Here I am again

And here I am again, single once again. Only this time it was much more painful than before. This time, I was totally invested, completely giving away any trace of my individuality. I should not have done that. They say that you learn from your mistakes, or from bad experiences. Well, I can say that I have definitely learned. A lot.

I have learned that you should not tell your Significant Other everything in your past, even when your SO is oh-so-charming and seemingly (key word here: "seemingly") confident. Even when they demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Why? Because telling can come and bite you in the ass. Because, like Jack Nicholson's character yelped in that military movie, "you can't handle the truth". Nobody can handle knowing absolutely everything in someone else's past, and why should they? I would like to forget some bits and pieces of my past myself! And the problem is, once you have told, you cannot take it back. You can explain it, over-explain it, justify it, but once it is out, it does not belong to you anymore. It becomes part of your relationship and you cannot help but share your bed with your partner and all those skeletons, which can be a bit overcrowded. Next time, I will definitely keep my mouth shot and let the past be the past. If I don't think about it anymore, it is not worth being in someone else's head.

I have learned that you should not waste your time trying to please someone else all the time. Why? Because regardless of your willingness to go the extra mile, the other will always want more. And more. And more. Until you have nothing else to give. Of course, wanting to please your partner is a fundamental part of love, but not in spite of yourself. Not in spite of your own needs. Also, after a while, they get used to it and it is not even something worth getting excited about anymore.

I have learned that you should keep your own friendships outside the cocoon of the relationship. It is a hard truth, but when a couple splits up, one of the "assets" of the relationship's estate are those friends. Inevitably, those friends end up taking sides. Inevitably, even when the friend in question tries to avoid it, they choose a favorite. It is like parents with more than one child: they might never admit it, but there is always one they love more. So, I will avoid this additional pain next time and keep my friends to myself. Selfish? Maybe. Realistic? Totally. So, perhaps the solution would be to make friends in common together, and leave your pre-relationship friends to be yours alone. Or at least frequent them enough on your own so that they remember they are YOUR friends, not his. So that you avoid the additional pain of losing the boyfriend AND the friends. It can get pretty lonely if you are not careful. The only good thing about this? You would be able to learn who your true friends are. Which friends will stick with you in spite of how crazy with pain you become and tolerate your post-breakup blues with cupcakes and wine to ease your pain.

Each person that touches your life has a lesson to give you. Well, for that, I must say that I learned plenty this time. Hopefully the next lesson will be a less painful one.