My relationship is over.
This will be my one and only post about it.
I wrote another, but now I hate it and I threw it in the mythical WordPress trash. Anyways…
“Leave Them Better Than You Found Them”
This has been a staple of message boards, Game books, and “player code” since Neil Strauss penned The Peacocking Dorks Game back in…2005? Was it that long ago? Wikipedia confirms…yes. I just turned 24 this past week – Jesus, that makes me feel old.
I just don’t see how it’s possible to ever feel like you left a girl in a “better” place after a breakup. It’s a bullshit rule. There’s always going to be hurt all around. If you love and you’ve lost then she’s done the same. Immediately after it’s loss. A big hole where someone who was a big part of your life is now wide open. I won’t act like a tough guy and tell you I’m not upset. I am. Some drama happened that capped it off. I didn’t think it was repairable.
Distance isn’t any fun.
Granted, Los Angeles and San Diego isn’t that far. And for a while, I kinda liked it. I could get shit done during the week and see her on the weekends. But eventually, the lack of weekends (and therefore social opportunities) wears on you.
Perhaps it was a ticking bomb counting down to zero from the time I signed on the dotted line at my new job up here.
Which sucks, but isn’t any relationship like that? More than likely it’ll end at some point.
We’re pretty small in the scheme of things in general. Grains of sand on a beach from a universal perspective.
I’ve struggled writing much of anything late; this is the first post in July. I just haven’t had any motivation. That’ll change now. New feelings and emotions bring out the best in me. It’s a learning process. I’m certainly mounds better than I was at the last relationship, which was several years pre-Game discovery. But yeah, this one still stings – writing about it will be a part of the healing process for me.
And I feel pretty crappy about it at the moment. While I know she was happy with me, I just felt like I was holding her back. Not from “better”, per se, but from finding what she ultimately wanted, which was marriage and kids. I just turned 24. She was 27, almost halfway to 28. She said she was happy with the way things were and didn’t expect anything (how true this is could be debated forever), but how fair is it for me to keep her with me while I’ve got one foot out the door towards moving to Europe? She will make a great mother and wife one day. Who am I to tie her down until she’s 30, only to then bow out and leave her with ever-decreasing options on that side of the hill.
I don’t know. I just hope it was the right thing to do. Like I said, there was a bigger event this past weekend that was the icing on the cake. I don’t really care to get into the specifics at this point.
The worst part for me to stomach is that we broke up in March, because I was going to Europe. But it was amicable. We spent one last great weekend together, and in that time we worked it out. If that had been goodbye, it would’ve been easier to stomach because it ended on a high note. But now, it ended with hurt feelings all around. With me loading her car up and wanting to at least give a hug goodbye – and her just getting in the car.
“So, that’s it then?”
“What do you want me to say, Kyle?”
I didn’t have a response for that. I don’t even know if I said anything that was more than a mumble. I turned around and walked back into my complex.
I took one last look back…and that chapter of my life closed as she drove off.
Damn. Best of luck. You have the tools to get over this, though. Go hard into the things you want to do right now, and when a little time passes, get back out there.
Appreciate it man. I’ll be fine. Lot of cute girls wandering around LA in the summertime 😉
The real question is: Is she going to leave you better than she found you?
I think so.
Unlike the last relationship, I don’t have a “I just wanted the last year+ of my life with this girl” feeling.
It was a general statement. I meant “Is that her intention”? Does she want to bring value to your life, or extract as much as she can from it?
Oh, I got it. Loaded question. See my answer above to Wally…I think it explains it better.
I’ve realized over the last few years that there is a default “you’ll leave them better than you found them” simply by the nature of what each sex brings to the table. As a man I’ll train her in what you want from her — if she doesn’t cook and she wants to continue to see me then she’ll learn some rudimentary cooking skills. Entertaining skills, social skills, introductions to new friends. She’ll give better blowjobs because I take the time to teach her what I like in the bedroom. She’ll learn about motorcycles because that is one of my passions in life. She’ll learn about the outdoors, navigating, how to use a GPS, how to carry a pack and what goes in it since I enjoy the outdoors, she’ll learn to fish. How to take care of her car. Finances and budgeting. What can she teach me? Not much at all. I’m sitting here thinking hard about what the last 5 women I dated brought to the table that helped me and honestly its a struggle to come up with anything. I learned a new way to fold towels that I like better than what I used to do. I got taken to an indian sweat lodge ceremony. Seriously, that’s it. They were all great women else I wouldn’t have spent extended time beyond pump and dump with them, all very interested in logging time with me. But at the end of the day when we move on from each other she is much better for the time she has spent with me and her life is improved. Me? All that effort in training her is lost, out the window, no way for me to gain any benefit from it any longer – I start back at zero with the next woman. In fact, I’m actually negative in the deal because more than the skills I’ve left/bettered her with, I’m also out for my time which I can never get back. That is the killer for me, the time. Once I realized the dynamic that is at play I had a bit of an “ah ha!” moment. We, as men, will never realize any benefit from an investment in any woman. After sitting with it for awhile I’m ok with that, but I pay MUCH more attention to the time I spend with them since I’m very clear in understanding that any time or training or investment in better her will have zero upside for me in the end since I see little hope for a LTR that will last the rest of my life. She’ll take what she has learned from me and move on to the next guy, no problem. But I’ll always start back at zero. But if I want to keep her around for awhile then she’ll need help in understanding how to make me happy so I have no choice but to invest in bettering her somehow. It’s a delicate balancing act…
This is such a good comment Wally. One thing to note is that it isn’t necessarily a complete loss of time – you likely furthered your skills in those areas by teaching them. For example, if you’re in a Calculus class and you tutor your friend who is really struggling in it, you’re going to understand the course material better. This isn’t a perfect analogy, as many of those things could have probably advanced even further without a woman tagging along…but you get my point. Not a total net loss.
In addition to that though, you’re right. In a relationship, a woman gains…
– A teacher, as you’ve shown above
– Handyman for household stuff or lifting heavy shit
– Computer tech, if you’re savvy
– Decision maker
– Bank account, to an extent
– Emotional sounding board
– A +1 to events like weddings, etc that men don’t usually care about
– A way to brag to all her friends and show off.
Men get…
– Consistent pussy (God, you’d hope but this probably isn’t always the case even)
– “Companionship”…though I’d rather play pool with a buddy than watch Netflix on the couch
– MAYBE a cook/cleaner/domesticated help…this is a big maybe though.
– ??????????
To counter all my points above, and what you said…
– We don’t really learn new skills.
– We don’t get help with handyman stuff
– Computer stuff? Ha.
– Decision making? No, if anything it stresses us more because now we’re deciding for two.
– Bank account, unlikely.
– Emotional sounding board…if you do this too much you can feel her vagina drying.
– +1 to events, I’ll give that.
– Bragging to our friends about girls doesn’t go much farther than “she’s hot.”
Anyways, rant over. Great post again.