Remember when you were a kid and you picked up a flower and pulled all the petals off saying he likes me, he likes me not? Yeah, well life hasn’t seemed to change much since then, has it? When it comes to dating, how often do you find yourself playing the same game, just without the flowers? And that’s just because guys don’t bring you flowers anymore. When I start seeing someone, I constantly find myself walking the line between blissful naiveté and logical cynicism – which, lesbihonest, is just my fancy way of saying bitter insecurity. Do you let yourself be happy and enjoy the rush of feelings you’re getting for that new guy, or do you keep your guard up, constantly wondering if he feels the same, never really letting yourself feel the butterflies? Well shit, I really don’t know. Let’s debate.
You two go out and everything appears to be great; you like him, it seems he likes you too, the dates are good, the sex is great. What could go wrong? He could change his damn mind, that’s what – and here we meet bitter insecurity, I mean, logical cynicism. Maybe he just wants to be friends, maybe he just wants sex, maybe you’re just a crazy person who has a habit of over thinking, over analyzing and making shit up to justify it all. Sure, cynicism isn’t looking too good right now, but at least you’ll see it coming when and if he does change his mind and things don’t work out, right? Let’s meet blissful naiveté now; this is where you realize you like him, end of story. You don’t read too much into anything, you don’t analyze every conversation and date like it’s your damn job and you don’t drive yourself crazy. Wait, did I miss something here? On paper it would appear that blissful naiveté won that debate hands down… yet I’ve been playing with cynicism for years now. Being devil’s advocate, what happens if you are happy and carefree and things don’t work out? You get hurt, you get a little more cynical and worst of all, you didn’t see it coming.
So I guess the question isn’t which one is better, but which one is worse: being guarded and closed off with the benefit of seeing the dead end before you hit it, or being misguidedly happy for a bit and blindsided when it’s over? Speaking honestly, I still don’t know. But what I can tell you is that being happy for a bit is wonderful; even if you crash and burn and the recovery is harder, you get to be happy. The alternative is to be insecure and never quite sure what you have and how you should feel, but with less of a crash. I know, Sophie’s choice over here, eh. *Sorry, inappropriate joke time. Of course, you can always go buy your own flowers and start pulling out petals if you feel like that’s a better game plan.
Recently, I’ve been choosing insecurity over happiness, occasionally declaring that I’m not going to date anymore because it’s stupid and I don’t like feelings. Well, if this is the path that you decide to take, I will pass on one piece of advice a good friend told me: you will make a lot of cats very happy. So choose wisely, kids. And if you don’t, the pound is always looking for new cat ladies.
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