One Day it will all Make Sense…

Romantic epiphanies typically happen on the big screen.  We’ve all seen the story, a girl sits on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, watching TV, pondering life, and then a commercial comes on.  Suddenly she realizes that the man of her dreams has been delivering her mail for the last two years.  How perfect, the man who has been consistent through rain, sleet, and snow is actually “The One.”  What’s even better is that she never knew he felt the same way.  Yeah, it totally happens like that in real life (NOT)!!!  It has probably never, in the history of dating, happened like that.   So maybe you don’t get the sign from above, the voice from within or the magical commercial on TV but one day something beyond the realm of basic understanding does click.  One day you will realize that the cool, elusive, emotionally unavailable guy that you’ve planned your entire fantasy future with is NOT “The One.”  All of a sudden your expectations shift and these characteristics are no longer attractive to you.   The universe aligns and you understand why all the “nice guys” are MARRIED and all the A-holes are driving nice cars or trying desperately to buy one.

The moment you decide to start taking yourself seriously and begin placing real-time deadlines on the acquisition of the things you hold most dear (be it marriage, kids, or career) is the moment you begin to see what a time suck the wrong guy actually is.  All the time and energy spent waiting for Mr. Wrong to morph into Mr. Perfect coupled with the “learning experience” of the imminent collapse of such relationships could be better spent on much more productive activities such as washing your hair, or stockpiling emergency earthquake items.  What I’m saying is, time spent doing absolutely anything else would be more productive than dating the wrong guy.  Luckily the universe doesn’t typically hold bad dating decisions against you.  Luckily you can make oodles of noodle head dating decisions in your twenties so that once your thirties approach you already mean business, the business of serious inquiries only.

I know this concept seems like a bit of a ruse but trust and believe that your first instinct is 99.8% correct.  If there’s a void of trust or in your understanding of how someone feels about you, be accountable for the fact that you’ve always known and somehow settled for this behavior (whether on purpose or by accident).  Approach your future relationships as you would a business deal.  Look at the presentation, read through the background and figure out if it’s best to move forward.  Make a 2-5 year plan of where you see your life going romantically and revisit that plan often, after all it is YOUR plan.  Don’t leave everything to chance and horoscopes.  Be present and the rest will start to fall into place.