I’ll jump right out the gate and be honest …
I always thought I would be married with a child by the age 25.
I had a high school sweetheart once. We all know how that goes. We were “in love”, went to prom together and had convinced ourselves that we would get married by the time we were 24. That was our fairytale. I even got the proposal at age 19. I got the proposal and the ring. Back then, you couldn’t tell me that it would never happen.
The movies will have you thinking that you are going to fall in love and live that fairytale with the indubitable “Happily Ever After.” That’s not how my story ended. Engaged at 19 and single again at 19 as well. That engagement lasted all of 7 months and then we hated each other.
We fell in love with our teenage selves but what we didn’t do is prepare to continue to be in love with our adult selves. My adult self wanted to be free, and uninhibited. His adult self wanted to be traditional. I just couldn’t conform to traditional and controlling. Those two qualities are like oil and water. We simply did not mix.
I spent the next 4 years single and celibate. I was going to hold out for my Happy Ever After. I met some people along the way that I thought were going to be “The One”, but they only became yet another one that I had wasted time on. I even spent 3 of those 4 years “dating” (and i use that word loosely because if you notice I said I was single for those 4 years) the “I’m afraid of commitment type”. Ladies, let’s have side note for a second, DO NOT AND I repeat, DO NOT fall for potential. I have a habit of seeing the potential in people and it never happens. For those 3 years, I was constantly hit with excuses of not being ready yet and I ate them up. Why? Because we did everything that made up seem like we were in a relationship. Those all day and all night phone conversations, and the little quality time here and there. But any mention at a real relationship sent him running for the hills. Are you ready for the kicker?
He’s currently in a committed relationship and seemingly deeply in love. Ain’t that something? I did finally leave him alone when I met my current ex. He exhibited all the characteristics that the others seemed to be lacking. And I was immediately swoon. *wait for the ball to drop* He had a girlfriend. Not a piece of girlfriend but a whole well known girlfriend. Now I could go into this big spill about how I was the better catch, how she wasn’t satisfying him and blah blah blah. But that’s typical side chick talk and I’m not going to list excuses to dignify my behavior of being with someone else’s man. I was too focused on my Happy Ever After. I was in college and I was telling myself since the high school sweetheart failed, then I’d be determined to marry my college love.
I will always be brutally honest with all the individuals reading this. I am not proud of my actions but my heart kept telling me I was doing the right thing. Someone gave me some great advice during this period in time. They told me to be careful because, “The same way you get someone can be the same way you lose them.”
I never paid that advice any attention until I ended up in the same situation. So after creeping for a year and then finally ending up in the relationship that I knew was meant for me, here I am age 25, single again while another person I thought was “The One” lives happily as that one for someone else. Someone else gets to reap the benefits of all the time I put in and I have nothing to show for it. Sorry for the lengthly introduction. I said all of this to say that I have yet to get my Happy Ever After but I know it will come one day. So for now, I will be documenting all my “Dating after 25″ (because I am almost 26) experiences for the world. I know there is someone out there that can relate. We are going to tackle heartbreak, moving on, online dating, and all that good stuff!
