Failure to Launch

For years, I went on date after date. Some of these dates turned into relationships, but none of them lasted more than a few months. I’d describe myself as your average girl next door, fairly pretty, reasonably funny, independent and with a healthy social life. So why wasn’t I connecting with any of these men? We got on really well, often had many things in common, but somehow I always ended up single again. What was I doing wrong? I decided to do go all Sigmund Freud on myself and started to analyse my most recent (and what I would consider more serious) relationships. I really wanted to know why these relationships never went anywhere.

Date No 1 – Eric

Eric and I had so many things in common, he could have been a male carbon copy of myself. We both loved photography, the outdoors and shared the same taste in music. We could talk for hours about our favourite bands, artists and places. We had so much fun together, so I didn’t put much weight on our sex life being on the snooze end of the sex scale but honestly, we simply had no chemistry in the boudoir. Looking back I am not surprised we stopped seeing each other and I’m glad Eric was brave enough to end it. Had he not done so, we may have ended up settling for something that just wasn’t right.

Date No 2 – Mark

The relationship with Mark was the polar opposite to the one with Eric. Mark and I enjoyed many steamy, sweaty and exhilarating romps, but our conversations resembled short awkward mumbles of teenagers at their first school disco. We didn’t have anything in common and frequently argued about trivial things, only to end up in bed again. I have to admit I had felt a great sense of relief when he stopped calling me, thereby ending our sexventure.

Date No 3 – David

David and I met at my weekly yoga class. We got talking, spend many afternoons putting the world to right over our soy lattes. It was evident we had great connection on a spiritual level, yet just like Eric before, we didn’t click in bed. We cuddled, snuggled and tried often, yet it was all too clinical. We soon parted ways as a couple but remain great friends to this day. Looking back, David was only ever going to be a mate but I didn’t want to see it at the time.

So, what do all these relationships, or more importantly their failures, have in common? I had connected on an intellectual level, on a physical level and on a spiritual level yet somehow, I finally realised, I never connected with any of these men on an emotional level. I guess, I never really wanted to in the first place because I was afraid I was going to get hurt again.

As soon as I had realised this, things started to change for me. Suddenly I was no longer afraid to say how I felt, what I liked and what I didn’t like in a relationship. I felt confident asserting myself in my relationships, without drama or judgement and before I knew, I had made a connection. With a man. My man. Michael and I have now been together for 5 years and we couldn’t be happier. I asked him the other day what had made him fall in love with me in the first place and he simply said: “You showed me your heart.”

I guess the moral of the story is, if you hide your true self from the world, you also hide yourself from your true love.

Have you been struggling to connect to men in the past? What do you think is holding you back?