The [Ex] Dating Game?

Dating The Ex:

The appeal of dating the ex:

All the unanswered questions… answered?  All the would have, should have, and could have beens… ceased?  Unfinished business inevitably… handled?  One would think. But not so.

What actually happens when you date the ex:

But while old sets of questions may find solutions, they are exchanged for new sets of questions that are even more challenging and complex than before.  Only these are never resolved.  Both parties are left regretful that they risked the comfort of the uncomfortable old and replaced them for what they assumed would be resolution with the new.

What you learn from dating the ex:

Instead you learn that perhaps the past… is best left… in the past.  The memories of yester-year, should thus remain for to attempt their reenactment, and duplication would only prove foolishly immature, frustrating naive and unsuccessful at best.  To hope that they’d be recaptured, that the memories the years of separation left you with would somehow play themselves out in reality again, only prove that you can’t hit the rewind or slow motion buttons on life, love and especially past relationships– though you may try.  While old issues may have been laid to rest, new ones emerge.  The bumps in the road that may have rocked the relationship in the past are of an entirely different magnitude than the pot holes you run into when you repeat relationships.

Conclusions about dating the ex:

Flickers don’t always have to be rekindled into flames.  To do so is to play with fire which always leaves one or more persons burned, severely.  Flickers also cast shadows on our minds and hearts so that thoughts of love lost appear greater than reality will prove they are and really were.  But curiosity sometimes makes us add fuel to that fire as opposed to blowing that candle out as should be done.  But curiosity can not only be attributed to the death of the cat, but the death of the sweetness of memories, of the idea of perfect love and of the mystery of unresolved, unfinished love stories and romances with ex’s.  Something I’ve learned to not tamper with… a game I’ve learned I’d rather not play.

Don’t play the ex dating game

Tangled Webs

I love animal planet. I’m sure I’ve made several other references to it before. But I think what amazes me the most is the enormous amount of subtle similarities that exist between their “planet” and ours. They have nuanced behaviors, habits, quirks, that I find not only fascinating but that I understand are not much different, theoretically speaking, from our own actions. Animals mark their territory, develop chains of command and hierarchies, much the say way we do, and they also exhibit certain behaviors when it comes to relationships! This is where it gets good.

Now although I’m no expert on animal behavior, I do know that there are animals that do all types of things when they’ve set their sights on a particular mate. They dance, they show off their beautiful colors, make sounds and grunts, all to attract their much desired mate. And it just made me think of the enormous lengths we all go to to potentially catch the eye of our beloved. Pull out our best threads, get all nicely groomed, nicely scented and dab colors places we may have never before; and we set out to do our mating dance, to bait our fishing hooks, to show off our beauty all to attract the object of our desire.

What seems like the ultimate fail proof plan in the animal kingdom, is wrought with glitches when performed in ours. While you have your eyes set on a particular person for whom you intentionally perform your “mating dance” for, there may be other unintended parties, who have their eye on you. And often time these displays of affection, or displays in an attempt to gain others affection, are not isolated or hidden from others’ view, you get numerous “mates” observing the same actions and all responding in ways you had neither anticipated or desired. What do you do when your “mating dance” has gone awry? When instead of attracting the one you intended, an unsuspecting on looker picked up your scent and is now in hot pursuit of you? What tangled webs we weave. LOL.

P.S. And just in case any one was wondering…inspiration for this post= my current state of affairs where relationships and men are concerned.

Faring in the Boo Fair

Dressed my best, smelling nice and fresh, and ready to impress, I attended a job fair today. Me and 500 hundred other people. And amid the crowds and sometimes hostile employers, I questioned if that was the most effective avenue one should employ to get, well…. employed. As if finding a job wasn’t hard enough, you gather hundreds of unemployed hopefuls in a room, with considerably less employers with available positions, and it’s nothing short of chaotic. If nothing more, I can say that being there truly reminded me:

(1) Just how much I hate job fairs

(2) I truly think they are pointless since all the reps did was refer us to their websites

(3) job fairs closely parallel the dating world and

(4) that is not the way I want to find a boo or job for that matter

But it got me to thinking if that whole scene was an accurate portrayal of the dating world. Is that what it really all boils down to? Did the several people waiting on line for the same position, hoping to make a lasting impression and stand out as the most memorable candidate out of the hundreds before them, represent what we do where prospective boos are concerned? Are all our interactions with the oppostie sex unconciously interviews to see if they can fill the vacant desired position we have in our lives? Are we auditioning? Or worse yet, is the dating world an auction where we showcase all our assets because we are seeking to be sold to the highest bidding boo? If life is in fact a ‘boo fair’, are you the prospective employee or employer? And how exaactly are you faring?

Boo-Less Refugee

As I mentioned before, this boo-less life is wrought with numerous ups and countless downs.  And it’s not without it’s cyclical changes in attitude towards it.  As the pendulum swings in this boo-less life, it can carry you from one extreme to the next and every where else in between; as you can go from whole-heartedly embraced, relished boo-less-ness, to scrambling to find the quickest emergency exit possible (aka desperation).  Boo-less-ness can seem like a bed of roses, while other times the sting of a roses thorns make it seem like the most dreaded experience ever.  In those less than pleasurable times in boo-less-ness, one may seek to flee such a “dreadful state”, escape it, or even become a boo-less refugee.  What usually onsets this grassroots movement against boo-less-ness more often than not has a great deal to do with the perceived happiness of those who are ‘booed up’.  Everything in relationships seems that much more peachy and creamy when you are looking at them from the outside–much the same way clothes in the display window look so much more luxurious than they do once on your body.  Knowing that relationships in reality aren’t necessarily all that they are chalked up to be, is not the least bit successful in tapering the desire to be un-boo-less at times.  So you begin planning your escape route, and it’s very indiscriminate, every and anyone is a viable rung in your ladder of escape out of the boo-less life.  When you are at the end of your boo-less rope, any one will suffice.  Hunger makes everything taste so much better and unfortunately a similar mechanism is in play once you are “boo-starved”…..any boo will do.

Un-boo-less-ness.....Here I come!!!!

I am reminded of an episode of Bugs Bunny I saw as a child.  Bugs Bunny and several other people he was with got really hungry on some journey they took.  They were all on boat together and after hours of not eating they began to look at each other and envisioned each other as being food–hamburgers and hot dogs.  They were hallucinating all due to starvation.  And it just made me think, how many times one can find themselves in that same position due to boo-droughts.  When you look around you, people who have always been there begin to morph right before your eyes into the most satisfying prospects at being your accomplice as you make your boo-less exit.  I wonder how that unsuspecting boo would feel, to know he was only a consideration because your boo-less-clock was ticking and as a result you envisioned him as something he wasn’t?  I always knew Bugs Bunny was good for something….that’s all folks.