I was afraid of making a wrong choice, of ending up with a person who would turn out to be petty, resentful and competitive like my ex-husband.
As usually happens in such cases, I started to play a game called “Nobody is good enough for me.” I was afraid of investing another six years into a guy who would disappoint me in the end. So I would choose a guy who was bound to disappoint me, make sure he did so very soon, and dump him triumphantly for exhibiting these very same qualities that made me choose him in the first place. I got so good at this game that I could walk into a room full of men and immediately zero in on precisely the kind of man who was going to start annoying me as soon as possible by being extremely similar to my ex-husband.
I’m sure most of you have met these people who are very attractive, intelligent, successful, highly articulate, funny and kind, but who have the most disastrous personal lives ever. Everybody feels compassion for them and says how life is unfair and the good ones always suffer. I was that person. I went through one failed relationship after another at a scary pace.
All of my friends were very supportive and compassionate. We engaged in protracted conversations of how all men are useless, unappreciative jerks who have no idea how to treat a spectacular woman like myself. In short, I was behaving like a classic neurotic.
In order to get even more compassion for my plight, I decided to share my story online. Thankfully, the people I complained to about the nasty, horrible men who were incapable of appreciating me the way I deserved had no interest in feeding my neurosis with kindness and understanding.
“The problem is you,” they told me. “You have psychological issues that make you choose men who are not right for you. Stop blaming men already and look at the problems you have that make you want to live this way.”
I was incensed. How could these ignoramuses who had no understanding for my complex emotional drama fail to see that I was the aggrieved party here? My ex-boyfriends were all miserable, unworthy people, while I was a long-suffering angel.
(To be continued. . .)
Clarissa's Blog 
“All of my friends were very supportive and compassionate. We engaged in protracted conversations of how all men are useless, unappreciative jerks who have no idea how to treat a spectacular woman like myself… Thankfully, the people I complained to about the nasty, horrible men who were incapable of appreciating me the way I deserved had no interest in feeding my neurosis”
This is another thing flummoxed me about US. Damaging and insincere expectations of friendships. There is nothing so fake as unqualified support, all the time. My best, good and even most casual friends in India would have told me, point blank, that I was being ridiculous, have a blazing row with me about it, then hand-hold me while I worked through the problem.
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The phenomenon you are talking about definitely exists. In my case, though, I think people who surrounded me at that time genuinely believed in this “all men are bad” line of thinking. It wasn’t for nothing I chose these people to be my friends at that point. 🙂
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“It wasn’t for nothing I chose these people to be my friends at that point.”
Ah, that’s very perceptive. Didn’t occur to me.
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Being brutally honest with yourself is probably the single most taxing endeavour a person can engage in. Kudos for recognizing and admitting your ownership of your problems. If only more people could do that. . .
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Thank you, Patrick. Blaming the universe is always easy. But then a point comes when the price for doing that becomes too high.
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