PreciousChild
Platinum Member
@willhealeventually, that sounds like a good plan to explore your preferences and what works for you. It sounds like you're navigating both your internal landscape and the dating landscape in your search for love and companionship. I think that dealing with our internal lives is the more challenging and more important in finding love. But I also find that the other, especially a romantic other, can embrace us and lift us up in ways that are healing and life-affirming and in ways that we cannot do for ourselves. The problem, of course, is that you can't control the other, not who you meet, or how they'll be, or what they'll do. And if they are dysfunctional, they could even make our lives far worse than if we were alone. I spent the past dozen years working on healing, and mostly being disappointed by dating, and in fact horrified by some of my experiences. But when I look back, I also see that I didn't have readiness - I can think of a few men that were really nice that I thought were "boring" or in some way not right for me. From my point of view now, I probably felt uncomfortable with kind attention and stuck to dysfunctional men which was what I was more familiar with. All of this was unconscious. As I healed, I also became more comfortable with genuine love and respect. I don't think it's a coincidence that after a decade of not finding a "real" relationship, I've had two in three years (my ex bf was not ultimately a good fit, but benefited me in numerous ways). I guess my path has been a positive one if a long, challenging road. I wish you the best in your journey for love. If it's good, it will be really, really good. I pray that you can endure all the yuckiness along the way.
