Annoying Things People Say After A Break-Up: “There are other fish in the sea.”

“There are other fish in the sea.”

First off, I find it so bizarre that people keep saying this to me. I get that it’s an idiom and all but come on, you’re talking to a person who doesn’t even like fish! I can’t stand the taste or smell of fish and think fish make the most boring pets ever, so I can’t fathom why people think telling me this is going to have any positive impact on me or resonate with me at all because I am the last person who would be looking for other fish in the sea.

I know, I know, I’m taking it too literally. But really, why are you comparing potential romantic interests to an animal I couldn’t be less interested in? It’s a horrible comparison and no, you haven’t given me a life-changing insight that makes me never want to go back to my ex again.

Then again, the Venn diagram of people who say “There are other fish in the sea” and the people who want me to date people I’m not interested in dating is a circle, so maybe comparing partners I’m not interested in to animals I’m not interested in makes perfect sense.

Really, though, I don’t understand the push to get me dating again. I’ve already stated that I don’t feel ready. People keep interpreting my refusal to date as me waiting for my ex to come around, but I’m not. I mean, not gonna lie, a lot of the time I do still want him back, but I’m not just sitting around pining after him. I’m doing things with my life, making changes that make me feel good about myself. And if I do meet someone that I’m attracted to and can connect with, maybe a I will start dating. But that hasn’t happened yet.

They forget that I’ve spent most of my life as a single person and have been quite happy while being single during those times. I’m not one of those people who’s terrified of being “forever alone”.

Thing is, it doesn’t matter how many fish there are in the sea– there’s only one him.

Annoying Things People Say After A Break-Up: “Give him a chance; you might be surprised.”

“Give him a chance; you might be surprised.”

Just to clarify, people aren’t saying this about my ex (that would be “give him another chance”; I imagine that would be pretty annoying too); they’re saying this whenever any guy within ten years of my age shows any kind of interest in me. Even if that interest if just friendly on his part (No, that coworker who’s eight years older than me doesn’t have a crush on me, he just talks to me because we work together), or, more commonly nowadays, just friendly on my part (I just like talking to interesting people and sometimes, it just so happens  that men are interesting. Shocker, right?), people still think we ought to be dating.

Firstly… Oi! Why are people so invested in me starting dating again?! I spent most of my life being single without anyone being bothered by it, but now that I’ve gone through a break-up, everyone thinks me staying single is a sign of me being unhealthy and is in a hurry to get me dating/married. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR YEARS?! SINGLEDOM IS PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR ME!!!

I understand that you want me to be happy, but dating before I’m ready and being in a romantic relationship with someone I’m not even remotely attracted to who I can’t even bear to think of kissing is not going to make me happy. I don’t know everything about what I want for my life, but I do know that.

Second, why is it that whenever a guy who’s any kind of decent shows interest in me, I have to give him a chance? I don’t hear guys being told to ask out a girl he’s not attracted to just because she’s nice, to “just give her a chance”, but if a guy I’m not attracted to asks me out, I’m just supposed to go along with it just because he’s nice? Sweetheart, “nice” is setting the bar pretty low. Almost everyone I know is “nice”. Just because we’re both straight and in the same age bracket doesn’t mean we want to date each other. Being a straight woman doesn’t mean I’m attracted to anything male that moves and possesses some kind of conscience, I’m a little more selective than that.

“You might be surprised.” Orrrr maybe I won’t? Maybe I’ll meet, date, and marry a guy that I was attracted to right from the start and we’ll commit to each other and do what it takes to make each other happy and stay in love and we’ll be married for the rest of our lives like my grandparents are (ahem, another attraction-from-day-one success story) and I’ll be laying on me deathbed and beckon for you to come closer and then with my dying breath, whisper “I told you so.”

Really, I’m just so sick of hearing this, so sick of wondering what’s wrong with me, why I can’t be attracted to these nice, kind, and interesting men who want me, because let’s face it, that’s what happens in my head every time I’m told “Just give him a chance.” Then I remember that my ex was nice, kind, and interesting, so it’s not like I’m attracted to the mythical “bad boy”. I’m not attracted to what’s not good for me. My spidey-senses are working just fine, thank you.

This whole give-him-a-chance thing also causes a lot of confusion for me. I feel guilty for not giving him a chance, then guilty when I do give him a chance and it turns out I’m not attracted to him and can’t do this relationship thing with him after all, then it’s “You shouldn’t have led him on” when I’m just doing exactly what people are badgering me to do: giving him a chance.

And it’s so annoying because the people I hear this from are people who are in long-term romantic relationships with people they were attracted to right from the start! I don’t know how you can feel that attraction, that love, that passion, and then turn around and tell someone to settle and live without it. And I’ve had that attraction, that love, that passion, I know what it feels like and how to recognize it and I refuse to enter a relationship without it.

