I have all sorts of funny stories (at least to me) of
different men who have found me attractive that I will not share with the
public. I am not that cruel. And going the other direction, I know that there
are at least a few guys who have some pretty funny stories (at least to them)
of me making a fool of myself over them. Truth is, every time I ever really
liked a guy, I was too afraid to open up and act like myself around them, to
the point where I’d start hyperventilating when I saw them. Even if I was
friends with them to begin with, the minute I started to entertain thoughts of
there maybe being more than just friendship, I started to freeze up, incapable
of showing my true, real self around them anymore. I’m sure it appeared like I
wasn’t interested as I probably acted similarly to men who I didn’t find
attractive at all. Needless to say, these men never wanted me.
The last guy I liked, no loved, didn’t want me either. To
me, he surpassed any man I had ever met in terms of desirability. Hence, my
fear of him was greater than I’d ever felt of anyone. My social anxiety just
flared up massively with him. I guess I just unconsciously gave him too much
power in my head in the sense that I knew his rejection of me would really,
really hurt me, so I was afraid to show him my real self in case he’d reject
me. So I didn’t show him, and he did reject me. No matter how much I prayed to
God to lessen my anxiety, it didn’t occur. And the guy started dating someone
else.
Before knowing he was dating her, I finally got up the guts
to really pour out my heart to him in a letter. That’s when I heard that he had
a girlfriend in his short response. By this point, the fact that he knew and
the desperation of the situation shoved me at him. All the things I had wanted
to say I tried to say, but at this point it was too late. He didn’t want to
hear it. At this point, I could have been way more compatible with him than his
girlfriend, and he wouldn’t have listened. He had made up his mind.
Right now, I’m going to assume that this guy wasn’t just
making up silly excuses to leave him alone. I guess I’ll never have proof that
he wasn’t. But when I asked him why he didn’t find me attractive, he said that we
just didn’t have similar interests. We did. I just hadn’t told him or showed him.
And he said I was just too shy around him. Oh the IRONY. The most tragic irony
ever. That he rejected me for my anxiety. For the thing of which I was a victim. For my curse, the cause of so much suffering and isolation for me already. My
anxiety refused to let me show him my real, true self in fear of rejection. And
it was my anxiety itself that he ended up rejecting. And the agony to come with
that realization has caused greater regrets than I’ve ever had before, and has
not exactly helped much in overcoming my anxiety. To this day, I
have felt incapable of moving past it all. So many what-ifs…
But it is in thinking about this now, that it has FINALLY
occurred to me just how much self-love is underrated. Especially within the
Christian community where self-love should
spread to everyone. At least, from my experience it has seemed to be lacking. I
lack it. I hate myself more than anyone else on Earth hates me (that I’m aware
of anyway). I have no grace toward myself. I blame myself for everything.
While visiting my family, my little sister and I watched a
few home videos. I love watching home videos for the memories. It’s also
interesting to view yourself from a third person perspective. I’ve never liked
most of what I’ve seen on camera. I noticed all the things about myself that I
thought others must hate—all the negative things. I noticed my horrid hair and
clothing at age fourteen. I despised my lack of attention to my own appearance.
I hated my big ears, frizzy hair, big nose, little mouth, etc. I hated my
abrupt way of impulsively speaking out for truth without regard for others’
feelings, but when I was quiet, I hated that too. I hated how my family was
paying attention to my dad opening gifts and I was stuck on one gift he had
gotten that showed pictures and historical things that had happened in the year
my dad was born. I hated how I found that fascinating, and my family wasn’t as
interested. I hated my nerdiness. I hated my nervous smile and giggle. I hated
my self-conscious posture. I hated how at about age three, I was too
intimidated to hit a piñata by myself. Why couldn’t I just be that tough kid
who didn’t give a crap like my brothers and cousin? I hated watching myself at
about age three when my mom was recording my dad wrestling with me and my
brothers and I crawled away to my mom and tried to get her to focus on me by
telling her that the “daddy monster is scary” and yelled the word “butt”
repeatedly, but she didn’t seem to notice. I knew as I watched these videos
that I was just being negative toward myself. I was being hateful and
judgemental. Completely self-loathing. But when I tried to see myself through
the eyes of others, like they’d like me, I couldn’t see anything beautiful. Could
anyone actually see me, who I was, and like
it?
