This is being reposted because I need it...I need to look at it for awhile. It may come back down again when I am feeling better. Also, I originally posted this on Feb. 13th, and it's exactly one month later and I really do need it today.
In the future, please remember the following:
- It's not OK that he's still "best friends" with his ex and is still in a sort of psuedo-marriage with her. Even if she's the mother of his kid. While it's commendable that they are being good co-parents, if he's still emotionally involved with her, he can't be emotionally involved with me.
- If his friends are ALL losers, and ALL have significant life issues going on, that says something very valuable. If he won't introduce you to any of them, that says something even more valuable.
- Run, and fast, when he tells you the only reason he doesn't sit around all day playing video games and getting stoned is that he can't afford it. Yet.
- The guy for me needs to have discernible moral convictions. Not necessarily religious in nature, but there has to be some standards, some life code that he follows or adheres to. While it works for some people, having no boundaries is not OK with me.
- Someone I am going to be with for the long term needs to be honest and forthright about his past, willing to share with me, and respectful of my needs and boundaries.
- It's not enough to just be a warm body who's nice and calls on time. He has to be more than that in order to deserve all the wonderful things I have to offer.
- He needs to be doing something in his life he likes, or at least working towards it. Dealing with someone else's depression over the fact that they are wasting their life in a dead-end job, when they're not motivated enough to try to fix their situation, will never work out for me. I am a doer. I make things happen. I change my situation. Hopeless and pathetic doesn't work for me.
- I need to feel like I am getting back what I'm putting in. Emotionally and mentally and intellectually and physically. I need to be with someone who is capable of that.
- I cannot be with someone who uses drugs (at all), or alcohol in a way that I am uncomfortable with.
- I need to be strong when I meet new men, and be willing to part with the ones I know FOR SURE aren't right as soon as I realize it. (See, for instance, "a warm body isn't enough.")
- I want to be with someone who takes care of me sometimes. I want to be able to feel vulnerable once in a while. I want someone who can be strong for me, and help me, and motivate me in my life goals and pursuits.
- The guy who is right for me will understand how much I put into a relationship, how thoughtful and romantic and wonderful I can be, and he'll WANT that from me and WANT to give it back to me, not just be willing to take it because it's there and I'm stupid enough to keep giving it to someone that doesn't deserve it.
- I am not unlovable. I may be unlovable to this particular guy, at least in his mind, who knows? I may have just met someone who is not mature enough, emotionally, to be with someone who is at the place I am in life (successful, educated, strong family connections, awesome friends). If this guy can't love me, who cares? I couldn't have loved him either, not in the long run, and that's OK.
- I am cool, and smart, and funny, and attractive and I definitely deserve to find someone who respects me, and is capable of giving ME what *I* need...not just taking what he needs. This guy was nice and funny and kind, but he just wasn't capable of being the person I would have needed him to be in my life.
- I am a nurturer at heart. I love to take care of people. But I don't want or have to take in every stray dog of a man I meet and nurse him back to health so that he'll be in great shape to go back to his ex, or be a great boyfriend for someone else. No more stray dogs.
