Do you wanna be my boyfriend?

I find myself incredibly entertaining. When I think about asking a huge room with every eligible man I know in it, I find it hilarious to think about the resounding silence of a reply I would get. Maybe I would hear about how pretty I am, how smart, how conscientious, how sweet, what a good friend I am. Yeah, well, that’s just great guys. Show me the money.

I know what you’re going to say now: “but, Lilia, what about all those guys who want to date you and you’re not interested in?” No joke, I don’t believe they want to be my boyfriend either. They’re just interested because I’m so pretty and smart and conscientious and sweet and a good friend (or whatever fraction of those characteristics they know about me). They wouldn’t want to be my boyfriend either. But that’s a moot point.

Let’s get real for a minute. I wanted to be with Jared, and that made me profoundly miserable. I wanted to be with Grayson, and I was unhappy there too. Am I kidding myself to think that partnership is an option for me? Maybe I’m doing everyone a favor by staying single. Why put people I love thru that?

I’m a really nice person. I spend my days trying to make everyone around me happy. It’s not the only thing I do, but it’s a big part of it. It’s a driving force. I don’t know about other people’s capacity to love, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m like fire, good to be near, but not good to be too close to and get burned.

I feel like some crazy puppy chasing its tail thru these crazy cycles time after time. We were talking about changing last night. My mother says that humans have an enormous capacity for change. It’s also common knowledge that you can’t expect people to change. At the end of each day, I spend my moments with myself going over every mistake I made or may have made. The next day, I make more mistakes. I’m tired of those thoughts, and I’m tired of wanting to be different than I am. Maybe the change I need to make in myself is to stop trying to make any change at all.

Jared seemed to want me to change but it was never really clear to me what that change was and when all these necessary changes would stop. Whether it was water on the sink, the way I closed doors, the way I noticed when he flirted with other women, that I want children… I could give up every single one of those qualities, and it would just be something else.

Every seven years, they say, all your cells have changed and you’re basically a completely different collections of elements. I could change every thing about myself when asked to, and not only would it never end, but I would still just be me, and we would still be unhappy together. What would happen if I stopped trying so hard? What would happen if I directed my efforts instead towards composing a beautiful life, towards creating, towards making art?

They say weaknesses are just over-developed strengths. I’ve also learned that a weakness in one setting can be a strength in another. Like that I am “too approachable” – it’s bad if I’m trying to sell myself as an authority figure, but what if I instead sell myself as an advocate for individuals? I help people find the best way to get to work. If they don’t feel like they can approach me with these mundane issues, I’m not going to be able to do my job.

So, you don’t want to be my boyfriend, isn’t it great that we know that? It makes me available when that guy who does want to be my boyfriend comes along. And if that never happens, it just leaves me a lot of time to do other things I enjoy.