Honeymoon's Up

I'm ridiculously impatient. It's one of my worst character traits, and it always has been-- ask my mother. I was one of those kids who started digging my elbow into her side in the supermarket when I thought that the conversation she was having with the acquaintance she had bumped into in aisle 4 had gone on for long enough, and I was getting hungry. Maybe it's because I'm an only child-- I've always wanted the show to be about ME. I am my own circus. There's a fire under my ass, and I don't have time to wait in line for other people's side acts. At times, this makes dating and relationships-- with ANYONE-- extremely trying.

I try really hard to rein it in, I do. At first, in the honeymoon phase, it's so easy. I can be patient because at first, it always seems great and like it's the answer to all your prayers. I'm as chill as I can possibly be, because I'm out to prove that I am a chill girl who he wants to be spending his time with and on. In the starting phases of any relationship, the "Meet and Greet," if you will, he's excited about you, you're excited about him, neither of you want to leave the other alone. I live for this phase-- I love getting to know people and love spending night sitting up, talking...call it the journalist in me, but I love to know their dirt and what drives them and what they're passionate about. Responses are instantaneous. Someone wants to know what you're doing, all the time. They're asking to see you, making plans, taking charge. God, it's so exhilarating and hot, especially if your previous relationship's attitude on keeping in touch and making plans was decidedly not.

But if this sort of stamina could be kept up, we'd all be in grand romances. As I think we all notice when we look around, we're not. Suddenly, you realize it's been a week since he asked you what night you're free so he can see you. You sit in front of your computer or phone waiting for a answer to a question for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and then give up and move on. And since you've already covered all the exciting shit about yourselves, conversations are a little more...mundane. After years of reading Cosmo and Glamour and women's magazines, we all know the little tricks to seem more endearing and make sure that you're still in the picture-- making sure to ask them questions about themselves and their day by bringing up specific details to prove that you listened and are interested, sending the cute little random "thinking of you!" messages, pulling your own weight by doing half of the communicating, surprising them with little things from bringing home that new action flick he's been dying to see to sending random sexts to make sure to keep things spiced up, yadda, yadda, yadda. We know we have to be nice. We know we have to be sweet, and entertaining, and patient. A week ago, maybe he was sweeping you off your feet, but this one, maybe he needs to lean on you a little bit. Or maybe you're both getting a little complacent, and there's not that fervent need to prove to the other that you're soooo into them every time you talk. But even when I know everything is copasetic, making me wait 20 minutes to get back to me about something I asked or abruptly leaving a conversation can really get me going and turn me all indignant. And that's when you realize, in a blinding flash of abject horror: Different guy, same shit.

Newness always works like a Band-Aid for a girl's down-and-out dating ego, but feels like a bitch when it wears off and your current Prince Charming is just as late in coming as your previous one was. Are we really ever any better off, or is the grass just always greener on the other side?

XOXO

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