Sometime it’s not us. Really. It’s them.

I was talking to a girlfriend recently who is knee deep in the strangely delicious yet sometimes sticky quagmire that is dating in our mid [ahem, late, in some cases] thirties.  She’s in that place that can go from giddy, innocent teenager to jaded, self-deflating 20s angst faster than a pop princess costume change.  I assured her that while I am perfectly qualified to give soul-affirming, flawless advice on matters of the heart, I also make things up and refuse to follow my own advice as well as the soul-affirming, flawless advice of pretty much anyone who is still willing to offer me any.

This is the extent of the advice I gave. Because life-coaching is my forte  [no.  it’s not.  even a little.]:

1. Remember that You. Are. Awesome. [that should be # 1.  Always.]
2. Don’t call the boy today. And maybe not tomorrow.  Not because you shouldn’t do whatever you want and fuck the games or the “rules”, but because doing so will make YOU feel like crap because you didn’t want to but you did anyway and now you just feel clingy and icky and weird.
3. If you do call the boy tomorrow, do it because you want to, not because he hasn’t called you and you want to make sure he still likes you and still thinks you smell good and god forbid he’s stopped remembering the way you [insert something cute you do here, I can’t think of anything anyway and because it would sound like I was hitting on you and noticing things that friends usually wouldn’t].
4. Remember that whatever his reason is for seeming a little more distant than he was in weeks 1-3, it probably has precisely nothing to do with you. He’s got a job and family and who knows, maybe an infected hangnail and he’s thinking about whether or not you’ll still like him if he has to have his pinky amputated because, well, that would be weird given our access to modern medical care.  Or maybe he’s just a boy and a human and he’s retreating to his corner for a minute because he’s overwhelmed by how much he likes you and doesn’t want to freak you the fuck out by being all “let’s spend all of our free time going for walks on the beach and feeding each other dim sum and pretending we only like each other a little bit just so we don’t freak each other out”.
5. Remember he likes you. He’s sweet and attentive and gives you butterflies when you’re together.
6. Remember that if #5 changes, for either one of you, for any reason, refer to #1.

This particular friend is crazy smart, talented, beautiful, and funny.   She knows all of these things and would have said the exact same thing to me if the tables were turned (probably with less run-on sentences).  We aren’t teenagers anymore (thank-fucking-god).  We’re not angsty 20-somethings (though I’d kill for my angsty 23 year old tits again).  We have battle scars and hearts that have been broken and glued back together with wine and laughter and love.  We’ve learned, sometimes by falling down the stairs head first with a vodka tonic in hand, that life is bumpy.  And that when you get up and dust yourself off at the bottom of the stairs (and silently congratulate yourself for not spilling your drink); you’ve learned something and are probably better for the tumble.  We’ve also realized that, as women [warning: gross gender specific generalization ahead] we are often willing to make things the fault of something we have done, said, not done or not said before considering that it might not actually have fuckall to do with us – and we usually don’t even realize we’ve done it til one of our friends whacks us in the head with a trout.  Metaphorically speaking (unless your friends are assholes).

But here’s the thing about dating that no decade of experience can drill into your thick, usually logical head; being smitten gives you amnesia.  Every. Single. Time.  It is so easy to forget how awesome we are when we find another human we like and want THEM to know how awesome we are.  The trick is just staying awesome.  Not awesome with a side of censorship.  Not awesome in high heels when you normally wear Chuck Taylors and will probably break an ankle, but damn your ass looks great.  Not awesome at the risk of not being you.  The boy that gives you butterflies might also confuse the shit out of you.  They do that.  But then, we do the same thing to them.  If that boy is your boy, the phase where your self-esteem and awesomeness get squashed by your overthinking stupid girl brain will be short and you can get on with the good parts.  Like dessert (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).