Dreaming about a boy...

I've always known what I wanted when it came to relationships, and I wasn't willing to compromise. With the naivety of someone with very little understanding of how the world works I had standards and I refused to relax them.

Armed with this mentality I began dating...To say it was challenging would be being very prudent with the truth. I saw the world through rose-coloured spectacles, thanks to my childhood heroes, Sleeping beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel and the bossest biatch of them all, Snow white! Oh how badly I needed someone to tell me that life doesn't have a happily ever after, how desperately I needed to believe in the power of Nono and stop living vicariously through these girls who were doomed to a "happily ever after"

My first boyfriend was really a huge experiment, I wanted to figure out what my relationship identity was. (I hope he doesn't see this he might feel used even if he does we're great friends now right...?) In retrospect this relationship was doomed to fail because among other things, we never spoke to each other (I don't use the word "never" lightly) we wrote letters - he might actually be the reason I became a journalist. Written word became so serious for me, what I could never imagine articulating, flowed easily through the tip of my pen.

The butterflies in our tummies and the letters were enough for us...I should mention that he had already dated 2 girls in my grade so yes I had snagged myself a badboy! Fastforward to our Grade 7 leavers night; where we held hands for the first time. If he thought I was quiet before he must have speculated that he was dating a mute that night. I was so scared, so happy, so many things to say but no courage to say them in case I opened my mouth to speak and the butterflies that were crumping in my tummy flew out to land on his lips and give him the kiss I longed to. Yes yes judge away I was a skank! Sadly we broke up shortly after but we remained good friends.

Then I met a string of other guys who I thought I liked, some of them I actually did, but these guys ALL cheated on me and this traumatised me to no end because I had abandonment issues (my mom left when I was 5 but that's a whole other post). There was always someone prettier than me, smarter than me and an annoyingly overwhelming girls who were hotter than me. So like bees to honey they went, and I stayed with my rigid standards.

Then I met a man, yes a man. He didn't sweep me off my feet 'cause I didn't like him at first. He worked his way into my heart, ours wasn't a fiery, all consuming love...it was patient, it was cautious, it was curious and it was real. He wasn't perfect though 'cause he cheated on me too, but now I was no longer naive, I was jaded (I'm not sure which is the lesser evil) so I stayed and allowed him to regain my trust. It wasn't easy. It took us a long time to leave scared for cautious, insecure for patient and accusatory for curious again. But we made it.

My point is, fairytales are an amazing basis for what you want in a relationship but they can't be ALL you're armed with when you face the world. Romantic comedies are great, but in real life boy meets girl, boy loses girl...usually ends there. Self-knowledge is important, self-love even more so. In the sleep that was my youth I was dreaming about a boy in the reality that is my present I found a man. But before finding him I found me.