One of the hardest things to acknowledge in life is that the people we have dated in the past were not all bad people. Sure, it's easy to focus on flaws during breakups and it has certainly made me feel better to demonize exes, but at the end of the day, who they are holds value.
That's why dating is so damn confusing. Every day we have opportunities to meet people. We spend hours communicating with new people online or in texts, typing out our feelings, waiting for the chime of a new message. We wait for those messages to fill the void of old messages lost.
We wait for a new partner to warm our bed the way an older partner used to. We do this because it feels good and because it's natural.
But somewhere along the way, society and the age of social media forced us to constantly be in search of "something better." What innocently started as looking for a better cell phone or a better TV, eventually became the hunt for a better significant other.
I am SO guilty of this. I have gone on different dates and compared one guy to the next. I have talked to guys, comparing them to exes, looking for that ever-elusive "better guy".
The problem is, the ones I started with were never bad. I sift through messages from exes that still check in, still want me to be happy and successful. I think back to old voicemails left for me, love notes found on my kitchen counter, and all the text exchanges we had throughout the course of our relationship.
The thing is, I was never looking for "better." I was looking for "better FOR ME."
I don't know why we turn everything so negative. Honestly, I don't want my exes to find someone better than me because I firmly believe I treated them all lovingly and with respect. All I want is for them to find someone that is a better FIT for them. I want them to be happy and for someone to care as much for them as I did and more.
We have to stop selling ourselves this line that there is better out there. Better than what? Sure, there are bad relationships out there. But at what point did you stop seeing the good in people? There are qualities in every single human being that we can find that we do not like. Just as there are qualities in me that I know others don't favor. And that is OK!
In life, the only thing I truly want is to be understood.
I want someone to just be in sync with me and feel they are as much a good fit for me as I am for them. I don't want someone better than my exes. I don't want someone better than the guy that left notes on my kitchen counter. I don't want someone better than the guy that bought me books on feminism at a book fair and brought them to me. I don't want someone better than the guy that would go out of his way to not let me pay for things. I don't want someone better than the guy that was secretly reading all of my articles for months, even though he said he hated relationship reads. I don't want someone better than any of that because I know I still deserve ALL of that.
I only want someone that feels I am the perfect fit for them, as they are for me.
We have to stop convincing ourselves there is always better because we end up missing all the good we already have.
There is not a relationship I regret and I would never look at any of those men and tell them I found better. All I could ever say is, "I hope you found the right fit." Because at the end of the day, that's what we ALL deserve. The right fit.
Feminism Redefined
