lessons earned

WARNING: This post ended up being longer than I thought

Let's talk about education. More specifically, education in the dating world. Before Mr. Y Not I dated some, although never had a serious relationship. However, I still learned something from each guy. Every one of these lessons showed me what I really want (and don't want) in a life partner. They also helped open me up and accept another person into my life.

Here are the lessons that I learned along the way (in no specific order, and each number does not necessarily represent one person).

#1 taught me to be more a part of the relationship; this is hard to explain without going into one of the few details of our “relationship” that I always think back to. I was 15, he asked me to join him for his track event one day, and I didn’t go. I had reasons that I felt were justified, but I didn’t tell him what those were. Even though that only lasted 3 weeks, I pin point that occurrence as one of the reasons we didn’t work out. (And, hello, I was 15! It wouldn’t have lasted anyway)

#2 finally taught me to talk about anything. This dude seriously NEVER shut up. Our first date lasted 5 hours, not because it was anything fantastic, but because he wouldn’t stop talking! It wasn’t always interesting either. But, I finally got the hint that I don’t have to keep my thoughts in, I can share them with my partner.

#3 taught me that I deserve better. He wasn’t there for me, and he didn’t really care at all about building a relationship together. Eventually I accepted this (although I admit it took longer than it should have).

#4 is a lesson I learned later, but relates back to this person. I was really picky about the smallest things, with this guy, I didn’t like his face. Now, it wasn’t that he had a massive mole on the tip of his nose or that he had a third eye. There wasn’t anything wrong with his face, I just came to the conclusion that it looked too plastic. Yes, too plastic. It was like he had just gotten Botox or something and his face never showed emotion. I eventually realized I was petty to even list this as a flaw, and that no one is perfect.

#5 taught me that just because I like some country music, that doesn’t mean I should date a cowboy. (oh wait, #4 Plastic Face was also a cowboy)

#6 taught me that I wanted someone who was responsible and financially stable. Even though money can't buy you love, I like to know that my man can take care of me.

#7 taught me to just go for it! Alright, this was the result of more than one guy that I didn’t give a chance to. My friends would tell me “so-and-so likes you, do you like him?” For some reason I always got defensive and said no, even if I didn’t really know the person. I needed to give these guys a chance so that I could learn lessons like everything above.

My list of what I was looking for in a guy became something like this:

• Taller than me (this has been on my list FOREVER, and let's admit, it's not too difficult to find)

• Makes me laugh

• Honesty (a HUGE requirement for me)

• No games (this goes along with the honesty, but I've had guys play the game with me and I was so over it! I vowed to be so open with my guy that I could tell him ANYTHING.)

• Makes me/our relationship a priority

• Responsibility/Financially stable (see above)

I'm sure there was more, but not that I can think of at this moment. This list, along with the lessons I had learned eventually led me to Mr. Y Not. Why? Y Not? (hehe, I've been wanting to do that!)

Mr. Y Not is 6'6”, big fat check mark on the taller than me requirement. We laugh together, and he definitely has the responsibility and financial stability down pat. Since I held honesty as such a high priority, he knew about this before we even met in person (have I mentioned that we met online yet?). We tell each other anything which goes along with no games. This telling each other anything has proved very valuable in our relationship. I believe this is why we don't fight (yes, I know, everyone says that we will fight eventually. While I'd like to think that we will keep up our streak, we both understand that there could be a fight at some point.), whoa, long tangent. Anyway, we disagree once in awhile, but we discuss it rather than argue.

I am the #1 priority in Mr. Y Not's life. Let me explain how this came to be so important. This goes along with #3 from above. This person played a lot of video games and a common occurrence would be me going to visit him, and him playing a game for HOURS, leaving me to fend for myself. Mr. Y Not is also a gamer, but it doesn't cause a problem for us. This is entirely because he makes our relationship a priority. He still gets plenty of time to play his games, it just doesn't have to happen during our time together.

Are there things I would change about our relationship? Yes. However, there are only 2 things I would change if I could. I don't want to go into them, but they are out of our control. Besides, I'd say 2 things is pretty small a number.

I could go on about all of the things I love about Mr. Y Not, but this post was more about the lessons I've learned along the way and how they have played into my current relationship, besides it's gotten long enough already. He is a fantastic person who has proved time and again that we are a great match. He meets my requirements and then some.