I did the math. And boy. Do I suck at math.

Yesterday I turned my mattress back the 180 degrees that I’d shifted it at the start of my latest attempt at an ‘us’.
Putting it back as it has been in the previous years of sleeping alone and in doing so drawing the line under what ‘we’ had been. Over. Now.
Moving it back into the single position (aka, the side that has a dent in the middle from always sleeping there by my lonesome) knowing full well that it might remain like this for a long while yet.

And as I nestled back into the familiar curve that my body dug into the foam – I felt torn.

I have been in ‘relationships’ for a good 13 of my 32 years. They’ve taught me a lot of things. About myself. The things I want, need and despise. The things that work, that break, that build and that end. But mostly – what they’ve taught me – is that I can no longer believe in what I think relationships are supposed to be. I can no longer believe that what I’m hoping for is out there to be found. And though this might be the ‘recentness‘ of it speaking – I know that this knowledge has changed me to my core.

In the past I have been stood up. Ghosted. All of that nasty business. But this was the first time I was broken up with. My first time getting dumped. Blindsided. Unexpected. Harshly. And that just ‘feels‘ different. It carries more meaning than I care to admit.

There was no classic ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘ this time. No. Though the words may not literally have been said, the message was there plain as day: ‘It’s not me. It IS you. And it will always be you.‘. And the worst thing is. I know that it’s true. Because everything corroborates that notion. Every love in my past shows that it IS me. The common denominator is but one thing. Myself.

My ideas on love, what it is and what it should be have shifted over time. A lot. And that’s natural progression. But in that change they’ve also slipped further and further out of my reach. Because what I know and want love and relationships to be these days – is almost an entire world away from what I could ever be. An impossible combination of things that are not likely to ever be found in that ‘one special person’. And the things that I want to do now, experience now, try now – take me ever further away from what I need to be for my kind of love – one step at a time.

Every attempt at love that fails miserably because of this is a piece of evidence on my court case of ‘not being made to be loved‘. At least not in the way I think I should be.

Every notch on my belt is a nail on the coffin of my chance at finding that ‘forever love’. Because I am ever less eligible for that type of love that I want.

So every ‘new’ love diminishes my worth for another. Every ‘fresh’ chance adds to the damaged package that is me. I feel the taint of my conquests. The weight of my body count. I feel the scars of my past. I feel exactly as dirty and empty and lost as I’m surely viewed by the ones that are still on the market for exactly those same reasons.

Yet the years keep ticking up. The failures keep adding up. The body count keeps rising. And I’m getting increasingly less attractive for a new partner with every time they do. I know this. I look at them the same way, don’t I. And I’m feeling increasingly less attractive as that realization sets in more and more. Who’s going to want ‘the afgelikte boterham’ in the end? What will I have remaining to offer up to another?
But at the same time my clearer vision on what works also means an evergrowing list of requirements and demands on the brave men that WOULD still make an attempt. Even though I may have no clue as to what WILL work – I have all the wisdom about what doesn’t. And add that to the calculations of taking the next chance.

The result of the sum of all of those actions is simple – Remaining chance at true love: 0.00000000maybesomethingifyou’relucky.

So I settle back into that comfortable pit in my mattress. Bury my face in the pillows that I no longer have to share. Fold myself up in the blankets that are once again all mine. And shed a tear for what is already lost, and what might never be found. Just this once.