Dating Hiatus

I have not been on a date in 2015.

I am no longer dating because I am no longer looking for a life partner. I need to find contentment in life as a single person. Because that is what I am and will likely stay, if statistics are to be believed. And I don’t want to date just to date. It is too much work with little reward.

Someone recently mentioned she thought I was still waiting for the guy who broke it off with me years ago. That I would go back to him if he asked because I still love him.  She is partially right.

I don’t date because of him, that is true. But I am not waiting for him, would never date him again. And my reason is simple.  I could never trust him again. He is no longer worth the risk. When I think of him, I am filled with sadness. I loved him utterly, completely. I trusted him with all my darkest places, my deepest fears. I was vulnerable in front of him and trusted him with my whole heart for over three years.

Wasted time, as it turns out. I was a complete fool. An idiot to believe that he was mine. That he loved me. That he was “all in” like me. 

Now, I know the truth. I was a place keeper. Good enough “for  now”, but not “forever”. In the words of Sophia Wu, he treated me like an option, not a priority. He was gone the moment he had a better offer and never looked back. And the first indication I had that something was wrong was him walking out the door after saying goodbye. What the hell is wrong with me?

How had I not noticed? What had I missed? What about me made him leave? These questions haunted me for a long time. I grieved and cried and hurt in my soul, trying to find nonexistent answers. I was in a really bad way for a really long time, and it felt like I would mourn forever. My poor bruised heart ached for a future that was never real.

Now that time has passed, a new set of questions haunt me.

I don’t date because I still don’t know the answers.

How do I ever let someone else in? How do I know if they are truthful when they tell me they love me. How can I believe again? Open up again? Start over? I am afraid to trust my feelings again after being so terribly wrong because I am still the same person. I am not convinced I can do any better now than I did then.

I feel like part of me is broken and I don’t know how to fix it. I am not sure I want to try.

I cannot live through the heartache again. And I don’t trust myself to be any better at figuring out what is truth than I was all those years ago. I don’t trust myself to tell the difference between “for now” and “forever”. I am just not willing to risk it all again.