Learning To Love Me

I’m a giver. Always have been, probably always will be. I give money, time, effort and love. I support, comfort, amuse and listen. I am honest and outgoing, without being a social butterfly. That’s just who I am, and those qualities are not ones that I feel compelled to change. They are qualities that I like about myself, and that I am attracted to in others.

However, while I know all these things about myself, I still tend to concentrate on the negatives, and relegate the positives to the been-there, done-that pile. I pick at myself constantly, finding fault with what I accomplish and berating myself for what I do not. I have always been my own worst enemy and the person that I am most critical of. My friends frequently upbraid me for making self-deprecating comments and jokes. I guess I’ve always thought that, if I say it first, nobody could hurt me by saying it to me. Strange thinking? Probably.

In the past couple of weeks, I took another blow to my fragile self-esteem. I‘ve written before about my sadness over my lack of success with relationships. It always seems like I get just so close – then it all falls apart. In this case, I had a date with someone I met online, but had not yet met in real life. I was very excited – had my nails done, got a pedicure, and even got my hair cut, colored and styled. About mid-day the day before, he let me know that it wasn’t going to work out – that he was going to have to work and wouldn’t be able to make it to town. I was, of course, very disappointed, but assumed we would reschedule. What I found out afterwards, is that he lied – he didn’t have to work; he got “a better offer” – a younger, slimmer, blonde offer.

Of course, true to form, the person I blamed was me. At first, I blamed myself for being undesirable. Then I blamed myself for getting into the situation in the first place. It took almost a full day for me to turn that situation around and, instead, blame the jerk who stood me up. But although I intellectually understand that he’s the one to blame, my emotions still told a different story. All those years of feeling inadequate came tumbling back and landed in a pile on top of me. I felt sad that, once again, I’d failed to be attractive enough, and I’d ended up alone again.

Here’s the kicker though – he never even met me! He had seen pictures of me- mostly shots of just the top part of my body. He never even bothered to read this blog to find out who and what I am. He didn’t really know who he had a date with. Truthfully, I don’t know why he wanted to see me in the first place – I guess he was attracted by my flirtatious manner online. After he told me he was going to be coming to see me, I told him that I was a big girl – I didn’t want to see a look of disappointment or shock on his face the first time he saw me. He said that didn’t make any difference to him – he was excited to see me. But in the end, it did matter. It mattered enough for him to stand me up in favor of someone completely different from me. He never even gave me a chance to disappoint him.

So why beat up on myself? Because that’s always my first impulse in any negative situation – it must be Kathy’s fault – she either did something wrong or she isn’t “good” enough, or … well, whatever – you get the picture. Let’s face it – this guy is a jerk, and that has nothing to do with me. I may not be arm candy, but I am a warm, loving, attractive woman with lots to offer the right guy. The right guy has just never come along – maybe he never will – but that doesn’t change who I am or my capacity for love and enjoyment of life. It would very much like to have a partner who wanted to share that life with me. That doesn’t mean that I should “settle” – I deserve a great guy! If a great guy never appears in my life, that’s too bad – but I will still be who I am. And that just has to be good enough.