You know how you have rules and standards you set for yourself? It defines you as a person. Like being someone who will “never eat meat” makes you a vegetarian and being someone who will “never arrive late” makes you punctual. But having those standards and rules also confine you in a small little box which makes it easy for people to identify you and categorize you.
I’ve always been the girl who will never date a younger guy.
My preference has always been towards older guys. Since high school I’ve been dating guys who are 4 to 9 years older than I am. A huge part of this is because I want maturity and guys don’t mature early on in their lives. So I choose someone older so I wouldn’t have to deal with all the whining and senseless arguments. However I found out that immaturity is not restricted to age alone. Older guys are pretty much capable of the same senseless bullshit just as much as the kids are. (by kids I prefer guys who are my age or younger than I am)
Then I met Louie.
Now I’m constantly teased as robbing the cradle.
To tell you guys the truth, I’ve never seen him as someone younger than I am. Maybe that’s also because he doesn’t act like one. I’ve been in a lot of relationships and Louie shows maturity that some of those guys never had. Of course, not everyone knows Louie and all they can see when they look at me is “Nicole’s dating a guy 3 years younger than she is!!!! WTF WTF WRONG WRONG!” and consequently, they give me a hard time for it. I can take it most of the time but there are cases that make me cringe in anger. I don’t see anything wrong with teasing me about dating a younger guy but when they start using statements like “It’s okay if the guy’s older than the girl no matter how many years the gap is and no matter how YOUNG the girl is but when the girl’s the one who’s older, it just looks bad”
It looks bad.
That would just make me want to freak. Looks bad? You don’t approve of the relationship because IT LOOKS BAD? Oh yeah, how very deep. So when I dated a 21 year-old guy when I was 15 it’s okay? It doesn’t look bad because the guy’s older. Hah. Right. (but then again I guess society has a long way to go…)
Ugh.
Just as I was about to feel bad about it, my girl friends knocked some sense into me:
“But… isn’t this progress for you? The main reason you liked older men was because you wanted to depend on someone which led to you being unable to do anything else on your own. Now that you’re in this new relationship, isn’t this progress? You’re breaking your own rules and in the process you’re starting to depend more on yourself. If you ask me, you dating a younger guy is a good thing.” – girlie, one of my girl friends
“… and besides if you see how in-love they are, grabe. When you see Louie reacting to every little thing Nicole does you could see how much he wants her… it’s one thing to be loved and it’s another thing altogether to be wanted. We all want to be loved but there’s a different high in being wanted at the same time” – ayzee, one of my girl friends.
Sometimes you have to break a couple of your rules to move forward. There are cases when you have to get out of that little box you’ve hid yourself safely in. If you want happiness, you must be prepared to go take it. In this world where everyone is in hot pursuit for the things that make them happy, you have to step up your game. You have to be prepared to battle it out, even if it means destroying the box you’ve carefully placed over yourself.
I’ve destroyed mine and although I feel naked and defenseless right now, I know that this feeling I have right now is worth everything.
touch it?