When I took a step back and another step closer again,
blinked a few times, and cleared my head, I started to see myself as myself. Sure,
I have always struggled with choosing the correct time and the right way to
express the truth I stood for, but the point is, I was standing for truth even
if it was “petty” little details. When I was afraid to hit that piñata, sure I
was timid, but I admired the beauty of the piñata, and I was being gentle. I
even tried to make sure that all the candy that my brother knocked out went to
my brother just to make it all fair while other kids might have just tried to
grab it all for themselves. Just because my aggression and my gentleness did
not come out in the times that others thought they should does not make me
virtue-less. It makes me an individual. I saw my horrid hair and my horridly
unflattering clothing at age fourteen as detestable. But I was still growing
into my body. I hadn’t exactly figured out how to care for myself in that way
yet. I may have not known how to care for my physical appearance, but when you
read my journal from that age, you can read of a heart longing to be loved,
daring to be different, seeking maturity and godliness, and that is incredibly
beautiful. And when I see that situation when I nagged my mom and repeatedly
laughed at the word “butt”, I was just being a kid, and I was just trying to
seek security when the situation felt too rough for me.
In attempting to see myself now with love, sure I’ve got a
heck of a lot of faults and am very insecure and currently “failing” in life,
but when I dig deeper, I can see a person who, like when I was a child, finds
it hard to conform to the mold I’m forced within. I find someone struggling to
stay true to all their values at one time while still making other people happy
and failing again and again. I see genuineness, strength and growing maturity.
I’ve heard people say that when you lack confidence and
present yourself as you see yourself—as unlikable—then it becomes a
self-fulfilling prophesy and people aren’t going to like you, so you should just
be confident. But loving yourself so that others will love you is still making
a decision based on what others will think of you. What if they don’t
end up liking you anyway?
Even in this experience with that guy, I tell myself, if I
had just had more confidence, if I had just loved myself more, if I had just not been scared, maybe then that guy would have loved me. Maybe
then I would be worthy of his love. It wasn’t until I recently told myself that
I am never getting married that my eyes were opened. How freeing to let go of
my dream for marriage (I haven’t nearly completely done it, folks. It will take
time.). I had to see myself as a whole single person and really dig into what
that would look like. I had to feel whole now, not like I was going to be a whole person once I found a husband! I would still be the same person either way. What if no man in the world ever found me desirable? I’ve always tried to convince myself that
I’d still be desirable despite any humanly opinion of me. Apparently, according
to God, I am still worth it all. So I asked myself, what if I had nothing to
offer anyone around me? Would I still be worth it? What if I really had nothing
to offer the guy who rejected me? Would I still be worth it? I always told myself
yes, but I’m still trying to believe it, though I think I’m starting to gain
some peace in this. But this peace doesn’t make me want to live this life any
more than I did before. It makes me want to leave this world and just be with
God forever. I want to be away from the cruel, imperfect, unmerciful injustice
of this world. I’m tired of trying. I don’t want to have to change the world. I
don’t want to have change myself anymore. I don’t want the world to be restored
in a very slow painful process that hurts me and others. I want it to be
destroyed and done with. But I guess I just have to wait for whatever comes.
Lord, carry me home, please?
But back to self-love. The thing is, self-love can’t rely on
what you think you deserve or what you think others think you deserve. When you
truly love someone, you love them regardless of how much they deserve it. You
have to love yourself in the same way just because you exist. That’s it. You
exist, and that’s amazing. If you hurt someone, that action would not be
amazing. Your decision would not be amazing. Self-love does not condone the
evil that is done, but it grants grace and a second chance and third chance and
fourth, and so on.
If you respond to your own bad decision with criticism and
shame, then how will you ever change? Seeing as you’re the only one who can
make you change, if you don’t believe you can, then how will it happen? I have
often taken the Christian perspective “love your neighbor as yourself” and
warped it to “love other people more than you love yourself”. I thought that
loving myself to the same extent as others would make me selfish. But you have
to treat yourself with the same respect and the same love that you would treat others,
assuming you are trying to treat them well. You can’t wait for someone else to
show you grace. You can’t wait for someone to look past your first impression
or physical appearance and seek your heart, because it’s not guaranteed that
others will make the choice to do so. That guy I wanted never did. There really
is nothing you can do to guarantee that others will always love you even if
they claim to love you now. Ultimately, love is a choice that you can’t make
for someone else. And that’s not your fault!!
I think the following
poem that I found in various places online called “After a While” by Veronica
A. Shoffstall sums it all up quite well:
After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn...
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