Confessions of a Serial Monogamist

I can easily admit that I can be seen as one of those girls who are serial, monogamous daters. Jumping from one relationship to another, and in between relationships, consistently getting my heart wound up by different men. I wear my heart on my sleeve: pretty words, tender compliments, and promises of longevity and a future together have always been my kryptonite.

Everything was just easier when I had someone with me. Someone loving me, telling me how important we were to each other, and then eventually leading to a heartbreaking end. I would hurt, I would feel terrible, but it never lasted long.

I would bounce back with someone new who would come along, even though the majority of the time I wasn’t even looking for someone. They would simply be dropped into my life, and I would think, he’s different. He understands me, appreciates me, adores me. And then, as the cycle continued, I would be in a relationship once more.

I always knew I gave my one hundred percent to any man that ever came along, and then some. The only issue with that was that it left me with nothing. I spent so much time putting my effort, love, and energy into this one person that there was nothing left for the people in my life who had truly been there consistently and mattered. My family, my friends, and often times my hobbies got pushed aside in my attempt to surround myself with a halo of love and affection for the current individual in my life. I pushed everyone and everything else out and only let him inside.

Often times I would settle. Emotionally, mentally, and physically. I would settle for someone who gave me barely a quarter of the affection in which I showered them with, and it just hurt me. It broke me and tore me apart, and eventually it would be unbearable. Settling always led to this; feeling unappreciated and unloved, the paradoxical opposites from what they made me feel at the beginning of the relationship.

I have always felt a multitude of reasons behind being with someone who is not really good for me or someone who doesn’t put in the same amount of affection as I do. There’s the societal aspect of feeling worthless unless I, as a female, am paired up with another individual. There’s also the fear that I will wind up alone and the owner of twelve cats by my thirties unless I find someone now.

But as I have learned this past while of being single, this is undeniably not the case. By rejecting someone and saying, “I deserve better than what you are giving me”, I am allowing myself to be open to a broader range of individuals who truly are willing to give me that one hundred percent, and then some. But only when the time is right. I am moving on, nipping it in the bud, and not settling for someone who will not give me what I truly deserve.

Singlehood isn’t easy, as I’ve begun to find out, but it’s a path that I have to pass through. I will love somebody, I want to love somebody, but with time. I want to get to know them as a person, as an individual who is my friend, someone I can trust and care for before I commit myself to them. I want to learn to love myself wholeheartedly before I promise to love someone again.

I want to spend time with my family, reconnect with old friends, and go for girls nights again. I want to cuddle up in my blankets and finish an entire book in one sitting without worrying about texting back the next boy who messages me, because frankly, I will probably learn more from a three hundred paged novel than from any twenty-something boy. I want to learn how to embrace myself. I want to learn how to love myself without feeling the need of having someone else’s love validating me.

Tags : Coming of Age, confessions, dating, Dating for Women, Girlzone, lifestyle, Love, Relationships, serial monogamist, serial monogamous dater, serial monogamy, singlehood, Twenty-Something