Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Confessions

I never thought I'd be the type of person who used sex as a way to feel important or special or loved.  Used to roll my eyes and talk down about women who did that.  Never thought I'd be that "pathetic".  Apparently, I am.

The hard thing now is not to do it anymore. Just because I know it's not good doesn't mean I'm not going to want to do it.  It's like a really destructive bad habit. I know why I do it; it's because my self-esteem is shit.  I know all that when I repeat that bad habit, I feel like shit.  So I go and do it again, with someone new.  It's a nasty cycle.

Do I feel like all I have to offer someone is sex?  Absolutely not.  Do I feel like I have zero good qualities and I have to make up for it by being easy?  No way.  So why this lack of self-esteem?

I think a lot of it is just from the shit I've been through with guys in the last 2 years.  I mean, yeah, I've had some awesome dates and met some great guys, but in between them there has been a lot of getting my hopes up and having them squashed.  A lot of feeling like I'm just not good enough.

Good enough for what?  Well, that's the zillion dollar question.  Because I'm not really sure anymore.  Feeling not good enough has been a recurring theme in my life, going back to my childhood.  I was bullied and picked on, alienated and teased, and left out.  It didn't help than my grade school was 1 class with 20 kids and we spent K-6th grade together.  Once you were label "uncool" you were fucked.

In Jr. High I felt the same way.  Less because I was getting bullied (although there are a few girls from Jr. High that I plan of beating the living fuck out of if I ever run into them), and more because I just didn't fit in.  I was fat; I was awkward; I had three-inch thick over-sized glasses; I listened to heavy metal like my older sister instead of Paula Abdul, Madonna, and Michael Jackson.   By the time I was in high school, I'd gotten used to putting my head down and hoping I could make it from one class to the next without running into someone who wanted to loudly inform me I was a fattie (as if I could ever forget).

College would have been great - if I hadn't gone to a private, preppy, small college where you were an outcast if you didn't go to the bars on the weekends, have an unlimited amount of spending money from Mommy and Daddy, and parade around in the latest Gap clothes every day.  I didn't fit it, and by then it had gotten stuck in my head that it was because I wasn't good enough, thin enough, normal enough, fill-in-the-blank enough.

I thought that damn though was dead and buried, but it turns out I hadn't actually killed the monster, just sedated it for a while.  And apparently all it took to wake the beast was a couple years of bad relationships and asshole guys.

So now I'm single, pushing 34 years old, and feeling like I'm not enough.  Feeling like I don't have enough good things about me to keep a guy interested past the first few dates.  Feeling like sleeping with a guy before there is an emotional connection is the only way I'm going to keep that guy interested long enough to form that emotional connection.  But fuck, we all know it doesn't work that way.  All I've managed to do is make myself feel worse and let a couple guys use me for sex.

Fuuuuck, that was a hard thing to write, hard to admit, but it's true.  I say some guys are dickheads because they used me for sex.  But the truth is, they pretty much had my permission to use me.  I was offering it up, and all they did was accept it.  Can I really blame them? 

Well, yeah, I can, but only to a certain extent.  The rest is my fault, and something I have to change about myself.  I have to kill that self-esteem monster once and for all.  And this time I'm going to behead that motherfucker.

5 comments:

  1. okay, I know I joke a lot (especially in comments of your last post) but this is beautiful and took courage. I struggle all the time with feelings of guilt over past moments spent on my back (or front) with whoever it was that made my flavor of the day (or hour....) But in the end it all came down to one quote - those stupid fucking quotes you get in cards from your zenny friends. But one of the stuck with me:

    The secret to life, both health and happiness, is not to mourn the past or fret about the future; but live each present moment wisely and earnestly.

    You my unseen friend, need to forgive your past and realize it is no longer and fretting the future changes nothing. All you can do is live each moment in earnest. The wisdom will follow in time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That took some real balls to write and admit. Good for you for taking that first step to recognizing the issue and then jumping head first into it to tackle that muther fucker straight on. You are good enough, smart enough, and god darnit, peole like you!! Rock on, sistah! You can do it. Keep the faith babe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sars, thank you for your advice and encouragement. It's because of friends and people like you that I have any courage at all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. misty, friends like you are what help me keep the faith and have the courage to destroy that motherfucker. thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Don't just behead it, but stuff it, mount it, and flip that bitch off every day and say "NO MORE!!!"

    You are a very strong woman. Strong enough to look within yourself, which many people (especially me) cannot or will not do. I toast to you.

    ReplyDelete