Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Good People in Search of Good People (part 2)


 I have a few questions I want to ask.  I believe that finding the honest answers to these questions can help quite a few of us break some cycles that keep repeating themselves in our relationships. Taking an honest look at the real answers to these questions may just be eye-opening for some.  I know it was for me.


Is your TYPE keeping you from finding the man or woman of your dreams?  Do you have a certain image in your mind that you have carried around for so long that you can't imagine the right one being anything but that?  Do you automatically write a person off because they don't fit a certain image?  How has that been working for you?

Let me share from personal experience what I mean when I ask, "Is your TYPE keeping you single?"  It dawned on me a few years ago that if you took every man I've been seriously interested in and lined them up next to each other, you would have 2 types.  


The first group  of men would all be about my complexion, my height.  They would all have very similar body build, not big or muscular, not too slim, medium athletic build.  They would all have similar hair cut and mostly all have similar noses and lips, and a certain look in their eyes.  I can think of 3 of them right now that if I were to stand them next to each other and tell you they were all related, you wouldn't doubt it for a minute.


The second group of men would all be dark-skinned, as tall as I am or maybe a couple of inches taller, slightly larger build, southern or more old fashioned.  As far as personalities, they were one extreme or the other, either very friendly, talkative and open, or somewhat distant,or what some call "emotionally unavailable". These have been my two "types my whole life, and I can tell you that none of these relationships lasted  and some never started (that's another blog) .  But the bad thing is, I never found any other type attractive enough to be interested in. There are some that I find more physically attractive but I never considered them, or that type as relationship material. I kept falling for the same kind of men over and over and I kept getting disappointed. 


So I had to really look at myself and ask myself what was really going on.  It couldn't be that all these guys were jerks because none of them were.  I was very attracted to what I saw in their personalities, how they behaved, even toward me.  One thing for sure was that the common denominator in every equation of my broken heart was ME, not the guy.  Each guy was different but I was always the same.   


  I had to come to understand that something about my picker was off.  It had a magnet on the end of it that kept drawing me to the same types of men, with the same types of personalities and even the same kinds of physical features. 


Once I realized this tendency within myself, I began to pray to God and ask Him to help me to let go of some of what I've been holding on to because obviously it wasn't working.  I surrendered my type to God and opened my heart up to the possibility that maybe, just maybe the person I am meant to share my life with may not look like the ones I've always fallen so hard for in the past. I had to open myself up to the idea that a wonderful man might come in a package that's a little different from my usual type.

I know a man who is physically what I would normally be attracted to... dark skinned, about my height, kinda strong willed, (quite strong-willed actually..turn off) but I know I'm nowhere near what he would find interesting because he likes women with big butts and short hair cuts.  That's his type.  And can I tell you that I've seen him in about 4 relationships that didn't work.  Each woman had short hair, a smaller waist, and either a big butt or wide hips, or both.  I know another man whose current wife is nothing more than a younger version of his ex wife.  When I saw the two of them, I thought he just went and found his wife again, only he found her before she changed, aged or matured to a certain point.  If the two stood side by side, they would look like an aunt and a niece. I know another man who wanted his ex wife back and couldn't get her back so he married someone who reminded him of his ex wife.  She is so much like his ex wife that it's actually the reason someone introduced them.   She is just like his ex wife was before she reached a certain level of maturity.  This current wife looks nothing like the ex wife, but when you are in her presence you can feel her spirit and personality are very similar to how the ex wife was years before.  So we can be stuck on a physical type, or an emotional, mental, or personality type without realizing it. 

So with that in mind I ask you to look at your history of failed relationships and find the pattern, because there is one.  You may not have noticed anything but your back to back disappointments and broken hearts but those are the results of a pattern.  You need to find the pattern, but you won't find it in the other people.  Even though there are similarities in all of them, they are simply a result of a pattern that exists within you.  The pattern is within YOU and your tendencies to make the same choices with different people.


I'm not saying that it's wrong to like what you like.  We all have our personal preferences.  What I'm saying is that once you take an honest look at what has been going on, you might want to try opening up to something slightly different.  Give yourself permission to believe in the possibility of falling in love with someone who doesn't look or act like what you would normally fall for. 




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