I did some thinking about relationships.

I am in awe of my parents. Somehow, they've raised me to be strong enough, smart enough, and wise enough to stand independently. I don't *need* someone to hold me up. I don't *need* someone to validate me. I can make it on my own.

(Although I suppose that's also due in part to luck--no major traumatic events for this kid--but let's go ahead and attribute my success to my parents because they deserve some kudos.)

I get discouraged sometimes as I look around and see others in my generation being their lazy, dependent selves, lacking the common sense and drive to get shit done with their lives. I also get discouraged sometimes as I look around and see others in my generation doing amazing things like building schools in developing nations, bringing their medical expertise to those in need, and starting non-profits for a glut of causes. But that's more of an "I could do so much more with my life holy crap" discouraged as opposed to a "Watching another episode of Repo Games instead of vacuuming is still actually not lazy" discouraged.

Holy shit. Well, yay for tangents, right?!

So, I'm in awe of my parents, because in this era of lazy, dependent, needy people, they've raised me to have enough character and common sense to support myself through pretty much any situation Life can throw at me.

Pretty much.

Relationships?

Yeah. Not so much.

Whether it's an illusion I've been under my entire life (which I am assured is the case) or whether I legitimately have some fatal flaw that leaves me unable to attract attention from a male human being, romantic relationships have been my albatross (alba... tri? Albatrosses--thanks, Google!) for-pretty-much-ever. I'm inherently antisocial, I'm bad at reading non-verbal cues, and I take things that people say too personally, over-analyzing and over-thinking words and phrases to death. Is it any wonder that I'm actually sort of happy sitting here in the middle of a night shift in a locked lab?

And, rather than venture out to try to learn about human relationships, I've learned to make my own money, be my own company, and buy my own food, clothes, and shiny things. Who do I talk to? Myself, obviously. (You silly!) I spent 25 years consoling myself, holding pseudo-girl-talks with myself, and attempting to pep-talk myself through the years of watching my friends' and family's relationships... do their weird relationship things, I guess. As dysfunctional as this is, I'm fiercely proud of my resilience--after all, they always say that you shouldn't need someone in your life to define you, and you definitely shouldn't depend on a man for anything. (Girl Power, yo!)

Cue: September 2013. My "Eff Relationships, They're Dumb Anyways" world goes to pot, with my first serious relationship, which saw me get in too deep too fast for my liking. I felt completely smothered (antisocial lab rat does not want to receive attention 23.5 hours each day, never mind give attention 23.5 hours each day) and frustrated at what I felt was one person's attempt to override my resilience and make me dependent and helpless without him. (Perception is a funny thing.) Panicked and frustrated with the relationship, I tried to maintain my distance so as to maintain my pride in who I was and what I could do. When that didn't work (along with other things also not working out as I had hoped), I called it quits. Drama followed. (I fucking hate people-drama. Fucking. Hate. It.)

Having done some thinking on what went wrong, and having tried to strip my emotional responses from the post-mortem, I've found this: I don't like giving up responsibility. It makes me feel useless, or helpless, or incompetent, or some combination thereof. I like venting about my problems, but I want to find a solution by myself, enact it by myself, and have someone pat me on the back after the problem is fixed. (Because obviously, I can fix any problem if I put my mind to it. I'm Special, just like all my Millenial cohorts.)

So, what am I looking for in a partner? Someone who is willing to let me run my own life, solve my own problems, and celebrate my own successes knowing that I actually could figure it out myself. Someone who is willing to stand back when things get bumpy for me rather than swoop in and save (/stop--perception, again) me from working through it, but who is still willing to listen to me complain about how tough it is to work a 1.0FTE (poor me). Someone who is also resilient, and who can exist as a person without a constant need for my validation of his ability to be a Real Man and do things that Real Men do. Also, someone who can deal with those nasty bugs that are the Alberta-version of a cockroach, because I really, really can't.

Cue: April 2014. I'm 6 months into the relationship learning-curve, and still absolutely blowing it. Somehow, my fatal flaw has regressed to a sort of "disfiguring but liveable" condition and I've attracted the mostly-serious attention of two fantastic guys. Murphy's Law, right? No BFs for 25 years, then two at once. I guess people-drama can get worse...