The Relationship Phobe: What Do You Mean Relationships Aren’t A Sports Event?

Now correct me if I’m wrong but I thought that friends were all about supporting you no matter what. Well if a recent conversation with one of mine is anything to go by I need to go friend shopping because one thing she certainly wasn’t was supportive.

Talking about her current favourite topic of conversation that is me and my single status she decided to share the following gem:

“You do realise the reason you end up with completely the wrong person every single time is all down to you and your over competitively self don’t you?”.

Well actually to be honest with you and her no I hadn’t. If she’d said you realise the reason you never win races anymore is because you’re too competitive and burn yourself out too fast I’d have been inclined to believe her, but what on earth was she wittering on about me being competitive in relationships?

Well don’t worry she didn’t wait long to expand on this theory of hers. Telling her I was offended by that statement, and what on earth was she on about she smirked in that annoying “I’m just about to prove you wrong” way and asked me how I’d ended up dating one of my exes who shall go by the letter “T”. It was all looking very promising that I was going to come out on top until I started speaking and said:

“Because she told me that she would never date a woman more than five years younger and I kinda got a bit addicted to the challenge of making her change her mind…OHHH I see what you mean..”

I could almost see the “I told you so” on the tip of her tongue.

And I can’t deny it, she is right. When I first met “T” whilst I found her attractive and we got on as friends there wasn’t any real spark between us. That was until she told me in very definite terms that she’d only date people of her own age and wouldn’t, said in a throwaway comment kind of style, for example ever go out with someone who like me was 12 years younger than her. Well that was it. I now moved from not even considering “T” as a potential partner to seeing her as some kind of Olympic gold medal I just had to have. This out of reach creature suddenly became the only thing I’d ever wanted and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up until I had it. And I didn’t. I was now fully committed to the “T” cause, though don’t think it was in some soppy “oh please fall in love with me you are so wonderful” way. Oh no. Just like super competitive sporty me will never show my vulnerable side, even when I’m actually ripping half the skin off my foot trying to squeeze my foot into a crevice too small for it whilst rock climbing, the relationship me won’t either.

No instead of falling down to my knees and begging her to fall in love with me I did everything but. I decided that the way to make her fall for me was to make myself everything she loved, then ramp it up by being completely and utterly uninterested. Essentially I developed and committed myself to a well thought out strategy to get me this woman that I hadn’t been remotely interested in until she’d basically said she’d never date me.

And Step one was all about making it appear I couldn’t care less about her romantically. This involved not only chatting up women in front of her, telling her about how great this or that person was, but also dropping into conversation whenever possible how it was great to have a friend like her that I wasn’t remotely interested in.

Step two was to make sure I always remembered the important stuff. If a member of her family was ill then I’d be the first one to ask her about them. If she was having trouble at work then I’d make sure I was the one checking in on her and if she was just not having a good day I’d be the one dragging her out … but of course importantly it was always done in the most laidback throwaway kind of sense that made her think I was pretty darn cool for being so caring and thoughtful whilst thinking nothing more about it.

And then there was Step three. Also known as let her do all the work. In other words I never made any effort to keep in touch (well unless we were dealing with important stuff – see above). If anyone was going to be phoning or texting it was her. To her it was as if I could quite easily take her or leave her.

So what happened? Well within two weeks she was trying to get me on a date and three weeks later, she, the “I will never date anyone more than 5 years her junior” was now officially in a relationship with 12 year younger me. Cue rather proud Relationship Probe of what I’d achieved. Well that was until three months later where it became obvious we were the most mismatched couple in history who only brought out the very worst in each other and I was definitely being taught a lesson for my predatory ways.

And as if that’s not bad enough, the more I’ve thought about it, Miss “You Do Realise It’s All Your Fault” is right. My competitiveness has been spilling over into my love life, and and I’m ashamed to say this previous example was far from a one off. In fact the more I think about it I’ve been doing it all of my loving life, and I mean all of it.

For example remember those young years as teens where everyone hooks up with friends and friends of friends because that’s basically what happens because it’s the easiest way to get your love life going? Yep, not so much with me. Instead I was fixated on bagging myself my own Mrs Robinson for no other real reason if I’m really honest in that I wanted to see if I could do it. And without going into whether I did or I didn’t, to say that didn’t end well is something of an understatement, so you’d have thought I ‘d learnt my lesson. Not so much. Instead this trying to obtain the unobtainable became something of a drug that I was addicted to seen by the fact that on hitting University I thwn spent a good few weeks trying to bag one of the lecturers, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the worst thing about this one was a male lecturer and I am definitely a woman only woman!

So yes I admit it she is right. Maybe my competitive nature is starting to get in the way of me having a decent love life. Maybe it is time that I grow up and stop playing games and trying to win over women I’m only attracted to because they’re not attracted to me. Maybe, but as forementioned critical friend said she doesn’t see that happening any time soon to this drama queen who is seemingly just as addicted to the unhappy endings as the challenge…

And so if there is any moral of this story (you know like there always is at the end of each episode of a sitcom) to be gleamed for this confession then it has to be this. If you categorically don’t ever ever want to date me then my advice to you is be totally and utterly all over me otherwise I might just start to fall in love with the challenge of winning you.

Photo Credit: alancleaver_2000