Picked Last and Puzzle Pieces: Confessions of a Hopeless Romantic
We were talking every day for a while, and then she vanished. I’m familiar with this — it’s happened multiple times in my life. Maybe she’s busy, maybe she’s found someone else, or maybe she’s just tired of me. There’s also the far more likely option that everything is fine and I’m just reading too far into it.
Being a hopeless romantic is tough, being a hopeless romantic with undiagnosed depression and anxiety is tougher. It’s far easier for me to believe that people are laughing behind my back than wishing me the best. Regardless what caused the silence over the last few weeks I’m angry at myself, because I allowed myself to be hopeful. Historically if I start to fall for someone, if I start to get hopeful that this might be the one that gives me a chance … I’ve practically guaranteed that they are never going to speak to me again.
I drove to work listening to the Carpenters. On a beautiful Friday morning I was being reminded that Rainy Days and Mondays always got Karen Carpenter down. This morning, Sunny Days and Fridays aren’t doing much better.
I vented to a friend, Carolyn, about my bad relationship luck. I painted an analogy for her. For me, romantically I’m picked last to play baseball. It’s infuriating to be honest. I could handle being dumped. I mean if I go up to bat and I swing with all my might but still strike out I can walk back to the bench at least knowing I tried my hardest.
My issue is that no one wants me on their team. They’ve never even seen me at bat yet. They just assume I’ll strike out I guess.
“It’s like the second they get to know me any desire to be with me disappears,” I vented.
That’s when Carolyn said something that really struck me. “I agree,” she said. “Once a girl gets to know you, she doesn’t want to date you anymore.”
At this moment I felt my heart beginning to sink. Sure, anxiety has made me feel that way, but I tend to vent with the hopes someone will verbally slam those negative thoughts out of my head and help stabilize me. But I read on, and Carolyn was about to make a lot of sense.
“If you were a puzzle piece,” she wrote, “you would be a very strangely shaped piece and girls would be the normal shape ones. You don’t fit with a lot of people”.
She then texted me visual aids.
“In a world of this…
… you are this”
“You might come across girls that you click with on the one side, but once they get to know you and see your other irregularities, the girls move on.”
Well fuck me? What the hell am I supposed to do? It made sense! I mean I could make a list of irregularities that would make any sensible girl run and hide. The fact that I write things like this publicly is a good example that would be reasonably high on the list. I alerted Carolyn that “I don’t think I have the ability to change my shape.”
That’s when Carolyn said the most beautiful thing. “You don’t have to change, you just have to
know that you’re a very special shape.”
I feel like if you’re reading this… you’re a special shape too most likely. When Mr. Rogers sang to his audience “You are special to me, you are the only one like you,” you felt like he was talking directly to you. You may have been in this same position. Watching a rom-com and identifying with the guy outside the window with a boombox. Sitting at a friend’s wedding with a slightest ping of jealousy. Listening to that song, that makes you think of that girl, and hoping she’s hearing the same song and thinking of you.
You may find yourself constantly feeling like there’s something wrong with you. You’d be right. But it’s not a bad thing. It just means you have to wait a little longer than the rest, but when you’re a special puzzle piece, you need a piece that fixes just right. It can’t be forced. I’ve had a habit of trying to force a round puzzle piece into the square space. It never worked out as a kid, yet I still at 30 blindly hope that it will.
The reality is if I’m patient, I won’t have to force anything. It just will be. I can just be for you too.
