…you’d realize how inaccurate it is to term me as “scary.”

I’ve been a bit emotional this evening about relationships.  Like, very “woe is me” type of emotional.

It’s because I have the innate ability to get romantically involved with the wrong types of people for me.  Every time I have a breakup, I fall into this teary lull for an hour or so once everything hits me.  It’s not that I think I (or the other person) made the wrong decision, it’s that I don’t understand why I haven’t yet found the right person.

Everyone tells me how awesome I am, but I don’t really buy it. This normal “omg I’m doing to die alone” shit seemed so pathetic when I was 16, 18 or 22. I can’t help but wonder when it’s going to end. When I’m going to be able to look back and laugh about what an idiot I was for crying over relationship drama. When I’ll shake my head and say “good god, if I could go back and tell 28 year old Vicki not to stress over this shit.”

This isn’t to say that I have no responsibility.  See, I bitch and complain about dating people who are too passive, yet I don’t have the nerve to pursue anyone who is the least bit assertive.  I won’t ask someone out unless I have at least a 75% chance of not getting horribly shot down. And that doesn’t help me, because I’m so fucking “scary,” so anyone I am interested in typically won’t approach me. Which, in turn, just makes me more standoffish because I am so fucking sick of this fucking cyclical bullshit.  Which, in turn, makes me more likely to jump on anyone who pursues me because it’s better than being alone or having to do all the work so I can get the right person.  Because I’ve gotten it into my head that interested parties should pursue me or it isn’t quite as meaningful.  (Although I think it’s more likely that I simply don’t trust my own judgment on anything, so making this stipulation makes it easier for me to not hold myself accountable for bad dating decisions.)

It seems like no matter what I do, it’s never good enough, never appealing enough, just makes me more intimidating and scary. It sucks, because anytime I show interest in something like knitting or baking, people just thinks it funny or cute that I am not always ready to stomp someone’s face in. Then I go through these periods of teary self-loathing — like right now — because I feel like I have to completely water down my personality and everything about myself in order to attract attention from the people I am interested in.

I’ve always felt so different and out of place.  I’ve always been more comfortable around male friends than female friends, but they inevitably turn the conversation to women at some point.  Women who have long hair. Women who aren’t too smart or funny or driven or really anything.  Women who are incredibly attractive.  Women who are a size 2. Women who don’t stand their ground.

In a nutshell, my polar opposite.

And every single time, my ego just crumbles and the hurt sets in.  I can’t grasp why I am twenty-fucking-eight years old and still pursuing the same person year after year. The same person who is sweet and caring and so on, but isn’t right for me.  The person who doesn’t understand why it hurts to be the third or fourth or tenth priority in their life.  The person who makes bad choices and can’t understand why I really can’t get over that months after the fact.  The person who doesn’t understand that sometimes I am a self-centered bitch who wants a night to be all about me.  The person who doesn’t realize that I don’t put my heart on my sleeve (groan!), so it’s really hard for me to be emotional around them.  The person who thinks I’m an insensitive asshole because I crack jokes when I should be crying.  The person who is annoyed or freaked out by my anger and frustration at certain subjects.  The person who is too passive to stand up to me.  The person who can’t handle the fact that I am an argumentative pain in the ass.

I need to complete opposite of all this.  In theory, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find them if I’m so awesome and great to hang out with and attractive and intelligent and all these other things. I have to wonder where the problem lies and why it’s so fucking hard for me to get a goddamn date. This, in turn, leads me to believe that the problem really is me and that I will really have to just femme myself up.  That it wouldn’t kill me to be demure, to shut my fucking mouth, to make myself take up less room (literally and figuratively), to grow my hair longer, to get my nails done, to wear sleazy clothes, to lose twenty pounds, to wear makeup every day, to hide my tattoos, to hold less opinions, to bat my fucking eyelashes more often, to dumb myself down, to just because someone radically different.

I have to wonder if I even could do it.

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