On the subject of relationships...

So I recently got out of what I thought could be a rewarding relationship. And it's not that it wasn't, it just didn't end the way it should have (I think anyway). It got me to thinking about relationships in general. What works, what doesn't, what the hell went wrong? Here I give you the woman's perspective. This is the kind of thing you'd hear if you were a fly on the wall when a woman's friends find out about how things are and how we think they should be.

Men, we think you're dumb. Every. Last. One. You're all dumb. We think you are as dumb as you think we are crazy. But really, it's not that you're a mass of unintelligent nimrods bumbling through life who somehow manage to feed yourselves without your mommy around. No. Really it's more that you're naive and kinda scared of the world. And that seems pretty stupid to us. We're all told it's the women of the world that believe in fairy tales but that's really not the case. Yes, lots and lots of women imagine that when they meet the man of their dreams, life will be perfect, trumpets will sound, and the animals will sing a happy love song while she and her perfect prince dance off into the sunset. We call those women 18 year olds. They just barely qualify in the woman category. They've not had their heart truely broken yet. By the time a woman is 23 or 24, she's sufficently jaded enough to realize that the fairy tales aren't true. So then we do what every guy friend I had when I was in my 20's hated. We start dating older men.

Yes guys, you only had yourselves to blame for all the hot girls your age dating 30 something men. It seemed logical to us at the time. If guys in their 20's are too immature to have a productive, loving relationship, then older men must have had enough life experience to have grown up. It's kind of true. 30 something guys are less immature. By a very little bit. Eventually though we find out that older men that date younger woman have got some issues. Most of us would rather not deal with those issues.

At this point, we're in our mid to late 20's. Some of our girlfriends somehow found a guy that was worth marrying. Other girlfriends have given up and stick with a guy that's totally not worth it. On our girl nights we ALL bitch about YOU over a glass of yummy wine. Because even the good one's that our girls married are....dumb.

You guys think relationships just happen. You think if she's the "right" girl, it just works. You think there should be no real effort involved. If you run into a disagreement, then it's not meant to be. She must not be the one. You worry you're settling for something if it's not magic all the time. That's all a bunch of hooey. Foolishness. You're naive and afraid. You don't like to admit it to yourself, but every woman knows a mans heart is much more fragile because you're terrified of emotional pain. You'd rather have your arm smashed with a sledge hammer than have your feelers hurt. Grow up already.

Let me tell you about "the one". It's a bunch of bull honky. It's a terribly depressing thought really. I'm sure you're aware there are more than 6 BILLION people on this planet and counting. The odds of people finding their "one"? The only person in the world that can possibly complete their life and make everything wonderful? Yeah, that'd be slim to none. We'd better hope there's not just one person out there for us, otherwise we're all totally french toasted. As for the whole "meant to be" thing? Yeah, I'm not much for that either. I think it's just an excuse people use when they either realize that they're not willing to work on a relationship, or they've actually tried and it's just not happening.

By the way, when you realize that the relationship you're in isn't what you're looking for, think about band aids. You know how you're tempted to pull it off slowly because you know it's going to hurt a lot if you just rip it off? So you work at it slowly, and it pulls each and every little arm hair out of your skin ever so agonizingly? And you know that had you just yanked it off, the pain would already be over and you wouldn't have this big throbbing red mark on your arm that won't let you forget how dumb you just were? Break-ups are the same way. Take Nike's advice and just do it. Get it over with because in the long run, it's less painful for everyone involved. Yeah, we may still cry. We may even tell you we hate you and make you feel guilty. But we'll both be able to move on faster, because it hurts more the longer it takes. Man up!

Relationships are a choice. When you think you're ready for a relationship, you better be ready to accept that you have to work to make a relationship last. If you don't embrace that, you'll fail. Can you make it work with each and every person you're attracted to? No. Everyone is in a different place in their lives. Personal backgrounds, as much as we hate to admit it, make a difference. Personal beliefs, all sorts of things come into play. Some people will tell you the old adage opposites attract is the key. Others will tell you if you're too different from your partner, it can never work. There's a whole slew of factors that go into making a relationship work. But willingness to try is the most important. To make a relationship work, you have to be willing to try. If you expect that it will just happen and you don't have to do anything, you'll be alone more often than not. Yep. All by yourself-for freakin ever. That's because anything worthwhile takes work. You worked to get through college yes? In the hopes that it would nab you a better job and a better life right? Right. So you worked for it. It was hard. It sucked sometimes. Maybe you even wanted to quit. But you didn't. Honestly, a relationship is no different. You find someone you're attracted to. Someone who's company you enjoy. Someone you can laugh with and talk with and trust. Then you decide to give it all you've got. Know that it's scary for everyone, but since when is being afraid a good excuse to not do something so rewarding? Know that a relationship should be 50/50, but a good partner will understand when it has to be 80/20 to help you achieve your goals (and expect that the situation will reverse it's self and you'll be the one giving your all to support her goals too). And when you have a fight you acknowledge that we're all imperfect and work it out. Even if it's agree to disagree. But don't mistake a disagreement or a difference for a sign that you're not supposed to be together. That's stupid. Women know this. We wish that more men did.