Karma

It's interesting how Karma works sometimes. I used to think of it as if you're good, good things come your reward, if you're bad, bad things come as punishment. The past couple weeks have shown Karma to be less about retribution and more about learning.

As mentioned earlier, a couple weeks ago I met a charming guy that became quite the mancrush. After feeling emotionally closed off and distant for awhile it was a breath of fresh air to actually be interested in someone again. It had been quite some time since I had that excitement and it felt good. For the first 3 dates it was smooth sailing, it all felt so easy and natural. Then something changed....I don't know what really. But the next date was strained and the ease of conversation faded into awkward silences. I was bothered by it but tried to write it off as a fluke. The next date however had a similar tension. Something was amiss...

Doubt settled into my mind and I began to brace for rejection. Despite my interest, there was growing distance from him. I had no idea what was going on or what I did wrong. As I was pondering and overthinking I asked myself "why doesn't he just tell me if he's not interested?" It was then and there that I had my karma moment. That was the lesson I needed to learn.

I have been known to be slow to reject a guy if I felt things weren't working. If they were assholes it was quick and easy - but the nice guys were so hard. I hated knowing that I would be hurting their feelings and so I delayed and put some distance and tried to let them down gently. What karma needed to show me was that hey it kinda sucks to know something is wrong and not know what. Spending a week or two wondering what is going on and overthinking things can be rough.....The letting down gently is anything but gentle....it can be quite the mindfuck...

So I accepted my lesson, even felt bad about how I treated one guy in particular. He was a great guy but due to some differences in our lives I didn't think it was going to work. I didn't want to hurt him and didn't want to be the asshole so I held off and was more and more distant...In retrospect my not wanting to be the asshole made me the bigger one. So I wrote him a random out of the blue apology email. Doesn't change anything really, but felt I owed it to him...

And today suspicions were confirmed, mancrush is no longer crushing on me. I'm not sure what went wrong along the way and honestly I'm not sure I want to. Maybe I'm better off saving a character flaw review for another day when my ego is more up for the task.

While I'm a bit disappointed things didn't work out I really have no room to complain, it's been a learning experience. I certainly can't fault mancrush for anything because he handled things exactly the same way as I have done in the past....right down to the 'it's a rough time in my life' email. I get where he's coming from....but it's also good that I now have perspective from the other side (not to imply I haven't been rejected many times before cause I certainly have!)

And as I said in a previous post the best thing for me personally is that knowledge that I'm not as closed off as I felt I was. It's been a long ass time since I've been excited about someone and it's good to know this heart is still beating even if it means it gets hurt every once in awhile....