This does not define who I am.

I haven't told many people this, and I certainly haven't written about it here, because I didn't think it was something I really wanted to discuss with the public at large.

But it's kind of right in the front of my brain this weekend, and it's not something I'm ashamed of (surprisingly), so I figured I may as well say it loud so to speak.

Middle of last month, I went to see a therapist.


There's something in me that doesn't allow me to see reality when I look in the mirror, and no matter how many books I've read about it, it isn't helping, so against my better judgment (at the time), I decided it was time to go talk to a professional about it.

I wasn't sure, after the first two visits, if it was really going to help.  I felt like he spent an extensive period of time asking about my childhood, which I consider to have been very normal all things considered.  But Friday, the tone of the appointment was different, and I decided I'd give it a couple more tries.

Two of the things he said (as vague pseudo diagnosis, I guess) is that I have unrelenting standards and that I have a significant fear of failure.

Yes.

The fear of failure is the one that I've been focusing on this weekend, and while I was taking a shower this afternoon, washing all the candle scent and hair-glaze off, it occurred to me that while I do have that fear of failure, I often set myself for it, and even while I'm trying to avoid it, I end up stepping right into it.  Especially in love relationships.

I said something that the Dr found "very telling" in the middle of a conversation about why I don't date now.  I told him that while thumbing through pictures on a personals site, I will often go right past men I consider to be very good looking or extremely successful without stopping.  He asked why.  I said that I don't date men like that.  He asked why.

I didn't answer right away.  But what came out shortly thereafter is that those kinds of men have never had any interest in me.  Again with the fat chick....

No, I have tended to pick men who are 'odd' in one way or another. Broken. Too skinny.  Too emotional.  Not at all emotional.  Too quiet.  Too geeky.  These are the men I thought that I could succeed with.  Very good looking successful men offered too good of an opportunity for failure, but guys who were a little 'weird' or 'not quite normal' seemed to provide less of that opportunity, and perhaps I could make it work.

Problem is, it hasn't.

And I think that a very big part of my 'too independent' is that those failures....are actually harder to digest than the others would be.

Why?

Because they made me feel as if I wasn't even good enough for a weird guy.  How could I possibly be good enough for anyone?

/eyeroll.  Again, as last night, what a load of horseshit.

I like realizations most of the time.  This one I am not happy about. It's good to know it, at least.  And to know why I've been so on edge since Friday.  And now that I do know it, I can set it right.  You can't fix what you don't realize is broken, right?