I’ve been thinking a lot about starting a blog. I blogged fairly regularly on myspace until I began questioning whether it was narcissistic to assume that anyone had an interest in reading the ramblings of my brain, let alone commenting on them. But I miss the outlet that it gave me, the way that putting those ramblings into complete sentences in black and white helped me make sense of things going on within myself that I was otherwise not equipped to understand.

But what to write about?

Because my friends reacted strongly at the time, and because it focuses on issues that are ones I still struggle with, I want to start with a blog that I posted on myspace almost two years ago, in August of 2006. I am not going to revise the language so that the relationship “I just got out of” becomes the relationship “that ended two summers ago.” I am not going to amend my thoughts to reflect how I am feeling now. I am simply going to type every character that I did when I first tried to express this struggle within myself, and hope that revisiting my own words will be the catalyst I need to get me writing again.

The blog reads:

Despite the daily marriage proposals from, now, both Ron and Roy at the Spa-to-Go lotion kiosk, and alarming number of people have suddenly been warning me that I am making myself unmarriageable.

Several weeks ago, my manager at work told me that I will probably never get married because I am too picky. Shit. I’ve always thought that I bring enough to the table to have the right to pick and choose. But what if I am too picky? When talking to my parents about this issue, they tried to reassure me by pointing out that all of my boyfriends have been really great, quality guys, so I shouldn’t be worried that I won’t find someone…unfortunately, that had been my point…I have dated a series of really great guys who all had marriage on the brain and I broke up with all of them! Have I missed my chance? Should I have settled for one of them and just called it good enough?

More frequently expressed than my being too picky, is the concern that no guy will take me seriously as a romantic prospect without…well…the prospect of sex. I don’t deny that this is a huge obstacle for most guys, but I have always told myself that the kind of guy I want to be with, the right guy, will respect my decision and my values and not view it as a totally insurmountable obstacle. Unfortunately, people are suddenly trying to convince me that no guy will ever look past this, and that, when I find him, I am going to scare away “The One” for this very reason.

Last night, as my sister was trying to explain as gently as possible to her boyfriend and I why it may be too late for me, the oldest living virgin, to get married, he tried to reassure me by asking, “Well, do you want to get married?” implying that I shouldn’t be upset because, clearly, I don’t want to get married anyway! Seriously?! My college theatre department voted me “Most Likely to Get Married First” out of the whole senior class and two years later, I am now giving people the impression that I won’t want to get married?

I don’t really know what to make of all this craziness. Maybe I am just having a difficult time re-adjusting to what it is actually like to be single after such a long time. And not just single, but single with zero romantic prospects! Feast or famine, I suppose…

And I don’t mind being single right now. I think it is good for me. I just got out of a relationship with a guy who did everything he could to make me believe that he was the only thing in my life that made me matter, that my only accomplishment was dating him. And even thought I fought so hard not to let that get to me, how could it not? I think I need some time to regain the strength that he took away from me and rediscover the self-respect that he tried to convince me I didn’t deserve to have.

But once I do find myself again, I want to believe that there’s still hope of finding what I’m looking for with someone else. I want to know that I deserve to be a little bit picky. I want to believe that my values are something that should be respected, not ridiculed. I want to trust that there is a man out there who, instead of thinking that I am some sort of social fossil for wanting to save myself for marriage, will realize and appreciate that I have waited my whole life for him and didn’t want to cheapen that by giving away bits and pieces of myself to every guy who bought me dinner along the way. And deep down, I do still believe that. I don’t think God gave me such an incredible capacity to love just so that He could get a kick out of never giving me anyone to share it with.

I suppose, the moral of this blog is: If you don’t like me or my values, you don’t have to date me. There are plenty of guys who would consider it a privilege.

Now I just have to find a way to believe that…

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