Finding Thyself, Knowing Thyself
I write this article based solely on my experiences in life, both firsthand, and observed. This piece is solely opinion, but I will attempt to include as much factual information as I can. Still, what are the problems we have every day but matters of perception and lack of communication?
We spend our youth relatively carefree. Most of us that is. Many children go through traumatic experiences which adversely affect us in the future, often in ways that aren’t easily perceivable for years to come. For those of us with the relatively uneventful childhoods, we mature, we learn, we have fun. For the others, I can only hope the scars of the past can truly be healed.
As we become teenagers, we experience the undeniable attraction to the opposite sex. Now days, its quite common to experience the attraction to the same sex, but I’m not touching that topic with a ten foot pole ™. Not yet at least. About the time the average teenager learns to drive, the not-so-wonderful world of dating opens up to them. We get to "go steady" or just run around with whatever guy/girl we happen to find that one special thing in common with.
But is that really the way it happens? Does the average teenager date now? Chances are, while you were in high school, you met someone in one of your classes. You talked with them every day for a while, and eventually you became boyfriend and girlfriend. Many guys, and a good amount of girls, didn’t even experience this very often. The popular kids almost always had a boyfriend or girlfriend at their side, the unpopular ones too. Others, the outcasts, the freaks even—and I’m not ashamed to use that word because I’m a freak, and take pride in being a freak now—they didn’t have a steady supply of suitors or suitorettes waiting for their company.
So you see, we have two opposites, the ones who always had someone there for them, and the ones who never had anyone there for them. The result is the same though, believe it or not, but the path taken is quite different, and shapes the individual involved quite differently.
In the case of the girl who has a serious boyfriend, one she may be deeply in love with, she never has to deal with being alone, or experiencing that loneliness the rest of the world feels when they hit the teenage years and on. She’s always got her true love by her side, her personality is a reflection of him, melded with that of her childhood persona. If she should happen to be left with a broken heart, it gets quickly covered up by the many other guys vying for her company or the prestige associated with being her boyfriend. I believe this greatly hinders her growth as an individual, and is true for both men and women, though the symptoms and side effects of such behavior manifest themselves in different ways for the sexes. This will be discussed in more depth later.
In the case of the outsider boy, he may be unattractive, lacking in desirable qualities, or just extremely shy. There are no girls waiting in line to be his date to the movies every weekend. He may be an extremely friendly and likeable person, or mean bastard, but chances are he’d make a more suitable boyfriend than half of the guys the girl mentioned above has dated. This is a situation I’ve thought about a lot as I was growing up. Why does it occur? Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. The boy spends his time with his mostly male friends and doesn’t learn how to interact with the opposite sex. The result is that he’s thrown into the dating pool much later in life and has a lot of catching up to do. The mistakes made will take him well into his later life, through a series of failed relationships, or perhaps through a single heart-wrenching epic relationship in which he finds himself alone again in his early 30s or 40s.
What do these two cases have in common? They both failed to develop certain aspects of themselves earlier on in life, and thus, bring their relative inexperience into the dating pool in their late 20s and early 30s, perhaps much later. I’ll re-examine again the cases above.
A girl, we’ll call her Nancy, is crazy about guys. She’s been in a relationship since the time she hit puberty, with one boy or another. She doesn’t really know what it means to independent. When her last boyfriend dumps her, for once in her life, there’s no one around to date. She experiences loneliness and it scares her to death. She jumps at the next guy who walks into her life, clinging to him for all she’s worth. At first, things are wonderful between the two. He treats her like a princess, and they spend all their time together. She gets all the attention she could want and is always calling him on the phone. The two are happy together. The guy screws up though, maybe he’s like the boy mentioned above, or maybe he’s just a dick. For whatever reason, he mistreats her, very badly in Nancy’s case. But she has no one to run to, no back up boyfriend. So she stays in an unfulfilling and emotionally damaging relationship. The repercussions of this are felt for many many years to come. She eventually leaves the guy, and meets a new guy.
This next guy Nancy goes out with is completely different from the previous. He’s the perfect catch, he’s sensitive, caring, understanding, and an all around good guy. They fall head over heels in love. Unfortunately, Nancy grows uncomfortable. Having realized one day that she’s spent her whole life in relationships, and she doesn’t even know who she is. She questions the boyfriend constantly, doubting his feelings, and ultimately, grows tired of his attention. She tells him, "I think we should see other people." She wants to be independent, to figure things out, to figure out what she wants in life. The boyfriend’s heart is broken, and all the time invested into the relationship suddenly seems a waste.
In the case of the boy, Mark, he finally comes out of his shell. His moving away to college has allowed him to get a new image. He’s much more confident in himself, and meets lots of new girls. He dates a few, but mostly, he just ends up having sex with them. Because Mark missed out on the joys of sex earlier in his life, and he possessed no moral or religious code that kept him on this road of chastity, he becomes like a starving man at a buffet. He disregards the feelings and emotions of the girls he meets in lieu of wild sex. For a while things are fine, because all the women he meets are looking for the same thing. Of course, Mark is willing to show off the right side of his personality, say the right things, to get the girls in bed. Mark really loves sex, and who can blame him? He’s got a lot of catching up to do. So he meets this really cool chick, we’ll call her Jen, and they flirt constantly. This girl knows all the right things to say, and steals his heart. But she’s just a bit of a tease, and every time things start to move towards something more, she disappears. So Mark goes about his business, meeting yet another girl, Gretchen. The two of them hit it off, Mark realizes that this girl is amazing, unlike most of the girls he’s been seeing, she reminds him a lot of how he used to be. They have so much in common, one things leads to another, and they find themselves in bed. Jen is still hanging around though, and he can’t bring himself to be with just one woman, not when he had been single for so long. Wonderful, sensitive, Gretchen is too hurt, and walks out of his life for good. Jen disappears again, this time for good, just another tease.
So why did Mark give up such a great chance? Why did Nancy for that matter? For the same reasons really. They didn’t know what they wanted. They didn’t know the things that would make them happy. They just thought they did. The worst part in both scenarios, was that they are true stories. In both situations, the individuals involved, in fact, all parties, regretted what took place. Gretchen would have been the perfect wife for Mark, if he’d have just stuck with her. Nancy would have found her last boyfriend to be everything she could have needed or wanted in a man, but she gave it up, to go "find herself."
I’m not trying to say that people shouldn’t leave their significant others to fulfill their goals to make themselves a better person. Not at all. Its truly sad that things like that have to happen, especially when, given a real chance, the people involved could have lived happily together for many many years, perhaps forever. But these are my observations of the effects of how we go about having relationships.
Perhaps, you do have a high school sweetheart, and you do get married and live happily ever after. Its rare these days, but it happens. But for the most part, its all too common for girls and guys to throw themselves into things, passionate to be sure, but forgetting to figure out just who THEY are. They develop a sort of co-dependence, resulting in infidelity and heartbreak and what seems to be, just years of wasted time. Or the boy or girl who finds the physical side of their newfound relationships so appealing, that they take all they can see, without checking to see if what they’ve found might just be the one for them.
Or in a very personal case, those who marry young, especially the women, who grow to resent the lost freedom. Children born into families where the parents find it necessary to seek out new partners on a monthly basis. Wives who at 35 decide its time to end things with her husband and start dating again. Its never easy on anyone involved. If only they’d learned earlier on, just what they want. I just find it very sad.