I know that it takes more than attraction to make a relationship last, I’m not an idiot, but attraction is still important and should still be a part of it. I mean, isn’t attraction one of the things that sets romantic relationships apart from other types of relationships? If so, than attraction must be part of the equation, and attraction can’t be flipped on and off like a switch whenever you want.

“But maybe you don’t know how to be attracted to someone because you love him too much?” Okay. Maybe so. In which case, I’m in no state to be dating again anyways so the point is moot.

Really, this is all a head trip that I don’t want to be on.

Annoying Things People Say After a Break-Up: “You’re too good for him.”

“You’re too good for him.”

Thanks, but that doesn’t make me happy. It makes me feel worse. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me and why I still love someone who’s not deserving and why my taste in men sucks.

And, as already mentioned, love is not about deserve. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

And sometimes I wonder if I’m one of those “too good for this sinful world” types. Thing is, I don’t want to be one of those types because those types always wind up miserable and dead. I don’t want to be Saint Irene, I don’t want to be a martyr– I want to live and love and be happy. But this “deserve” thing just makes me wonder if there is anyone out there who is “worthy” or if I’m going to be alone forever while other (apparently less worthy) people get to fall in love and get married and be happy.

I once heard this thing about how valuable girls are like the best apples grown on the top of the tree where they are made yummy and ripe by the sun or something like that and most boys are too lazy to climb the tree to reach her and so they pick the ones closer to the ground. It’s supposed to make you feel better about being single because hey, you’re a yummy, nutritious, sunkissed apple, but girls and apples really aren’t comparable. See, when apples aren’t picked, they fall off the tree and rot. And when apples are picked, they get eaten. If the apples aren’t used for eating, they’re considered wasted. And I’m sick of boys always being the “pickers” in these stories and girls always filling the role of “inanimate object”. So I find this analogy rather sexist and depressing.

And whenever people say “he doesn’t deserve you”, they always suggest I go out with men I have no romantic interest in just because they’re nice guys and I’m just really sick of it because if I’m going to spending the rest of my life with this person and having sex with him, I’d better be attracted to him and going out with someone just because they seem nice is setting the bar pretty low. I mean, if I choose my life partner based solely on whether or not they’re “nice”, I’ll be married to pretty much everyone I know(#necessarynotsufficient).

And I get going out on a date isn’t the same as committing to marriage, but I just don’t see why I should act like I’m romantically interested in him when I’m not. It doesn’t seem fair to either of us. I mean, if he wants to keep hanging out knowing I’m still in love with my ex half of the time, on his own head be it, but to act like there isn’t still anything between me and my ex and to act like I’m more gung-ho to be this new date’s girlfriend than I actually am… Because I recognize that I’m dealing with another human being here, someone with thoughts and feelings who is capable of being hurt by my poor decisions, I don’t feel right about that.

“Well you can’t be expected to be interested in him after only a couple conversations!” Really? Guys get interested enough in girls to ask them out after one conversation but if I expect to be attracted to him right away, like, around the time I have to answer yay or nay to a date, I’m expecting too much? You don’t think that’s a double standard at all?

Ugh.

Annoying Things People Say After A Break-Up: “He is not the prize.”

“He is not the prize.”

There are no words for how much I hated being told this. I felt really degraded when I was told this because I never thought of my ex as a prize. A prize is an object rewarded to you for good behaviour, a kind of entitlement that benefits you that you can flaunt in front of other people, a status symbol. I never thought of my ex as that ever. I only thought of him as the person I loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with, even if that meant making sacrifices, even if sometimes I didn’t like him very much. So I didn’t like people saying anything that insinuated that I thought of him as a prize, which really cheapens my love and feelings for him while making me look like an incredibly shallow, self-centred human being.

And I remember this one time after I’d asked him if I could start calling him my boyfriend and he said “Yeah” in this “Well, obviously” tone of voice and a couple dates later I told him my mom was excited because her boyfriend called her his girlfriend for the first time and my boyfriend joked, “Is that a status symbol in your family or something?” and it hurt but I couldn’t explain why but now I can: it degrades the depth of my feelings and kinda insinuates that he was my “trophy boyfriend” and that I just wanted to own him and parade him around so people would ooh and ah over how great I must be to have gotten a boyfriend.

I know that’s not what was meant by it, but that’s how it felt.

But c’mon, I’ve been single most of my life, so clearly I’m not the kind of person who needs a significant other as a status symbol because I’ve been putting my identity in other things for so long. And by the way, I wasn’t single because no one was interested; I was single by choice and would not go out with a man unless I was genuinely attracted to him and liked him. Do I really sound like the kind of person who needs a romantic relationship as a crutch to stand in my own identity?

I didn’t think so, either.