It's not me. But it's ok if it is.

I was always thinking about what it was about me that wouldn’t be enough for you, wondering what quality of mine would be the ultimate turn-off.  I would go over in my head every secret, every shortcoming, every childhood trauma, looking for which one would be the deal breaker and all the while feeling as if I myself was in fact that broken thing.  I would think of all the things I didn’t like about myself, about my life, my history…  Whenever things were going well between us, it made me feel uneasy, like you must be missing something and you’d figure it out eventually so I had better not get comfortable.  I didn’t pay much attention when you told me what you loved about me; I was too preoccupied with trying to guess what you’d grow to hate.  And in turn I thought maybe I hated relationships because they always seemed to make me feel bad about myself.  Being in a relationship was like being trapped in a small confined space with a very unlikeable person, with the added terror of possibly having to spend the rest of my life with that one person: myself. 

Lately, I’ve tried dating for the first time.  Sometimes this means going on an actual date, sometimes it’s a polite term for making out in a bathroom stall with a married man.  Dating has taught me something I have always said but never really applied to people I got romantically involved with: people are awful.  Really.  Everyone is.  People are boring and rude and selfish and stupid and reckless and troubled.  Everyone is fucked up in one way or another.  It’s great.  Good people do bad things.  Successful people people might have had shitty childhoods.  Great kissers who also like Chagall can have troubled pasts.  And people who seem to have everything really might but they probably won’t have it all figured out.  I find it freeing.  For the first time I’m worried not that my own brand of fucked up will drive away someone who is magically intelligent and funny and sexy and ambitious and kind and yet stupid enough to fall in love with me.  Relationships might not work out and it might even be my fault, but if it is, it’s not because I’m any worse than anyone else.