Dear John

I am certain I wrote about this earlier in my blog (I am betting that if I had tagged this name and/or situation and ran a search, it would come up at least a half a dozen times!) The situation I am referring to is the man I dated in college who was from around here but went to school near me. Did I say what a nice, warm, kind, intelligent person he was, and what great times we had together? If I didn't, I should have.

I was in my final year in college in Ohio and he was, if I remember correctly, in his first year of grad school. We met at a party up here, and carried the romance with us back to college. It was, I believe, one of the few times that I opened up and let go and gave into someone. It was also a doomed romance, however, but not because of him.

When I look back now, I know it was my insecurities that doomed it. Things were going great, and then a friend of mine pointed out a minor flaw- the fact that he was young and was going bald. I remember just how she said it, in this snarky joking manner, as if saying "I can't believe you would date someone like that." Had I been more confident, I would have shrugged it off and said it didn't matter to me, because this was a good guy. But, no, my insecure nature self focused on that and obsessed on it until it became all I could think about.

And then, in this state of mind, I took in everything and obsessed about them as well. And then I just knew I had to break up with him because, well, how could I possibly be with someone as imperfect as he was (in my mind, at least)?

To this day, I admit I regret doing that, and have made it the key reason that I look seriously at myself and my choices. The more confident I become, the more aware of how shallow I was back then, and how that hurt me.

I say this now, because I realized that this may have been why the other person ended this relationship; in fact, judging from how it was going and how it ended, I am almost certain of it. I have already talked about his insecurities which I became aware of as time went on. It is unfortunate for him that he did not have the confidence that I had earlier imagined I saw in him. If I could teach him one thing, it would be to work on this confidence; put his past behind him and embrace what makes him truly happy, because that is what makes connection special