| August 2005
Ms. King Signing Off
QCF Magazine columnist
Hindsight is always 20/20, right? Well, we can always look back and see what maybe we should have known and what lessons we can take the next time we are posed with a particular problem.
This column is a response to my own; this is a continuation from the last one. My columns tend to mirror something in my own life. Most of the time it is something I, myself, am going through, and other times it is a question with which a close friend is coping. I am obviously not yet over this issue.
Okay, the truth is I was seeing a great guy. He was not a heroine addict, nor did he have blue hair. The rest was mostly true, but the night I turned in that column, he called and broke things off with me.
The next few weeks were a string of bad guys in bad situations. A guy and I started seeing each other, only for me to learn he had a girlfriend. I was out with another guy, only to be caught by his fiancé. (I truly had no idea he was engaged.) And when the older, divorced, Republican apologized, and I admitted I was willing to give him a possible second chance, he kissed a girl in front of me three days later. And when I confronted him with it, he argued, “She is only in town for the night; I’ll never see her again.” The next day I told him second chances were a gift, but there was no way in hell he would get a third.
Jaded with the thought of meeting any other men, a friend of mine called me on a Wednesday night. I had no intent of leaving the comfort of my own apartment and was quite content to spend the evening with my female cat and paint my toenails, but she relentlessly begged me to come out. Promises of only two drinks and a single jager-bomb, coerced me, and I reluctantly threw on some blush and walked my tired, man-hating-ass to the bar.
Two drinks never happens. But, I wasn’t so pissed off after meeting a great guy who had to have liked me after I bitched about the scum I had been dating.
After flowers on my doorstep, a date, and a few more meetings, I realized this relationship with yet another Republican might be going too fast.
How, in just two weeks, did I go from a celibate man-basher to someone in a caring, budding relationship? Full of questions, I turned to my friends who coughed at me and told me I was lucky I at least met a guy who was interested in me for more than just sex; I guess they are cynical too. Finally, Mary, whose advice before, although it ended badly, had been wonderful and filled with more truth than I could muster myself, gave me the truth.
(Oh, and while I was dumped on a Tuesday, Mary was dumped by Andy, the paraplegic, the following Thursday.)
So, I asked Mary, “Do you think this is going too fast? We have spent almost all waking free time together in the past two weeks, he only lives two blocks away from me, and I am scared I am just going to get hurt. This can’t be normal, jumping in this quickly…”
She smiled, in the way only Mary can smile when she is about to relay both good news and a hard truth in one breath. “Colleen, you and I both know that every sunshine in our own love lives is followed by thunderstorms. So, why don’t you stop worrying about it, and enjoy it now—before it all comes crashing down next week.”
Mary gives wonderful advice, and I think I might take it.
I even chatted with the new guy, and he responded, “If you were scared, why didn’t you talk about it with me?” When I relayed that I had asked him questions, he laughed and told me he thought that I was just asking silly questions like I always do. (What is your favorite pizza topping? Which Disney princess is the hottest? If you were only able to eat food of one color for the rest of your life, which would you choose?)
So, I guess the moral of this column is: take risks, and shut up! Stop trying to find fault in everything.
If there is one thing I do too damn much, other than drink and procrastinate, it is stress about things that aren’t even a problem. It is such that I have to find troubles in everything for things to be exciting, or fun… when all I really want in the end is all to be calm.
So, I’ll take Mary’s advice, because with me, next week I may as well find something new to dampen my MAC powdered cheeks. I will enjoy my new relationship and smile instead of worry that someone wants to spend so much time with me, so quickly.
Colleen King’s column “Miss King Meets the Queen City” is a comprehensive look at “20 and 30-something” relationships in Cincinnati. Her column appears regularly in QCF Magazine.
Contact Information
|
