"You only get true love three times in your life. And I've already used up two. The next one's gotta count."
(Granted: we also discussed tigers, plastic fencing, and baseball. It was really kind of all over the place that night.)
Why that resonated so soundly with me remains a bit of a mystery. Why would I take advice on love from drunk, single sound guy? What makes three the magic number of times you could get true love? Isn't that an insane pressure to put on yourself?
Obviously, being single, I am not currently in love. I have a crush on a guy who lives far away, and a slight infatuation with a co-worker I am 95% sure is gay, (Batting 1,000!) but nothing on the scale of 1 in 3 shots at true love!
In the words of those sage troubadors, Alphabeat, "I was looking for a decent boy / For a tender glance / For a Safety Dance." Which basically means I need a good guy who appreciates my completely bonkers tastes in music, and Men Without Hats references.
I used to have a joke (with myself...the best, funniest, and ultimately most pathetic kind) that I was dating down the alphabet. The names of the first guys I thought I'd been in love with went A, B, C and D, in correct order. A through C were really more like growing up experiences. I cared for them enormously, but it wasn't love. As for D, I really did think that was love. It was fast and intense and left me completely shattershocked when it was over, but it was the first time that I felt it was possible to find someone you could want to be with for all your days on earth.
I read an article about turning 30 a few years ago in some women's magazine. Jennifer Garner was promoting 13 Going on 30 which I love and will probably Netflix this weekend (along with The Little Mermaid.....yes), but on her list of things every woman has had before 30 was "devastating heartbreak and the knowledge that you will be ok." When I read it, I figured that this obviously applied to D. I'd been very sad when it was over. Lots of staying in bed and sad little emo walks in the rain around Hampstead Heath.
I didn't understand devastating heartbreak, until I lived it (and died it) when I fell in deep, delirious, disastrous love with P. Using those words, being cute with alliteration, doesn't hide the fact that I thought this was the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and for whom a small crime scene in my heart will be forever roped off. I wish I could talk about it with any kind of insight or eloquence. There are some things, that even when they are over, you need to keep for just the two of you. Moments are sacred. We both made so many mistakes. But he's a good man with a dear and generous heart, I would never refute that. He saw me through some very tough times, and gave me the love and companionship that I desperately needed.
Being in love with me isn't easy. I know that.
Maybe it was the wrong time, and there were too many outlying factors we couldn't control. But that is how it happened. For a while, I had thought he was the Johnny to my June, and despite our problems, our fights, we would always find our way back to each other. But we weren't.
(Oh, irony. One of my favorite songs, U2's cover of "Everlasting Love" just popped up on my Pandora. Sigh.)
Through all the unbelievable pain of these experiences, I do think I came out of these relationships with a better idea of who I am, what I want and deserve in a loving relationsip, and what I offer. It's important to know your value as one-half of a partnership.
I forget where I heard it, but there was a great bit of advice, that said "True love is finding the person you want to sit next to for the rest of your life"
We get a lot of chances in life, and the only way we get that shot at grabbing the brass ring is to open up and take risks. A lot of times we'll fail, spectacularly! But hopefully, at least three or so times, we will find that great, beautiful connection.
Getting hurt should never change the way we love.
