No man is nicer to a woman than the one that hasn’t slept with her yet. Pay attention ladies, he’s a completely different person after he’s had your best and is now bored and looking for his next challenge.
I see this all the time, and if the truth be told, I myself was this guy during my younger years. That was a season where I was in constant pursuit of excitement, and addicted to the power trip of seeing how easily I could manipulate and control a woman. I was very good at playing this game. The second that all the work of a real relationship would start kicking in, I’d get bored and start looking for the next intimate high. It’s not easy to admit these things, but many years ago, it was the pattern of my life. So much so that I became stuck in a cycle of failed relationships and didn’t realize why.
The truth is many men are in this season of their lives. A season of just looking for a good time and trying to live life to the fullest. It’s not 100% their fault; they are fed a steady diet of toxic masculinity and sexuality from the earliest ages, and once those teenage hormones kick in, it’s off to the races! Many of these guys grew up in broken homes without a father to teach them how to treat a woman with love and respect. Or, even worse, they have a father that’s every bit the dog they've chosen to become. In the end, when you’re in that self-centered mindset, it’s hard to see outside of your own desires, much less how your actions are impacting others. Throughout my recovery, I returned to as many of the women as I safely could in order to make amends for my actions. At this point, I’m standing over the ruins of a reckless romantic life with a clear vision of where I missed it and who I now need to be moving forward.
But I see young men - all the time - making the same mistakes I made. Some of these are married with children, living a double life, and some are just bachelor's puppeteering women - allowing them to orbit so these guys never have to be alone. That was me! I was frightened to be alone and would lure women into my web of bull butter. These women, I knew I’d never truly "long-term relationship" date. Instead, I positioned them just to have someone to make me feel alive and wanted. Sadly, many of those women were the ones that treated me the absolute best, having the purest feelings for me. Nonetheless, I used them before throwing them away like yesterday's newspaper. Those things haunt me now, and if it wasn’t for my faith, I would probably find myself consumed via regret. It’s been a long, hard battle to claw my way out of that pit of self pity.
None of us men have any reason to talk about how crazy women are when we ourselves have treated them like slabs of meat and soulless robots in order to fulfill our carnal desires. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy when you really stop and think about the truck loads of bull butter they’ve put up with from us. As such, their constant flinching is no doubt justified. Imagine being promised connection and commitment in exchange for the most valuably intimate parts of yourself, only to have that thrown away 30mins - 3 months after you’ve surrendered those precious gifts to the person promising you these things. How would that make you feel? Used!
I finally, in a desperate attempt to find peace and harmony in my life, started looking in the mirror at whom I had become. God was kind enough to show me how I had destroyed my reputation and therefore was now viewed as a dog by most of the women in my life. This was a hard pill to swallow! Even the women I held in high regard and respected, started to tell me how lost I was in this constant pursuit of physical satisfaction. I was stuck and didn’t know what I truly needed or even wanted. Carnal Desires were not satisfying me anymore, and I had made the horrible mistake of falling in love with a woman that would never be able to love me back. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was broken on a level that only those that understand true depression can relate to. I had grown tired of wearing a mask and stuffing my feelings about what I truly needed. I didn’t recognize the man in the mirror anymore, and I desperately needed to find myself again. That was over a decade ago.
The man I am now is so polar opposite from that guy. I’m still broken, and believe me, I have my struggles, but now there’s art inside my brokenness. It’s the art of who I am. It’s a gallery that reminds me that I’m worthwhile of more than who I am (or have been) physically, and that I deserve real connection and commitment. Only God knows the work I’ve had to do to get here. It’s been very hard, and still has its challenges every day. But at least I know who I am now and what’s truly important to me. Emotional maturity is damn hard work. And who knows if I’ll ever be fortunate enough to connect with someone on this new plane. As such, it's unhealthy of me to think on my life in those terms. Though I must admit that, part of me laments the past and part of me desires (a better) the future. But real satisfaction is living in the here and now. So, I put aside the shame of yesterday, and the fear of tomorrow, and just breathe in the moment I’m in right now. Gods' grace is sufficient for all things. Even a recovering dog like me. 🙌🏻
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