Don’t Forget About Me

“Tell me your troubles and doubts, giving me everything inside and out.  Love’s strange, so real in the dark.  Think of the tender things that we were working on.  Slow change may pull us apart, when the light gets into your heart.  Don’t you forget about me.  Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you forget about me.  Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling down, down, down.  Will you stand above me, look my way and never love me?  Will you recognize me?  Call my name or just walk on by me?  Don’t you forget about me.” So after reading all of these blogs about me and all my missteps in life over these past two years, I’m sure more than one follower has probably asked themselves “he seems like a nice guy, what the hell is so wrong with him that he can’t keep anyone?” No?, no one has asked that?, oh okay, maybe it’s just me asking myself that at times then? So actually I might finally have found an answer to that question. Not an answer that I necessarily like, but it does ring with some truth to it. A very good friend of mine who I’ve known for many years, and who knows EVERYTHING about me (what can I say?, we have both talked each other off that proverbial ledge a time or two), might actually have summed it up perfectly. Maybe I’m just a “fixer”. Which basically means that anyone that has come into my life during this new chapter of mine, whom I’ve dated, developed real feelings for, and thought to myself this could be real, that I might finally be happy again, is only there for a short time in this journey. That they, just like myself, have been damaged and broken, given up hope of possibly ever finding their own happiness, or their right person to share life with again. And I’m only there to show them that there is still life to enjoy, that they are indeed a catch and have so much to offer anyone that their path comes across. However, unfortunately that’s when my story with them ends. Because maybe I was only there to help fix them somewhat? To help turn the light back on into their heart and also how they feel about themselves, how beautiful that they really are, so that they can truly move on with their life? And I’ve never been so hit hard in the face with a truth bomb before.

And this job (for the lack of a better word here) is not easy for me. While it might be admirable to some, it’s heartbreaking and painful to me. While I’m glad that I was able to help in some small way in their lives so that they can eventually move on and find that right fit for them, the damage it causes me in losing a little piece of my own hope, and my own heart, is not a joyful thing to go thru. In fact, it’s fucking soul-crushing. I start questioning my own self-worth. And maybe it’s all because of my age? (I’m close to a decade older than most that I’ve dated), or my career or my income?, or just blatantly, let’s face it, is it because of my looks? None of those of which I can help. And the two women that I have dated on that verge of having a committed relationship with (or some might say a “situationship”), both in the end decided that someone else was more worthy of dating and spending their time with. And while I try to put a brave face to that fact, it is constantly on my mind. One decided that a ‘bad boy’ was more suitable for her. Someone who has been in-and-out of trouble with the law with all his anger issues over the past two decades. So I can’t compete with that obviously. I’m sure most women who have gone out with me have probably googled me beforehand (because that’s what we all do now right?). And if they were looking for some sort of rebel, they’re going to be greatly disappointed. Hell I don’t even have a parking ticket on my record. The other woman (who I actually did truly believe that I was falling in love with) was someone that I invested a great deal of time over the past two years, an on again/off again friendship in between other people that we each dated during all that time. Someone I considered my best friend, and I honestly do still feel that way now even though I know that we’re now somewhat distant and haven’t even seen each other over drinks or dinner in quite some time like we used to. She’s been dating a guy for a while whom I don’t know or have ever met, but unlike the previously mentioned bad boy, this one seems like a great guy, with a great career. And her sister and several of her friends are all now friends with him on facebook (yea, guilty as charged, I looked on his profile), so they’re all in and excited for her. And they should be, if he can put a smile on her face, make her laugh and help forget some of her own past pain, then I’m actually happy for her….and them. She deserves someone special in her life. So as they like to say, hey, the better man won.

So where does all that leave me then?, the fixer. And why does all this pain keep happening to me? Is it all self-sabotaged maybe?, and my destiny is to continue to help others, while I just keep torturing myself? Or is it because of something I’ve done to someone in a previous life?, or possibly payback for causing some pain in my own marriage many years ago. If so, then I totally understand why all this continues to happen to me. So that’s why I now choose not to “date” anyone for the foreseeable future, and haven’t for awhile now. Even though I do have friends, who all know the hurt I’ve gone thru, and keep introducing me to some women that they know in our favorite bar, I’m just simply tired of it all. Besides, I had one of these women in that same said bar who somehow put 2 and 2 together, and asked me if I’m friends with one of these women that I just mentioned. I was completely truthful with her, and that was that (damn, why do I always have to be so honest right?). Hell, maybe I should find a new favorite bar to post up at?, because much like Cheers, everyone seems to know everyone there. I also have a good friend, someone that I’ve known for over a dozen years now, who is starting to take the steps of her inevitable divorce that’s been a long time coming, yet another one of us who has gone thru dark times and pain. And she has more than hinted that she wants me to be the first one she goes out with as soon as it’s officially over (apparently she’s been thinking about it for awhile now?). But I have a feeling I know where it would eventually go. She would tell me her troubles and doubts, giving me everything inside and out.  And then slow change would pull us apart, when that light finally gets back into her heart. And then that’s when that rain would start falling down on me yet again. I just hope she, and all the others won’t ever forget about me. Even if they one day might look my way as they walk on by, and pretend not to recognize me. I’m so tired of helping to fix others, fuck I’m the one that needs to be fixed. But no matter what, I won’t ever forget about any of them.