Back on the horse...

In a certain stage after you reach your twenties, all the aunties start asking you the dreaded question: “So when are you going to get a serious boyfriend?”
In the beginning you might choke or stutter and mutter something about not finding the right person yet. And although after a while you learn to avoid the question, change the subject or give premeditated lame excuses… it never ceases to bother you that you can’t simply answer “I already got one”… and then stick your tongue out at them.

There’s an ocean of “men” out there but very few worth fishing… And it might be all easy to say that you’re on the market and looking… it’s much harder actually finding someone worth keeping. Especially since most people out there are into “open” relationships or colourful friendships and no one really wants to take time off their busy schedule to work on something that “might” just develop into something more serious and worthwhile.

And then you find someone worth dating…

You didn’t meet him at a nightclub; he isn’t someone you work with or a member of any gang. In fact, he’s the kind of guy you could take home to meet your mother… and grandmother. He doesn’t dress funny, use foul language or talk about himself non-stop and eventually he finds the courage to ask you out. You feel comfortable around him and talking to him so dating should be a piece of cake right?

Not! No matter how much you try to see dating as a natural encounter, you will still take extra special care on your appearance… to the point of trying your whole wardrobe at least twice and end up wearing the first thing you put on. This wasn’t just on the first date… you find yourself wanting to make the effort each time you go out together.

After the initial break-the-ice conversation you begin enjoying each other’s company and find that he might be more than the cute face you first noticed. Conversation sways from interests to likes and dislikes and after a while you find yourself talking about what is and isn’t acceptable in a relationship. When you’re aware of all that’s happening you realise that you’ve actually set the ground rules for something that’s developing into what your parents have been praying for.

Where’s my suitcase???!!!!!

On contraire to what most men think… women don’t run from nice guys. No, this isn’t another case when the girl passes on the nice guy on a white horse for Mr Muscles on a bike. Sometimes the right opportunity comes at the wrong time. Sometimes people enter your life too early… or too late. It’s like that promotion that you really wanted but you know you weren’t qualified for. You bide your time trying to gain ground but you know that it will take time before you’re ready to fill those shoes.

I’d describe this situation more as the test of the desert. When you’ve been walking for a long time in the hot desert, you sweat and you hurt and you dream of a cool oasis to fulfil your every basic desire. You begin imagining an oasis just a mile away but when you get there all you find is what you’ve seen everywhere else… dry, hot sand. The disappointment is heart wrenching and soul degrading. The illusion of an oasis, these bittersweet mirages always seem more real than the last one but after many disappointments you learn to walk past them so not to waste any more time and energy. There will be times when one will really look like the real thing and it is punishment to an exhausted soul to have to keep walking past it. You can’t deny the truth that you might be walking past the real thing, but you can’t afford to risk another disappointment that could potentially mean the life or death of your soul.

There are times in our lives when the simplest of decisions can tear our hearts apart. The decisions we make are part of the people we become and define our characters. They are compulsory factors of our lives. Even the most successful executive businessmen that makes dozens of important decisions a day will have times in where they’d wish they didn’t have to make a decision. A decision goes hand in hand with responsibility, the minute you’ve made one, you become responsible for it. Life would be easier if you were told what to do. You wouldn’t be forced to make them or to assume responsibility for them and could always blame someone else for those that go wrong.

No matter how much you run; there are decisions that are inevitable. You can avoid them but at some point you will have to make them either way. For someone who’s used to his or her own company and enjoys spending time alone, dating is a hard challenge. You become aware that you are no longer just responsible for your feelings but for the feelings of a second person as well.

Getting on the horse is easy. Getting back on after you’ve fallen is hard but getting back on after you’ve fallen many times is mental and physical torture. You see the horse as a potential enemy with the power of seriously hurting you and even though you cannot blame it for all the other times you fell off, you can’t help but fear the repetition or pain. But no matter how many times you fall off, you eventually get back on… Why? Because life is simply not worth living unless you can ride it for all it’s worth, feeling the wind in your hair and riding into the sunset is what makes life worth living.