Once upon a time, long before I came to terms with my sexuality and married the love of my life, I dated boys. And for some reason, they all seemed to be a little… off. I never really managed to attract any guys who were willing to offer me a nice, normal relationship. Instead, all I got were men who brought absurd amounts of drama and insanity into my life.
- I’m terribly afraid that like attracts like. Correction: I’m pretty convinced of it. Looking back, there are similarities between my over-the-top lovers, such as patterns of behavior, certain traits, specific personality quirks — all things that spoke to something in me as wel.
- I empathize with the awkward. Let me preface this by saying that I know not all awkward people are crazy or clingy or off-keel. I’m just saying that my own awkwardness and my tendency to include wallflowers — people who are shy, awkward, quiet, et cetera — has resulted in more than a few screwed up relationships. Not all awkward people are OTT, but a lot of relationship-crazy individuals are awkward.
- I have a bit of a savior complex. “Oh, hey, I just met someone with a reputation for leaving drama, destruction, and heartbreak in her or his wake. That’s okay! I’ll fix it!” Every single time. From dysfunctional families and overbearing parents to pathological lies and emotional abuse, I tried to fix so many of my exes. I never succeeded, by the way.
- Drama is kind of addicting sometimes. Not for everyone, just for me. I’m gritting my teeth as I admit it, because my wife will never let me hear the end of it, but there it is. I have a flare for the dramatic myself. When dating dramatic people, I can now own up to the part I played in stoking the flames of more melodramatic scenes than I can count.
- I think I enabled way too much crap. Duh, right? I allowed the drama. I allowed the lies, the crappy behavior, the cheating, the controlling, the temper tantrums – I own that, too. I have to because it’s way too convenient to absolve myself by acting like it just happened. I enabled the crazy. Love, or a reasonable facsimile, successfully blinded me to great heaping piles of BS for much too long.
- I’m pretty sure self-esteem is a factor. Maybe not for everyone, but it definitely was for me. My self-esteem wasn’t just low, it depended on validation and acceptance from other people, mainly because I didn’t accept myself. That left me open, vulnerable, and eager for any attention, even if it ended up being negative – or crazy.
- It’s one of the pitfalls of settling. In nearly every case, I settled for the guys who were available and interested in me just so I looked normal and wasn’t alone. I’m not proud of it, but that’s life in the closet. It’s why I’m a firm proponent of never lowering your standards just to find someone — the resulting chaos isn’t worth it.
- Crazy can disguise itself as exuberance. Lavish compliments, grand declarations of love, extravagant gestures – when crazy courts you, it’s over the top. I fell for it every. single. time. Looking back, I see I was so desperate for acceptance and something like love that I clung to any compliment or gesture of affection. Ew, young me. Ew.
- We sort of fed off each other. The drama, the big gestures, the poetic promises — I fed into all of it, too. Not always, and not forever, but I have to admit there were times I let myself ignore every warning in favor of the plastic perfection we created. Vicious cycles are vicious for a reason, you know.
- Yeah, I’m probably a little crazy, too. As it turns out, my fairy tale love comes from someone who balances me, not from someone who carts me off to Crazytown on date night. Granted, my dramatic tendencies are probably rubbing off on my wife a little, but she stopped the cycle for sure — and she still lets me act like a little drama queen when the compulsion strikes. Get you a girl or a guy like that, y’all.