An Eternal Optimist
My Dad attempted to teach me a few lessons when I was growing up. He told me to never get on the back of a motorcycle, don’t smoke cigarettes, Jack always goes with Coke, never get tattoos, reading the newspaper should be a morning routine and take one day at a time because you can’t plan everything. He also used to teach me lessons by playing a game where I would have to finish off the end of a sentence. His favorite one being, “All men are -- ?” “Tall?!” No. “Strong?!” Guess again. “Smart?!” Nope. “Liars. Olivia, all men are liars. Never trust them. Even when you think they are being honest, they’re not. They’re all liars.”
As I got older I only kept the lessons of JD and cola and reading the newspaper, the others I rebelled against. Smoked my first cigarette at 15, got my first of eight tattoos at 18, hopped on the back of a motorcycle at 19. But through all of the years I clung onto the liars lesson. It was different though, because it wasn’t something I questioned when intimate with a man, it was simply engrained in me. I genuinely believed and understood that there was no way a man could be honest with me. So in order to avoid being hurt I would be the dishonest one, first. Like, two can play that game, you’re not gonna beat me to the punch!
Fast forward to the age of 24 because that’s when I was hit with the cold hard truth. That not all men are liars. And it took a gorgeous human being of a man to teach me that after I left him and broke his heart because I just had to be dishonest first. To look at him directly in the face and realize that he had zero intention of ever being dishonest with me, and was incapable of lying to me like I was expecting him to. The wheels started turning and it took another full year for me to accept that this “lesson” was an absolute wet fart and my father was just one of those really dishonest, shitty men we’re told as women to avoid. He was projecting his own messed up ideologies onto my sweet, pure and malleable blonde haired head.
Naturally, the rebellion crept back into my mind and the final lesson I had to prove dad wrong about was that there are really tall, strong, smart, honest men out there and I was going to find one. He was going to be my knight in shining armor because I refuse to be proved right by my Dad. I opened my heart up a little bit more and softened my exterior. But, it has been two years of dating men on and off and after every short chapter of my little black book I become less hopeful and more convinced that maybe he was right.
After another one bites the dust, I think to myself, is it me? Am I choosing the wrong men? The emotionally unavailable ones? I swear to the Virgin Mary, if one more man spends two to three months woo’ing me with vacations and family dinners and date nights and words of reassurance then wakes up one morning and stutters to me, “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need, I’m just not ready for a relationship.” I will give up completely on the opposite sex, buy a vibrator and put in my application for adopting babies from various African countries. Because that statement, is none other, than a lie.
It is likely the most common lie to be uttered from a cute boys mouths and ultimately makes me feel equal parts betrayed, confused, angry and sad. There has to be something beneath that! I’ve had situations where the boy I’m dating has me over all the time, takes me on trips, involves me in his family affairs, holds me close at night whispering, “You’re mine and no one else’s”, then wakes up and just… flakes. As women, how do we respond to these advances? If he wants to take me on a trip, am I to say No in order to protect myself from the probable forthcoming flake? Tell him I don’t want to meet his friends? When he asks, “Don’t you know that you’re Mine and I want you to be Mine?” I laugh and roll my eyes and retort with a, “Suuuuuure!”
This recurring feeling has me at a standstill. A numb standstill. I believe in love. Despite everything I have endured as a child, teenager, young adult and woman. Despite witnessing some terrible men and how strongly they impacted my innocent, childhood memories. It is an absolute miracle that I can even sit here and type out to you all that I am, and will always be, an eternal optimist and believer in love. This elusive feeling. So how can I sit here and be the rare person who will always see the best in someone, believe their words and actions, when I am the textbook example of a woman who should be closed off to people because of all she has seen? How is it, that I technically have more guts and bigger balls than 97% of the men that I date?
This lie of, “I’m not ready for a relationship” has to stop you guys. It makes zero sense. If you’re not ready for a relationship, don’t date. If you’re not ready for a relationship, don’t ask to meet my mother. If you’re not ready for a relationship, stop discussing the future and telling your woman that she is someone who makes you feel like no one else has in a long time. Be honest. The truth is so much more powerful and so much easier to comprehend than a vague statement that we both know isn’t true. On top of this, who says I'm looking for a boyfriend or serious relationship? I only recognize a person who betters and contributes to my life, and I'm not going to cease operation and run.
So, a small plea from the eternal optimist over here, to all the men and women who read this. Please, please, help me prove my Dad wrong! Don’t lie. Tell the truth. Don’t play games. Don’t lead each other on. Take a risk. Don’t miss out on the possibility of something beautiful! Communicate. Respect one another enough to give them honesty and full disclosure. For fuck sake you guys - stop being so afraid! If I can do it, you certainly can too.
