falling in love with yourself. . . via several boyfriends and a husband thrown in for fun

Since leaving my marriage, I have had a lot of time to think about relationships - particularly my relationships. In observing pre-marriage boyfriends and boyfriends\flings\dates\crushes\things since my hubby, I'm starting to see a cycle.

Boys always initially seem drawn to the same things about me - my "big, brown eyes," (although various alternative adjectives have been used), my sassy sense of humor, and my live-life-to-the-fullest mentality. Then, as we start to hang out, they discover these other "cutsey" little things like my penchant for making mood-based mix cds full of awful 80's music, my quirky vintage clothes, my sense of adventure when on dates ("sure! let's do it! let's go now!"), or my mad crazy driving and parallel parking skills. However, the things in the second list are inevitably the ones that will end up driving them bonkers down the line. My fun, nostalgic music eventually becomes "bad taste" (I never said I liked Bell Biv DeVoe because he's talented). My clothes become "Why are you wearing that weird hippie thing again? It looks ridiculous." My sense of adventure turns into an annoying need for constant entertainment. (My husband once told me that I wouldn't be satisfied with a date unless he took me to the bottom of the ocean. I said, "Oooh! Could we?") And finally, my driving causes mild panic attacks, and the boys always end up fighting with me about whether I can fit into that narrow parking space.

I guess you could boil it down to the "natural" stages of a relationship, whatever that means. I guess you're supposed to think everything about the other person is endearing at first, and want to do everything with them, right? You're supposed to be full of energy to climb to the top of things and swim to the bottom of things together. But then everyone tells you it fades. But I swear to god, I feel like it only fades with the other person! I'm still going strong! All the boys fool me into thinking they're adventurous, spontaneous, and in love with life too. . . at first. But then time drags on and they don't want to spend every moment together anymore. They have other things to do. And that amazing trip you said you'd take together? Well, all of a sudden he doesn't have time or money or energy or what-the-hell-ever.

So I start to get worried and get my girl-wheels spinning in my head. Doesn't he love me anymore? Maybe I did something. I should call him. No, that will just make him feel suffocated. But he should know that I feel this way. I'll call him. No, I'll just email him. No, I'll text him. . . then call him if he doesn't call back. I'm sure he's not doing anything more important than waiting for my call. Oh my god why hasn't he called me back. I haven't seen him in 2 days it's like we broke up. Liar! I hate him! (Note: boys LOVE when you do this)

Inevitably, my paranoias often push them away, and they forget all the things about me that were once cute. Or I break it off because I'm not getting the attention I used to from them. So, whatever. There's plenty more boys where they came from, right?

But the thing that really struck me as I pondered all of this was how I seemed to fall in and out of love with myself as I went through the cycle each time. I'd be left sad and lonely after a break-up, thinking I'm a little too chubby and a little too talkative and not compromising enough and . . . on and on. But then I'd meet someone who didn't know all those little flaws about me yet - someone who was into me with fresh eyes. And as we would get to know each other, I would think, yeah, I DO have beautiful eyes, and I AM a lot of fun, and my mix cds are genius! As the relationships would progress and the boys would cool down, I would get increasingly bored with myself. By the end, I would be back to realizing what a paranoid, needy freak I am and I would want to dump myself before he could dump me.

So it kind of makes you wonder - did he cool off, or did I just stop loving myself? After all, we are much more drawn to people when they are confident, right? It's a chicken-or-the-egg situation. It seems that the only thing to break the cycle would be to learn to be totally head-over-heels in love with yourself when there's not a boy around for miles who's lookin' your way. Yeah - I'll just get right on that.