When I was 18, during my freshman year at St. John's, I decided to pledge a sorority. To the people that I had gone to school with and known all of my life, this was a huge surprise. Except it wasn't really. I am an only child who has always had a yearn to belong to something, it was only natural that I would join something like this. I had to go through a pledging process, which even though it has changed drastically still teaches the same core values. One of those values is to always have self-respect, no matter what. During the process we test the girls in various ways on this. Even though I went through this process almost 6 years ago, I still feel that I have not truly mastered this lesson. Case and point would be almost every situation I have had with a man.
Lets take a look at my dating history, shall we? I am just going to point out the three men that I have cared about the most. We have Tight Wad, who I was with for almost three years and put up with a lot of shit from. Halfway through our relationship he broke up with me out of nowhere (we had never fought before this) because he wanted to be single and see other girls. He also still loved me and wanted to date me, just without a commitment. Of course pathetic little 19-year-old Nikki obliged and this began the worse summer of my life. He never ended up seeing these other girls but just the possibility of it was enough to worry me sick. Literally. To add insult to injury, when my grandfather passed away he did not come home. When I asked him why he was not going to come home and be there for his girlfriend of 2 and ½ years he replied, "I just don't like coming home on weekends that I don't plan to. It's really not convenient for me." My response was something to the effect of putting the body on ice for the next time, so he would be there when it is convenient for him. Instead of just breaking the fuck up with him on the spot, I proceeded to make the next 5 months of his life (and mine) a living hell until he broke up with me. If I had any ounce of self-respect, I would have broken up with him the first time he fucked things up.
Another good example would be with Minute Man. While he did break things off with me, he ended up coming back for seconds. And thirds. After the fact it was clear what his intentions were and even though I knew it deep down in my heart, I still went with it because I just wanted to have him. Yeah, I know.
Lastly - what just happened with that guy. I know I have beaten myself up a lot for messing this one up but the truth is, he messed it up too. If he was just honest with me about things and communicated with me about everything then it probably wouldn't have blown up in my face. Yet, I still clung to it and still talked to him, hoping that things would go back to the way they were. I don't deserve someone who is going to completely shut off on me when I make a mistake, which to be quite honest, was not even that big of a deal. I blew things out of proportion but so what? I blow everything out of proportion, it is just who I am.
I seem to run into my problems with guys when I start to actually care. I have dated a bunch of guys in between these men and have been fine; its just when I start to have feelings, I lose a sense of who I am and end up going nuts. I don't think the solution for my problems is to learn how to date like a man. If I learned how to have more respect for myself, I would be able to walk away much more quicker when I realize that a situation is not going to benefit me. I also will learn to stand up for myself and to not allow people to walk all over me. These go for every aspect of my life, not just dating.
Somehow I think learning how to become a whore would be much easier...
3 comments:
Self respect is really important, but sometimes it's easy to lose track of it, especially when you're emotionally invested. Don't worry, though, these relationships were a learning experience for you. Think of it that way.
self-respect doesnt mean being a whore! self-respect means being able to tell yourself "i am NOT happy, and I am going to make changes to ameliorate that"
if you can't rely on yourself to be on your side, who CAN you rely on?
Oh no! I don't view having self-respect as being a whore. Actually, I don't really view being promiscuous as one either, I was just using that term because of 2011 being the Year of the Whore. I think having more self-respect will also help me to learn how to walk away, which is really my main goal.
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