Please play Kiss & Run with me...

“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love me…”

“I feel the same about you…”

CUE: Happy Romantic music swells and Credits roll as they lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER…

*EEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH* Buzzer rings.

Unfortunately, as much as we all wished for our own fairytale endings, life is not the movies and relationships are not so easily resolved.

In the beginning, I thought my problems with relationships lay in the fact that I was just not able to make the opposite sex find me attractive. Puberty happened and I worked really hard to do something about it, and I became less unattractive, and while I may never realize my dreams of being a supermodel, I, at least, now have my select (and very small) fan club…

Attraction aside, my next worry was how to make the opposite sex interested in me. With some therapy sessions and lots of work on my self-esteem issues, I have begun to see that soliciting interest was a problem that existed mostly in my head. I also started to recognize just how picky I can be or unconsciously unapproachable.

My current problem?

Now that I have lesser dramas appearing attractive or soliciting interest from the opposite sex, I’d like to learn how to actually “keep” them i.e. now that I can get them to take the bait, how do I reel them in?

I must confess that I have a terrible track record when it comes to relationships, as seen in my past two attempts at relationships. (I won’t justify them as proper relationships.) Yes, I’ve been a little (extremely) burnt but the idealistic romantic in me managed to slip past the outer barriers of pessimism and cynicism to actually show a little interest in someone from my masters’. I suppose, at the risk of sounding extremely shallow, his good looks (and lovely personality) helped sweetened the deal.

In any case, I was left feeling rather bemused as I realized that the interest was not only on my part but was actually on his as well. Things started off on a good note, with him being extremely attentive, acting like a gentleman and basically showing that the interest was mutual. I would say holding the girl’s hand in front of everyone at the end of the night is a rather telling sign. I was still rather not sure till the end of the night when he walked me home. I was given positive confirmation of his interest, which was further reinforced with his declaration of liking and returned interest.

Sounds good? It certainly did to me. I’ve waited really long to meet a nice guy and this seemed really promising.
But, oh, what a lot of things can happen in one week.

For one week, I lived in a heady cloud of dazed contentment as I imagined this new development going in a positive direction. Then, I saw him again, exactly one week later. It was a good lesson in that you should never put all your eggs in one basket, even if it is done subconsciously.

The conversation we had was less than pleasing. It seemed that while he was genuinely interested in me and did like me, he did not want a relationship at this point in his life and hence, he thinks that we should just be friends and he is sorry that he was not in control of his actions and took things further than he should.

Granted it takes two to make something happen but I would also say that in my defense, I was merely reacting to his actions. While I wished things could be less awkward with this big hairy invisible elephant called “mutual interest” sitting between us in our bid to try to be friends, I do appreciate his honesty. I may not like to hear what he said but it’s better than being led along. So I decided to be a mature individual and accept his offer of friendship. It was my original intention to get to know him better as friends before the complication of mutual interest came up, anyway.

Perhaps as a friend says, I am once again letting myself be “abused” by being too nice or in the words of two other less diplomatic friends, “bullshit”. Whatever it is, if I have learnt one thing in the past, it is that you cannot make anyone love you and in that same vein, commit to you if they choose not to.

Once again, I was the victim of the oft-used “it’s not you, it’s me” cliché. But a part of me cannot help but wonder what it is that I am doing wrong that even the nice ones are doing this to me. I cannot help but wonder if perhaps there is an invisible sign painted on my forehead that tells all the interested guys to “please play kiss and run with me”. I have often prided myself on doing things differently but an odd talent such as “kissing princes and turning them into toads” is really not something I particularly enjoy or am proud of.

I suppose many would tell me to not be so negative and see that I just haven’t met the right one yet. Logically, I should just accept that I have just been unfortunate in my choices and timing so far… but love has no rhyme, reason or logic. Neither does the heart follow a schedule.

What irks me the most is that he has the audacity to tell me “not to worry too much” and that “I’d get over it”. I will give him the benefit of doubt that he is genuinely sorry for expressing his interest and then rescinding his offer but at the end of the day, one of us got more hurt than we deserved to.

And to be honest, I’m just tired of it always being me. Perhaps it is time to embark on an “egg-free” diet.