If I have once piece of advice for younger people in the subject of romance, it’s this- Just get knocked up or knock someone up and move forward with making something out of it.
“Reasonable adults” will scoff at such advice, and call it absurd. Don’t listen to them, listen to me, you’re in your late teens early twenties, you are dating someone, you kinda like each other, just get pregnant before you screw it up. The whole idea of finding “the one” or a “soulmate” is a buncha crap. If you believe in that , then you believe that you can do what John Cuzack does in romantic comedies and not end up in jail for sexual harassment. Don’t ask a couple of jerks in their first few years of marriage, ask someone who’s been married ten years- if their spouse is their “soulmate”. After they look around to make sure their spouse ain’t there , they’ll burst into laughter. Relationships work because people spend a lot of time with each other and grow into it. Spending time together, even if it’s because you have to, because you were “irresponsible” and didn’t use “protection” and now you have “baby” is a powerful thing. Hell , ever heard of Stockholm syndrome? I bet you there’s more ex-captives who still think fondly of their captors, than people who have actually found a “soulmate”.
So just get knocked up, or knock someone up that you kinda like and let it grow into something. The alternative is , like me, be responsible, make reasonable decisions, look for red flags, break up with people when it seems like they/it is going off the tracks…and find yourself alone on an island of being logical and watching the morons you knew when you where in your twenties who “ruined their future” choke back the tears as the fruit of their “mistake” has his first little league game.
Sure, allegedly there is a life option between people like me, and the people who made “life ruining mistakes” …but I haven’t seen it. and I’ve been around a long time. It’s like bigfoot, all you have is anecdotal evidence that it exists. Tangible evidence gives us two examples, people who said “oh shit the pregnancy test is positive” who ended up with a fairly decent life and a family, and people who where responsible, cautious and wise, and are now trying real hard to have a good relationship with their nephews and nieces so one day they will have someone to sneak them booze when they are in the ,county run, old age home.
Now then..if you, like me, approached dating cautiously and now find yourself alone on an island and realize that there is nothing left to choose from but walking wounded and a cornucopia of personality disorders…there is hope. I realize this now. You cannot fight the ocean, but if you swim with the current you can get pretty far.
Wisdom hit me like a bolt from the blue. After a string of women with textbook cases of NPD (narcissist personality disorder, look it up,it’s a lot of fun… kind of like a roller coaster that bursts into flames ) I realized that I am, for some reason, a magnet for them, and have been my entire life. There is a strange thing about human attraction, that no one has quite figured out yet, certain types of people find the key for their lock. Abusers somehow find people who are apt to put up with abuse. Alcoholics somehow find people who are apt to rationalize it away and carry on as thought it is normal. You know what I’m talking about. Be it instinct, or vibes, or some subconscious thing, horrible people tend to find partners who are wired to put up with their brand of horribleness. It’s why you can ask any cop about domestic abuse and they will tell you the woman or man usually drops the charges and goes right back to the abuser. It’s something in the wiring or childhood and somehow the horrible person senses a specific tolerance for their horribleness in another person.
I am a glorious oasis to NPD’s ,that they can spot from across the entire Sahara desert. Likely, you also have fallen into dating your flavor of personality train wreck over and over. So you are now thinking ” okay, so we should keep any eye out for warning signs and simply avoid dating the type person that is attracted to, but wrong for you, right?”
NO! WRONG!
Here’s the thing…we can spend the rest of our natural lives trying to avoid these people, keeping an eye out for the slightest red flag…OR just go with it!
Hear me out now. When you know a storm is coming, you can prepare and make a positive out of a negative. Like upping your car insurance and parking it under an old tree that’s about ready to fall over, putting stuff out on your lawn you don’t feel like taking to the dump, so mother nature blows it into the next county and you don’t have to deal with it.
Using my case for an example. When these relationships end with an NPD it’s after some final last passive aggressive incident so horrible that no reasonable person would ever speak to them again. It is their nature to create an end to things so catastrophically that there should never be future contact. SO, that means when it ends…I end up with all their stuff that they left or I borrowed! Up to this point , whatever I ended up with has been happen-chance, but now that I am secure in my place in the universe…I can PLAN!
Being stranded on an island isn’t good, but it’s better once you realize a lot of cool stuff is going to wash ashore! Hey, is that the S.S. Love bombing ( Look it up) I see on the horizon? I bet there’s a good laptop on there! I might as well drive the wheels off her car while things are good , rather than put miles on my own! Look , the S.S. Gas Lighting (Look it up) is off in the distance, what glorious records might hit the beach when that goes down?
Avoid people who have red flags? HA! From now one I will swoop in on them! The second I sniff a hint of NPD I will peacock my irresistible emotional strength and let them go through the textbook steps they use to try to erode it…while I make stock of their DVD collection! I’ll flaunt sensitivity and slowly lure them in thinking I have fallen under their spell and made myself vulnerable…and when they proceed with whatever Lord awful destructive and self destructive thing/incident…oh how I will be hurt and surprised! Woah is me! Oh, how I am crushed and mortified …cha ching! The pawn shop should pay nicely for this new microwave, that they purchased and placed in my home in a thinly veiled attempt to merge our lives more quickly than is appropriate. Hey this blue ray player sure is cool! Glad they left this behind! Like my watch? It was a one month anniversary gift from someone desperate to establish that I am their emotional property. The worm has turned, now I have their actual property!
Now that I, after years of struggling against the tide, have learned to accept that I am the destination for a parade of emotionally destructive people. I can stop fighting the reality, that for whatever reason I am like cat nip to them, and capitalize on it! Weathering one clusterf*ck relationship after the next as my furniture, electronics and housewares all get continually upgraded!
What’s that you say? This is emotional surrender? This is rationalizing self destructive behavior instead of growing and being strong enough to seek out someone different? I deserve better? I am a good person and I deserve to be happy, and you can see that? That’s good advice actually. You’re a good listener, and so sympathetic to my plight even though we barely know each other…uhm..what kind of stereo do you happen to you have?
***You can see me this week at Cincinnati Comic Expo! show details here!***
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