A while back, I was chatting to a friend about her love life – let’s call her Friend A. I don’t remember the exact details of it all, but I remember telling her to stop writing in the guy’s backstory. It was similar to a conversation a group of us had over a year ago, her, myself and a guy friend. We were talking about a mutual friend (Friend B) who wasn’t having great luck in love. The consensus was that she was giving these guys a story that made them seem perfect for her. It was Friend A who made this observation.
The same thing I was now telling her to stop doing. So what have I gone and done? The SAME DAMN THING. The same thing I did with the last guy I was involved with. He told me about himself and when telling my friends about him, there was an extra layer to his story. A layer that made him seem like a great guy. Now I’m not saying he wasn’t a great guy before the layer; he was just a better guy after it. More heroic; more perfect for me.
The layer blinded me to what I should have been seeing. The half-hearted hugs, the canceled plans when it was something I really wanted to do, but he was less interested. The quick visits that were obviously booty calls.
After he made a flippant comment on the wrong day, it was like my 20/20 vision was restored and it became so obvious. I ended it and we never spoke again. That was 2 years ago.
And I’ve gone and done it again. Attached my heart strings to the wrong balloon for all the wrong reasons. Why do we keep doing that? Taking a perfectly regular guy and mentally adding on all the filters and layers that make him a hero, when he never tried to be that? He never asked to be the hero and that should have been the first clue that his heart strings weren’t attached to the same balloon.
Maybe this is the lesson I’ve refused to learn and it keeps coming back with a different face, handing out the same disappointment and sorrow.
