You Should Go and Love Yourself.
A wise woman once told me that in order to be satisfied in our romantic relationships, we must be first content in ourselves.
Approximately two years ago, I severed a relationship with someone who was very dear to me. When I say severed, I do not exaggerate that. It was painful and messy and not by choice. I had put this person on a pedestal in a very unhealthy sort of way and things eventually came to a breaking point. In my eyes, he could do no wrong and my heart paid dearly for it. In the end, I think I expected far too much from him. My unwillingness to communicate and be real with him about the ways he hurt me or the hopes that I had for him and his place in my life had caused some unnecessary heartache for us both. We wanted to be comfortable, to have the advantage of being close to each other and benefit in all the emotional roles typical of a couple, without actually being a couple. The boundaries got insanely blurred. I need not divulge all the details here… that’s not the point. The point is, no matter the reasons for this separation, the fact is, that it was a rather painful experience.
I do believe that it was the mercy of the divine, the universe, or whatever you want to call it, to take this person out of my life — at least in the capacity that he had been for the past three years. To be frank, once the dust settled, I had realized that I had almost completely lost myself in this friendship. I was a shell of the person I once knew. If anyone is familiar with the Enneagram, they might know that this sort of behavior is somewhat typical of someone who is dominant in type 2 — to give and give and be everything that a person needs, until you realize that you no longer know where you end and the other person begins. This is me. For better or worse, after this experience, my introvert self became even more withdrawn than normal. I learned how to close myself off in isolation and be very selective with the people with whom I spent my time. I started to recognize the slump I was in and how much of a toll this experience took on my self-esteem. So I decided to reclaim my identity.
About a month after this friend “break up”, I decided to make every Friday date night. I decided that I was going to get all dressed up, go somewhere fancy, and date myself for awhile. The first night out, I met an attractive filmmaker in a fancy wine bar and had a wonderful conversation with him… and never saw him again. In spite of this, I found that I had enjoyed myself immensely. Along with the Friday night dates, I decided that I was going to find something about myself that I loved (specifically about my appearance) every single day and then document it on my instagram. I cringe when I think about the insecure, yet seemingly self-obsessed girl that my followers got to see on the reg. In any case, it worked. I could feel my sense of self worth slowly rebuilding and my confidence began to come back. I realized that that sometimes you simply need to give yourself permission to love yourself — for yourself, in spite of what others may think about you. So, for a couple months, I continued to enjoy my own company. Perhaps a little too much. A couple months has progressed to a couple years and I’ve definitely grown comfortable with solitude. In many ways that’s a beautiful and even a very healthy thing — yet in others… well, I’ve found myself too comfortable with my independence. It’s to the point where I scarcely allow others to be very close to me.
That’s not to say that I don’t have deep friendships with people whom I am very real with and have proven loyal to me in spite of all my faults. That’s not to say that I don’t have people in my life that I love fiercely — like my sisters. Yet, these relationships can only get so close, which has been perfect up to this point. There is a whole other realm of vulnerability and dependence that come with the territory of romantic relationships. If I am honest, I think a big part of me is even afraid that I might lose myself in someone the same way I had done before, leaving me even more broken in the end. On the other hand, I think the expectations are a lot different than before.
For one, the circumstances are a lot different. The perimeters are that I get coffee or drinks with a stranger. Which is great, right? Because I don’t know them well enough at that point to be upset if one date doesn’t go well. Another reason this is different is because the previous relationship was with someone in my church community. I will confess that it’s difficult not to blame my religious upbringing and church background for at least some of my fears in romantic relationships. There’s a reason that I have a significant lack of confidence in saying to a complete stranger “hey, you’re cute! Let’s grab drinks sometime!” I mean, it just wasn’t done. The men almost always made the first move and you didn’t even entertain the idea of dating someone you didn’t already know loved Jesus and their church… to be honest sometimes it felt like not much else mattered. An opinion which I am decidedly against the more I grow older. Don’t get me wrong though, those expectations aren’t always all bad. On the one hand, you likely already have much in common with someone you already know in one of your current social circles. You already know their values and Jesus is still pretty important to me, too. But on the other — asking out a stranger is a clean slate, full of potential. In some sense, there is no need to put up an act to maintain an image because, well, what you see is what you get.
