Bastards and New Boyfriends

After a really funny conversation with Paparazzo last night, I thought I would share with you, my dear readers, my thoughts on the importance of a new boyfriend to help get over the last one. See, I am now in that place where I realize that although it is always possible that The Bean might gets scads of therapy, deal with emotional integrity towards himself and others, and actually apologize for all the cruelty towards me at the end of our relationship when he bailed and most likely had sex with his ex-girlfriend while I was at home praying he would finally be able to put her rejection behind him, I also realize it is highly unlikely. * I also think it is possible I might one day be a size 2, but only after being put away in the Internment Camps and starved for my beliefs…if I make it that long! I am built for a camp-fire roast, literally!

Being a realist–such as I am–I do not sit around and think The Bean will come back to me in any way shape or form. I also still miss him. I wish I never met him, and I miss him. As I said before, being smart and thinking about the things I do has been lonely in my life. The Bean has been the only person I ever met to really “get me” and want to talk about those things with me. I felt like my whole life opened up with him, and being so wrong about him left me devastated. Shit! Friends and family alike would come up to me and say, “He’s a keeper.” I did not know we would make it in the long term–he is an Atheist; me a real live Reverend–but I agreed with them from a character standpoint. I knew–just knew–in my heart that regardless of our love story, our friendship would be lifelong.

I was wrong.

So, I feel I finally have arrived in that place where I can see myself with someone else. I feel ready for New Boyfriend. I also know, there is nothing like New Boyfriend to help me get over the last lingering longing and thoughts about “That Bastard!” When I first started dating The Bean, I can remember thinking, “Oh. My. God. He is so wonderful. Thank you JESUS he is so amazing and different from Plant Geek!” I think the Number One Expectation we have in a new relationship comes from the place of our greatest pain with the last one; we want the new one to act as the total opposite of the old one in one key way. This proved true with The Bean. I never felt more beautiful or sexy than when I was with him. With Plant Geek, I never felt more ugly and undesirable.

Over time and while dating The Bean, I would think of Plant Geek and miss the fact I could cook for him and he would eat the vegetables off the plate without complaining or looking like he was about to throw-up. Never wanted to get back with him, but I could value certain aspects of him as he moved from “That Bastard” to “A Guy I Used to Date.” The Bean is still in the place of “That Bastard,” and only New Boyfriend can help move him along. Call it Relationship Physics. The only other force great enough to move a guy along in your heart–and not always–is for them to be arrested for a crime they committed. I think it is key for them to have actually done the offense, otherwise feelings of protection and defense for “That Bastard” will rise up and over take all the hard emotional work you did to get over him already. Nothing like a wrongfully accused ex-love to send a girl back to the Mint Chip, her therapist, and tissue box of tears while listening to “Stand By Your Man.” Now a good armed robbery, and the lingering feelings for “That Bastard” are gone!!!

I may have turned to Mint Chip Ice Cream to help me deal with “That Bastard” in the beginning, but I am now in a place of riding that shit off every morning at six on my Relationship Swag, aka my bike.  Now I am in a place where I choose New Boyfriend over the armed robbery. I do not get to have sex with the robbery scenario, but with the New Boyfriend…oh yeah…chicka bow wow.

I must take some responsibility for dating these bastards, otherwise I am destined to repeat the offense and be back here writing about it AGAIN in a year’s time. As entertaining as that may be for you, my poor heart needs more kindness than another round with an emotionally unhealthy guy. Of course the fact that neither of them were as emotionally healthy as I thought (or decided to perceive) is all on me. Plant Geek admitted he dated me because I was “so healing” given both of his parents are dead. The Bean admitted he dated me because of “being lonely.” My fault for dating both of them!

I realize I looked for men who had been through something because I have been through so much. I wanted it to be okay to have a complicated past. My niece, Morgan, lives with me right now. She said almost the same thing to me at the pool last night about her ex. She thought he “got her” because he had been through stuff. She said, “None of the guys in school are attractive to me because they have had it too easy.” Uh-oh. She too has been put through the wringer by her father, so she looks for the guy who won’t judge her for his actions. Just like me.

Maybe the right New Boyfriend is the one who will really think twice about all the shit I have been through, and the one who will really look at me hard to see how well I dealt with it, deal with it, and have a plan to deal with it, before offering his love to me. Someone who puts real value on emotional health and does not want to try to rescue me or teach me how to trust. Someone who expects me to do those things for myself. (See Red Flags on the Field of Love for more on this topic.)

And can he also read books, talk about real things, be kind, be funny, have a good job, want children, have beautiful thick thighs, AND eat vegetables?

Nahhh….that might be asking for too much…vegetables and funny???? What am I thinking!?

* One problem with dating is that I get asked “Why did you and The Bean break-up?” I still do not have a good answer for this, but given how badly saying “We were closer than ever, and forty-eight hours later his ex of fifteen months called and he left me.” has gone, I now have a new line. “It just did not work out because we are too different.” Every single one of these guys, plus some friends, tell me that he slept with her. The only explanation that fits. I actually asked The Bean the next night if he had slept with her. He said that he had not, but he also was pressed up against a wall (literally), looking at me with this look of horror, and telling me that he hoped I could remember who he really is because he could not. Not really understanding how all this happened makes answering the question bewildering as well. When I confronted him in the parking lot, he actually said, “At least it was not like I left you for greener pastures.” Uh-huh.