybe that i'm not really talking about it. or even just a little crack about killing my okcupid profile.

which i did, it's now about eight lines long and is simply there to hold my nick until such time as i no longer care or re-activate my profile. this is only the outward manifestation of something that's been happening inside for a while.

i am checking out of the dating pool.

i'm just tired of it and exhausted, it's time to sit on the bank and watch the clouds go by instead of this constant treading water and getting nowhere.

i will no longer be:
.paying attention to matchmaking websites
.caring if the gorgeous man i'm ogling is single
.bothering to meet the nice looking man's eyes as we pass in the street (as in looks like a nice man not as in looks hot)
.introducing myself to that guy at the gym
.wondering 'if he likes me' because if he does? he'll fucking ask me out won't he?
.worrying about dating.

i can't. i have to let it go. i have somehow allowed my own self esteem to become tied up in the eyes of the men around me. the eyes of the men who are utterly disinterested in me. let me tell you how well that works from a self esteem persepective.

yeah ten points to the lady in the back who said 'it fucking doesn't' because dudes? it fucking doesn't. it sucks total and complete ass is what it does. somehow in spite of the fact that the body feels great and the brain is finally lifting the stupid fog it's been in after all that time not exercising, being fat and eating bad food and just generally not keeping myself healthy?

somehow in spite of all that, in spite of having a healthier body than i did when i was twenty?

i've been feeling fat and unnattractive and uncool or lame or boring or not interesting or whatever word you care to throw in there. and this isn't a call for compliments okay? i mean i love the compliments but that's not what this post is about.

it's about my self esteem and how i let it get all tied up in my dating life instead of leaving it tied to what it SHOULD be about. my *SELF*

i don't really know how it happened but slowly, over the course of the last year, i've lost my confidence somehow, well not really confidence but something. and some of it started with a little emotional maelstorm that i allowed into my life and tore through me like a hurricane.

hrm hurricane is a bad analogy because this started slow and ended slower and is not healing as it should. regardless, when this little storm happened i was already in recovery from the shattering of my self and my life following my car accident and break-up with tr. consequently i allowed things to get far more ridiculous than any adult woman should and ended up leaving myself ridiculously open and emotionally vulnerable.

and when i asked then, for some respect and some nice treatment? yeah i got the emotional sucker punch to the solar plexus instead and i broke. i didn't know that i broke but i did. a whole new set of fracture lines to add to the stained glass mess that is my self. it's still beautiful stained glass but it needs a lot of repair work again and i'm only just finding the tools to do it.

i guess when i say 'i was broken' it's physically true but it's an emotional lie. i *was* physically broken but i *am* still emotionally broken. a lot of old wounds have healed of course but i am only now starting to realise that this road may be even longer than the physical one and even the physical road is endless.

you think you are healthy in your heart and mind and then one day you wake up and realise that no, you aren't, in fact you've been quietly shattering for well over a year even as you repaired a ton of old damage.

please don't take this post to mean that i am depressed or feeling bad because i am NOT!

in fact i feel really good because i am taking positive steps to make changes that will allow me to grow whole and happy.... which, i know, i thought i was doing already. but yeah, not so much.

in fact i was growing whole and happy in most of my life but i just had this lingering malaise or unhappiness or melancholy or emptiness or whatever word suits you. professionally and socially and even in my 'activities' i was growing happier and healthier and more together with each passing day.

but in terms of that sense of yourself that comes from flirting and interacting with the opposite sex etc? i was feeling so empty there that it was colouring all of the things that i DO love about my life. all of the things that make me happy to be alive and bound out of bed with a smile every morning (okay AFTER i hit snooze like 4 times but... ;)

and that shit is just not on so i've decided to check out. that's it. no more crushes (stop laughing princess valium) and no more worrying and no more match making sites. no more.

if some guy wants to ask me out? i'll go. but that's IT.

and you know what? i feel better already and it's only been a week or two. for serious.

and you? that guy i wrote a letter to a while back? that guy that isn't in my life anymore and will probably never read this? you. the imaginary friend i still miss every single day in spite of myself?

i forgive you.