The thing is, I’ve never really felt like I was clever enough to approach someone I had never met before with the sole intent of familiarizing myself with them romantically. I guess I always sort of felt like I was selling myself, especially because I didn’t really buy it personally. In a way, I suppose that’s what we all do when we’re trying to impress someone we’re attracted to. Yet my insecurities would never fail to lie to me and tell me that I didn’t have much to offer — if anything at all. This seemed to be the number one challenge to overcome if I were to manage to get a date before March 15th. In order to help make that happen, I stayed up late the night after that fateful phone call with my friend. I looked into different dating apps and finally eventually setup a profile on the one I felt the most comfortable with — which is ironic considering how I was essentially uncomfortable with this whole entire thing.
The next afternoon, I received a text message from this friend containing a link to the same website that I had used the night before to set up my personal profile. I could have taken it as a sign… except that he had mentioned it the night before and his success with meeting his wife through that same avenue… in any case we responded back and forth a moment as he continued to call me on my excuses masked in the not so subtle form of banter. Once again, he was able to shed light on my fears and refused to allow them to hide in the shadows of my independence or solitude. I mentioned that I had finished my first blog but was still afraid to post it and share it publicly. Yep, still scared. Not to mention that it had been a full twelve hours since I had posted my profile on that dating app and had yet to delete it.
It’s just that I had used dating apps in the past and it was always short lived. The moment I would see someone that I knew in real life on the site as well, I would panic and delete my account. I am fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds but it’s the honest-to-god truth. In the course of the past twelve hours I had found two… one who works in the same building as I do! I am resisting so far and I count that as a victory. My friend didn’t sugar coat what he thought of my sincere confessions one bit. “Fear seems to be a pretty big theme in your life,” he wrote. “Yeah, no shit.” I fired back without thinking. Once again, he was completely right and his text struck a nerve. However, this also gave me another opportunity to rise to the occasion and do something about it. So here we are.
I must admit, though, that this conversation — like every conversation with this friend — left me with a sense of gratitude that I have people in my life that care enough to be real with me and continue to push me to realize my full potential. This is a tremendous gift when I consider the fact that I left my church this past year. When I left, I knew I would be sacrificing many relationships and an overall sense of community in doing so. I know beyond a doubt that I was stepping into a “wilderness season” of my life to learn to recenter myself in my spiritual walk (more on that later). Yet, in spite of those fears, I actually ended up connecting with an even better community. Yes, I lost plenty of relationships… and gained even more new ones. It has been an honor to be a part of a group where people show up and do life together, no matter how many miles separate many of us. Thank God for modern technology that makes this entirely possible. This dear friend would not be in my life if it weren’t for this group and maybe even some twists and turns of fate or some junk.
Anyways, these relationships have served to prove to me in very real ways that I am worthy of love. I am worthy because I am, just as I am. Because each of us recognize that we are all on our own journey and we acknowledge the process. Perhaps the experiences are all different but we all have the same goal of learning how to be love to a very hurting world around us and to each other. I believe that many of them are managing to do that extremely well. My time with this community has given me the liberty to be my independent, autonomous self (which is a necessity as an introvert/social avoidant type), yet I am still seen and fully valued for who I am. We recognize that each person is meant to fit into the whole big picture. I have never felt as though I am less than because of my singleness. I have never got the sense that I am too much because I am a woman who speaks her mind.
I wish I could say that this has been my experience in many of the church circles I’ve been involved in, but that’s just not the case. Even when it comes to my friend’s challenges, I know that they serve a much greater purpose than whether or not I fit into some preordained system. He wants me to be fully alive and fully myself, which is a pretty great friend when it comes down to it. If I stay single, then I stay single and my value is not diminished. My worth is not defined by my marital or relationship status. I know my friend views this challenge fully as an opportunity for growth, to break me out of my fears of intimacy.
These relationships have been my foundations when it comes to me actually believing and accepting that I have something to offer. It’s not some cheap sales gimmick, either. So I am stepping out to try and build new, worthwhile relationships on the romantic front. I must say that I have some pretty stellar examples of what it looks like when someone respects me and values me as a person. I’m actually getting to the point where I am excited to think there may be someone out there who will go deeper in this kind of intimacy with me as well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared… but let’s just focus on being excited for right now, okay?
