Men, See Her For Who She Is Or Lose Her Forever

I’ve been where you’re at, bud.

You’re not so sure about her. You love her, but she might not be the right one for you. But you don’t want to leave, either. You’re taking you and your beloved on a little relationship two-step dance, one foot in, one foot out.

I get it, you’ve got your doubts. You’re still young: you think you’ve got lots of time to go find other girls. Some may be prettier, thinner, bigger boobs and tighter buns. Some may be more in line with your image of perfection, the manic pixie dream girl to end your long search for a soulmate and who’ll be there to cater to your every needs.

You’re not completely to blame for wanting what you think you want. Generations of heterosexual men grow up with this ideal, a woman as an achievement no different than a sports car or a flashy job. You can’t be blamed for not knowing why you do what you do at first, but now that you know, you can take responsibility for what you do with your indoctrination.

Believe me: you’ve been programmed since kindergarten to grow up and look for the perfect trophy woman to hang off your arm, and she probably looks nothing like the girl you’re with now.

You’ve probably convinced yourself that she’d be good enough…for someone else. You probably just “like” the nice things she does for you, the way she smiles at you, supports you in all you do, even when you’re being an asshole. But she doesn’t light you up like that image of perfection you carry around in your back pocket. Maybe silently, or not so silently, you’ve compared her real life traits to that list you’ve written in your mind and found her to be lacking.

After all, aren’t we supposed to be always lit up by relationships? Don’t they have to be like they appear in the movies, in the songs and ballads?

Maybe you’re ready to pull away, to call a break and get your space, to shatter her heart, but allow a gentle settling of the shards over time rather than a single fatal blow.

If that’s where you’re at, my friend, take it, one man to another: don’t do it. Don’t break the heart of a woman who chose you, who loves you, who offers you something real.

Instead, take that hammer to your image of perfection, to your story of a soulmate.

If we’re to kill the Buddha when we meet him on the road to Enlightenment, then we should also destroy, in the same vein, the illusion of the Dream Girl. She doesn’t exist anywhere but in your way of seeing.

If you could just see the flesh and blood woman before you, and appreciate her for who she is independently of anything she can give you…maybe you’ll see your soulmate has been in front of you the whole time.

Go look at her.  Go see your utterly imperfect, intelligent, quirky, beautiful, one-of-a-kind beloved in all of her flaws and deviations from the commercial standard. Look at her, and let yourself fall fully in love, maybe for the first time. Let yourself feel lit up by her unique light.

Go do it now. Don’t do what too many of us have done, and wait until after you’ve taken that hammer to your beloved’s heart to see what you should have seen from the beginning: that you have everything you’ve truly wanted right in front of you, right now, in the form and spirit of a real-life human being who chose you, and the only thing getting in your way was your illusion of how it “should” look.

Don’t wait until after she’s taken her away her love because she grew tired of your relationship two-step. Don’t wait until after she’s chosen someone else.  Don’t wait until after she’s stepped off the dancefloor. My regret will mark me the rest of my life: so will yours. 

Kill your illusions. See her for who she is and love her, as she is. Or lose her forever.

It’s your call.