Addressing past hurts:

Going through life sweeping everything under the rug means that a lot of things never truly get sorted out and resolved, just get pushed to the past and ignored. I speak about how a part of me feeling like I wasn't good enough is a result of the worldly mentality that a woman's worth is measured by the presence of a man. A woman without a man in her life is viewed as being single because she is not someone worth being with. If she was, she'd have a man. Having never having a relationship and then having a situation like this happen, it was an accumulation of things, (codename) was just the breaking point.

Something that summarizes what my life has been like is a situation all the way from 6th grade (LOL). In short, I had a crush on a guy that I believed to be out of my league, and he'd often tease me almost to the point of bullying. He eventually ended up having a girlfriend at the same school and he showered her with gifts for Valentine's Day. He came to school with a huge, life-size teddy bear + large gift bag with more things. They were noticed, they were the 'it couple", and once again this was a girl I shared no similarities to. The situation is significant because at the end of the school year, I was having a conversation with a mutual classmate about him and she told me that he liked me the whole time. She said that he wasn't picking on me the whole time for no reason, and she asked him out loud in front of the whole class. He said yeah, "but not anymore".

Imagine that.

Thought he was out of my leauge. Thought he'd never like me. Got to witness him being with someone else... all for him to have been interested in me the whole time. Quit literally the story of my life.

I am not unfamiliar with men being interested in me and being able to acknowledge that I have great qualities, however when it comes to showing up and putting forth effort, everybody continues to fall short. I have not dealt with a lot of men, but when it's a common occurence in the few experiences that I have had, it led me to believe that I was the problem.

---> since we are here, I want to sit on this part for a minute. This is one of the main reasons why I dislike the whole, "just find someone else" mentality. The lack of success and being chosen by men was the thing that had me messed up in the first place. How many men would I have had to go through in order to finally feel like I had something? If... always heavy on the IF, I was to find someone, would it have been real or just an illusion? Would it have been permanent or would it have just been somebody stopping by to use me? How many times would I would've had to dust myself off just to go run and try again, just to keep ending up in the same predicament? This is the type of things that people unknowingly encourage.

Back to it, having self-analyzed and learned more about myself, I also grew to understand why I experienced the things I did in the past. My perspective of things was flawed and based on worldly knowledge, not facts. It is not that I wasn't good enough, it was that I was interested in men/boys that I was not compatible with. The guy in the example, I cannot be certain what became of his life, but last I've known, he got caught up in the side of life that I want no parts of. I missed out on nothing there. There was a situation that I had fully gotten over prior to (codename) and this was another thing that was swept under the rug. This situation will be talked about in another article, but for what matters now, it is another instance of a man "caring" yet choosing to put all of his time and efforts into another woman.

Back then, I never knew the type of man I liked and what I was best compatible with. This was not figured out until recently. I could always give a long list of what I don't like and want, but I have always been very limited in knowing what "right" looked like. When I'd be interested in someone, there was no direction... just shooting for the sun and hoping something good happens. Once I gained knowledge, as I said previously, I learned it is about character and the ability to trust in more than one department. Past deeds and character offer a level of reassurance that words do not, and this is something most people are incapable of giving. The second situation was a boy/man that I was never going to trust or accept. I was upset that he didn't choose to purse things further with me and felt a way because he chose another woman, but in actuality, I never liked him and we would've never worked out.

It's not that I wasn't enough, I just had no direction or understanding. The men that didn't show up didn't because we wouldn't have worked out even if they did and 9/10, they knew that. Being able to understand this helped me to get over a lot of things and move on in peace, and with a fresh slate rather than allowing hate and anger to continue accumulating in my heart.