The Movie Always Ends With Me Crying On The Docks

I'm 26 years old and I have never had a boyfriend.

Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of and wanted to fall in love. I come from a big family with lots of children and I always pictured myself married with at least 4. And even though time passed me by and I never had a teenage romance or even ones in college that materialized into anything (I graduated a virgin despite having dated a couple of guys casually there was only one I considered sleeping with and he handily screwed that up) I never gave up hope. I just kept telling myself I hadn't met the right person, or maybe I just needed to put myself out there more or I had a lot of growing up to do...just anything to explain why no one had picked me.

Pick me. That's all I really wanted I realized. And as the years continued to roll by I started wondering if there wasn't anything wrong with me? I'd been so supremely confident all of my life that I was amazing, even in my uglier teenage phases (I'd love to burn all of those pictures from back then now) and after a while I started to doubt myself and think perhaps I wasn't amazing. Why didn't men want me for their girlfriend?

I can honestly say I am a smart, goofy, nerdy straight forward, honest and kind person. My main flaws are probably that I'm pretty blunt and opinionated at times but that factors into my honesty. I'm not close minded, I love to try new things and I have a lot of spirit and spunk. I don't think I'm perfect by any means but I'm pretty damn awesome. And I would say I'm moderately attractive anyway. I have seen people less attractive than I am in relationships. I have friends who are complete bitches who have boyfriends, the simpering type but nonetheless they are loved.

I see all of this and wonder, why NOT me? After one disastrous half romance after the other I thought perhaps it was simply the men I was attracting? Most of them looked at me as a conquest or proof that they could have me I was told by other men who were their friends. People saw me as intimidating and the only men brave enough to approach me were lotharios. So finally I decided well I simply would have to approach someone myself if they weren't getting the signals. Maybe I needed to be more proactive in the choosing.

And so I did. After hanging out with various people I met someone who I developed a crush on. And I do not crush easily. This was the first time I'd felt this way about someone in 3 years. It got to the point where I couldn't even go where he was going to be unless I looked absolutely amazing. I would come home and lay in my bed with the stupidest grin on my face and imagine where we would go and what we would do...if only he would ask me for my phone number? And he seemed at least mildly interested but I was terrified of being rejected. I'd never asked a guy for his phone number before. And he was of a different racial background. What if he didn't like women of my racial background? The doubts swirled in me and weighed me down but finally I got brave enough and I did it.

And he asked me on a date. And we went out. Week after week on one enchanting date after the next. I was scared to really get into it because I was like this never happens to me. Ever. I never get to be happy. Surely he'll tell me he has a girlfriend, or he's actually gay, or he finally got his vision corrected and he thought I was someone else. All of my doubts were based on the past disasters. I was WAITING for a disaster to come and ruin this but after a whole month it didn't and one night we had so much fun together he stayed the night and we didn't even have sex we spent a lot of it talking and just laying in bed and half the morning in bed and all he could talk about is how he felt so incredibly lucky to even just be in the bed with someone as beautiful as I was. And he stayed there staring at me, playing in my hair, laying on my legs talking about how beautiful they were...I felt so wonderful to even be fussed over and he didn't let go of my hands until the last second he walked out of the door and he got far enough away that he was no longer in my reach.

Then I decided it was okay to have feelings. And I did. And a couple weeks later we agreed to only be dating each other and we consumated the relationship. And then it all went down hill from there.

I'm really not sure why. I'll never be sure I guess. I tried to figure out what was going on or what happened. We did go out a couple of times after that and he seemed perfectly fine on the dates, even more enamored but the times in between were strained with silence. The text messages about how wonderful I was stopped. My feelings were slowly getting crushed but I refused to play games, become petty or hate him. I told him I wanted to talk more. He seemed enthusiastic. So I called him and he would always answer but he seemed pretty uncomfortable on the phone. As things began to deteoriate I asked if we could maybe meet up face to face (my intentions were to ask if he wanted to continue seeing me but I framed the invitation as a date). He said sure and he would call me back and tell me when. He never did call me back and after that he acted like he practically didn't know me when he would see me. Finally I realized my efforts were pointless. I was trying to save something that the other person wasn't interested in. And I couldn't figure out why.

I felt like an idiot. Why did I even believe this was going to turn into something? Because he seemed like he was falling for me? I rented the Little Mermaid recently. It was my favorite movie as a girl. I'd ask my dad to rent it every time he went to the video store no matter what happened to be out. The last time I watched it my friend made fun of me because I cried, but now a days I always get really sad at the part where Ariel gets left on the docks crying while Prince Eric sails away with Ursula to get married. I know Ariel will get Eric in the end, but for me I feel like the movie ALWAYS stops there. That's the end.

I wasn't in love with this boy but I really felt like I showed him the very best of me and he just left without any explanation. He just checked out. And I was such a fool to believe anything good could happen to me romantically. I almost felt like once things started going well I should have taken off in the other direction because good things don't happen to me in love. They just...don't.

Lastly I lost respect for him. I just feel like at the age we're at people should be able to express why they don't want to see you anymore. I never did anything negative to him nor did I do anything to not deserve a respectful bowing out. I was always honest with him and I really stepped up and out in this situation only to be left wondering why I wasn't good enough?

Deep down inside I know I haven't lost faith that I'll ever fall in love but it's hard to find reasons to justify why it will happen anymore. And some people don't ever fall in love or get married. I don't want to be one of those people. I can't even look to getting married yet. All I want is to have one wonderful relationship in my lifetime. That's it. I'll never be sure why that's so much to ask for someone like me who is really a great person when so many other people experience it all the time sometimes a couple of relationships a year.

One time where it doesn't end with me crying on the docks with the sun about to set on the 3rd day. Is that truly so much to ask?