Oh No, the Stars are Not Aligned, Sorry

I would like to believe in all things destiny in fate, but every once in awhile my logical brain as well as the ingrained Western values of free will slowly kick in and remind me that I have the ability to control my life and the path it follows. However, in times of uncertainty or when I feel like my life is wholly off-kilter, blaming things like cosmic forces and fatalistic destinies are much easier to absorb than thinking that I effed up my life, consciously. Now, as a curious follower, I do read my horoscope on a daily basis and I always find them so fascinating and utterly amusing. I will even admit when I’m with someone and I find out their birthday I google those crazy horoscope compatibility charts to see if our star signs align. Apparently Leos are good for me haha.

So as I read my daily horoscope and come across days where it tells me I will meet a mysterious stranger who sweeps me off my feet or I will follow my horrible Aries ways and come on too strong too early and kill the poor soul of a weak man, I couldn’t help but wonder what my love life would be like if I examined it as if it was pre-destined and horoscopes were my daily hints of what’s to come.

In sociology there is this great concept of self-fulfilling prophecies. Basically when someone tells you that you’re going to be a certain way enough, you begin to believe them. Case in point I tell myself how awesome I am and I totally believe it. So, therefore, if I convince myself that whatever my horoscope hints at is going to happen, it should happen right? That’s what the “Secret” is about right? Visualizing things coming into your life. It could work.

Maybe I should screw trying to control everything in my life and take some advice from the cosmos and think “no worries, someone else is taking care of it”. Some people may think that’s too constraining or that it extinguishes any sort of purpose to their lives if they know that someone else is in charge. However, to me knowing that someone or something else is taking care of it, well it’s kind of comforting. Because well, if I don’t find love, then I know it’s not me to blame, it was only just my purpose.

Fear and Loathing in New York

Given that I blog about relationships and the mentalities of men and women you’d think I would be way more cautious and understand what I do with a deeper more poignant perspective. Who am I kidding? Let’s admit this, I suck at dating, but I’m great at giving advice about it.

I have been in and out of the dating world for the last 3 years or so. But let’s be real honest, how many of those guys were really relationships material? Probably none, but that’s not really the point I suppose. The point really is the fact that I am so freakin’ clueless when it comes to that in between stage of being with someone or not being with someone. Like most of my life, things are lived in absolutes. Black and white. Loathe and love. So, for most of my life I have either known life as being single and ready to mingle or as a girlfriend. Rarely in my life have I had to deal with the dating purgatory that is well…dating. Odd how that works out.

One of my biggest character flaws, and one I’m not so sure I want to change is my passion. I’m deeply involved in things that I care for and deeply oppose things that are outside my realm of liking. This transcends many areas of my life especially dating. As many people around me know, understand and try to accept, is the fact that rarely if ever do I find a man that I find is worth my time and effort. I call it my sixth sense, or my gut instinct that allows me to guide my life in this manner. (However, this is currently up for debate as I will describe later). So, when life throws me subtle surprises, a nice wonderful man will come around and it will start playing in my mind as this “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, what do I do not to fuck this up?” mentality. To ensure this non-fuckedupness I do what I do extraordinarily well…analyze the hell out of everything. I’m still trying to figure out who I picked this trait up from… I’ll blame mom for the time being.

Anyways, so my mind starts going on overdrive. I start analyzing sentences, words, gestures, anything I possibly can. Now you may be wondering, 1) how does she have this much time to worry and 2) where is this worrying coming from? Or maybe you don’t care about either, but anyways I’m going to tell you. First off, lack of sleep leaves plenty of time to think and where does this worry come from? Well where else? Fear.

One thing I have come to realize throughout dating, both in my experiences and hearing other people’s thoughts is the simple fact that we let fear dictate so much of what we do and how we interact with people. If you really analyze a lot of what you do throughout any given day a majority of the steps you take are based on certain fears, subconscious or conscious. I mean why else do books like “Culture of Fear” exist. So, the question is then, how do you change your life from letting fear reside to letting in love and letting that rule your world?

That’s my dilemma. I have been so closed off from love or anything that resembles feelings of love that I look at it with trepidation and with fear that I am so desperately trying to remove from my life. The best advice I can give in this though is to follow the advice of one of my friends and “just shut the hell up.” I know he meant it in the most lovingly way, but women so many of us do this. We are perpetual word vomiters who say any and everything that is in our heads and more dangerously, in our hearts. I cannot even imaging how overwhelming that can be for a guy, well I guess I can imagine simply because it’s overwhelming enough inside of me that I throw it up over onto someone else! So, I’m up for playing the game… even though I hate games and think they are really emotionally taxing for no good reason, compromises are in order to let love creep back in.