On B: I'm NOT Perfect

You know I get emails a lot asking about my toughness, my hard outer shell, my no nonsense approach. But hold on, I've made lots of mistakes, too. I've been holed up in my apartment making out with Ben & Jerry and watching The Notebook on repeat, crying my eyes out, promising I wouldn't love as hard the next time. I've said dumb things and ruined good relationships, I've also been in horrible ones that I dragged on for far too long because I didn't want to be alone. I've been the soft, clingy girl before as well. When I was younger, blinder, that's what I did. I just went in recklessly and loved hard. But hard being the operative word, you get sick of people disappointing you, of coming up short, even though the pay off is sometimes very much worth it. You still become untrusting, unyielding. You start putting people out and not giving anyone a chance past the first indescretion. You refuse to let anyone get close enough to hurt you as much as someone else did before. It's easier to have no patience, to be tough, to not deal with the crap. As you get older, more experienced, you just get it. You just say, "I don't have time for the bullshit, so I'm not gonna bother." And people come and people go and you either care or you don't. The world is a black and white space. It's only grey if you make it.

I write this because I received an email from a reader asking how I do it, how I seem to stay so far removed. She said many things in the email, but the one that stuck out the most was that she wished she didn't care either because not caring seems so much easier. Apathy is anything but easy, if anything it's harder when you can't recall your emotions to the surface, when you don't feel like trusting people. Sometimes you end up pushing people away who would've been positive in your life. It works both ways, I told her. I explained much of what I've just said in this post, but most importantly that this blog isn't a "how to" for my readers, nor is it me mocking the dating world or acting like I know it all. It's just what's on my mind that day. If I have a story to tell, I tell it. It isn't me claiming that everyone else makes mistakes while my bed lies made and unbothered. My life gets just as messy, I make just as many errors in judgement, blunders, and bloopers. But that's life and while I work it out, I blog it out.

And I suspect the pendulum will swing back and I'll be an emotional, sensitive mess soon. Let's see if you're still emailing me for advice then...

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins