The Death of Relationship Girl

When I was a teenager I had this weird thing I wouldn’t share with anyone. My dirty little secret was that I routinely would buy bride magazines. I’d tell the neighbourhood 7/11 cashier guy who knew me since I was a kid to “Please put it in a bag, sir”, so no one would see what I had just spent my weekly allowance on pages upon pages filled with models dressed to the nines getting paid to look in love. I would get home, lock my bedroom door, all excited with my little hands turning the pages, my mouth salivating at the images of a beautiful girl in white holding flowers with her groom by her side.  I’d hide an issue of Today’s Bride under my mattress much like a 13 year old boy would his Playboy. I always thought that if I told anyone how much I enjoyed flipping through the pages that showcased images of wedding dresses and tips on décor no one would get it. I believed that if I was thoroughly transparent and told the world that I was a teenage girl who spent her days dreaming of being a bride, I'd be judged. I wasn’t wrong though, I would be judged and whenever I uttered this fascination to others, sure enough, they judged. Most of my teenage girlfriends were clubbing and starting to have sex while I sat at home reading bride magazines. Among my circle of friends it wasn’t cool to be the “relationship girl”. I learned as I got older, its never cool to be that girl. It’s still not cool to be that girl.

As I got older, the dream, fantasy and idealization of myself one day meeting that special guy, deciding to commit my life to him and becoming a bride intensified. It intensified when I really clicked with a guy I liked and when I got into my first real serious relationship, I no longer suppressed the desire to talk about my hidden desires. When I celebrated my 4^th year anniversary with my then boyfriend I thought how great it would be to hold that bride magazine in my hands and plan a wedding. Spoiler alert, we broke up not making it to our 5 year anniversary.

If you are predicting for this blog piece to be about a girl who so badly wanted to get married but just couldn’t find the right guy, sorry to burst your bubble but this is not that kind of piece. Rather, almost every boyfriend I have ever had has wanted to marry me. Not in a joking kinda way a semi drink/overly tipsy boyfriend says, “Sure I will marry” while he is pushing you on a swing at a deserted park in the suburbs of North York at 3 am (though that has happened as well). Rather I have looked many times into a man’s eyes and could see the sincerity of him wanting to spend his life with me (even if it was just for that moment).

A part of me wishes that wasn’t so and I could walk around feeling sorry for myself that no man has wanted to spend his life with me. That way I could go to dinner parties, be asked why I'm not married and I could smile and in a stand up comedian type of tone reply with, “What can I do, never got asked, can’t make a man. haha” If that was the case there wouldn’t be anything to feel badly about because I could simply label my dating history as being unlucky but that’s not the case. The reality is that I have met a lot of great guys who have wanted to give me everything I say I would like and I have gone out of my way to either sabotage the relationship or feel like this just wasn’t it for me and walked away altogether (bride magazine in hand of course). Yes, I belong(ed) to the increasing number of single women who live their lives proudly declaring, "Never met the right guy" when asked why I wasn't married. I never gave a lot of thought to the idea that maybe the problem was me. I never gave such a hypothesis a thought until a few months where I found myself experiencing yet another breakup. This one felt different and started what could be described as the start of an existential crisis because for the first time in my life I had a man say, “Karina, maybe the problem is you." I had nothing to say as a response (a seldom occurrence in my life) and it is then that I entertained an idea I never had before- what if I am not a relationship person nor someone who genuinely wants to get married? What if I have been living my life and practicing the ideals that I know my overly Conservative Russian mother would approve? What if I fear how society looks at women who couldn’t care less about getting married? What if I am simply not a relationship girl?

I always say as a human being you are made up of who you want to be and who you truly there. Maybe I am like that A student who got into every university but deep inside just wants to go backpacking through Europe? Maybe the desire to always be moving, planning, booking shows has killed relationship girl or maybe I was never one to begin with.  Maybe my life is not complimentary to being in a relationship- no matter how much I tell myself I still want it.

Another question that needs to be explored is whether one needs to be one or the other. In my past I have always felt like one needed to be clear where they stand. Are you a "fuckboy" or marriage material? Are you a relationship person or are you not? These were all questions I thought were crucial to defining oneself and so being raised very traditional, I gave myself the title of relationship girl because in my head that’s what quality women do; they define themselves as relationship girls and the rest are promiscuous. Mind you I realize today that that is a pretty black and white way of thinking but if you were raised the way I was, you had to choose one or the other but my question is, is it possible to be both?

Is it possible to be the kind of girl that believes in finding a life partner and creating a life together as well as being the kind of girl that loves her me time and doesn’t like the idea of sharing a space with a partner? As someone who genuinely loves spending time by herself the idea of moving into a space and seeing that person everyday of my life scares the loner in me. Being possessive with my time is nothing new for me and as an adult I find myself breaking plans to get quality time with my own self. Sometimes I take myself out to a nice dinner, a lovely stroll by the harbour and it never comes from a place of I should but rather is an inherent need for silence and clarity that one rarely finds with another person. And so that fear that someone would take me away from that clarity and peace is largely why I have never agreed to take that big step with anybody. Or maybe I just never met anyone who made me feel like I would be able to keep independent Karina- even when married.

Another aspect to be explored through this reflective time is how does my life look like when single versus a relationship. Though I will admit that emotionally I am happier in one (who doesn't love a goodnight chat before bed) but my productivity levels are down right sad when I am someone's girlfriends. I pride myself on being a driven woman with a boat load of various projects on the go and being in a relationship (for the simple practical aspect of investing time in it) I fear I will lose that. If truly happy with somebody I fear that one day I will wake up and find that I had just spent a whole weekend being trapped in a room that has left me deliciously delirious but hyper unorganized and with a stupid grin on my face. To some women that would be quite alright but to me that’s when I start being complacent and is also the start of having my clarity hindered. 

I also hate losing and I fear investing my time in something that wont work. Every relationship is a gamble and in the end might leave you in the minus. And so if I have made it my mission the last couple years to solely invest in myself and that way I will never lose or be in the minus.

Or maybe I am too proud to ever let anyone in fully and utterly because to be in a relationship is to be in a permanent state of vulnerability. Not ever sure if today will be the day you get a text on a beautiful sunny, August mid day saying, “Call me, we gotta talk” and that beautiful August day is no longer beautiful nor sunny. Maybe I have told myself that nobody could ever take away a beautiful sunny day except myself. The main thing I dislike about relationships is the uncertainty of it all. Never truly knowing whats around the corner and a control freak, perfectionist like me doesn’t do well with uncertainty. And it is then that I start to think that perhaps my problem is not that I am no longer relationship girl but rather, maybe I never was. It is then that I come to the realization that perhaps I have always loved the idea of white gowns, 3 tiered cakes and guys in tuxedos.

Or is it just full blown fear of being hurt that has never allowed me to full invest and utterly let go? In a way my independence has become my proverbial parachute. I jump out of a plane holding someone's hand and if he ever lets go (people rarely do not let go) I push a button my parachute saves me life. No guard up, no independence means I board a plane with someone and I do not have a parachute. What happens if he decides to let go? Or maybe its not that complicated and I am not married because I have just never truly met the man for me. I have never met the man I think I can jump out of a plane with no parachute in sight and still feel like he wont let me go.  

Or maybe the right approach is to be neither relationship girl or non-relationship girl but rather to just go with the flow. Who knows whats right but what I do know that I have to stop being unhappy when single and running the opposite way when presented with something that could potentially be something real. I also have to stop depicting my life as if I have not met men who were ready to marry me. Ive rewrote their story in my head and made it seem like they were the problem. No, I am the problem. The fact that I am torn between teenage and adult me is the problem but of course the fact that I am doing all this self reflection is a good sign. I am a big believer in the law of attraction. For instance, when can say the fact that I have never married is because I have not yet experienced true happiness while single and thus I have not attracted a man I could be utterly happy with for the long haul. And as I always say, if you find yourself always attracting x when you want y, you have to change the formula; bedmass that shit and try a different equation because obviously E does not always equal Mc2.

With that said, the first step in this journey of self reflection is becoming single and seeing how I truly feel not being anyone's partner. I will allow myself to go on dates but I will not allow myself to think of the future. I will sit at dinner across a table from a man and I will not imagine how he'd look in a tux because the truth is, I do not know if I even want that. My life is not about whether or not I am someone’s wife or girlfriend, but rather do *I* truly want to be anyone's wife or girlfriend? Who is Karina really and can she reach ultimate happiness on her own? These are the answers that I will try to answer while sculpting away and trying to reach the ultimate me. During this time I hope to say goodbye to the insecurity and tremendous fear of not meeting “the one” (whatever that means) and step into the ultimate me; the woman who is complete whether in a relationship or not. That way, maybe then ultimate me, can meet my ultimate mate. Am I the ultimate me right now? Not yet and I’m okay with the idea that I may never fully be but I would like to get to a point where I can be utterly and immensely happy with sharing myself with another human being and feel that same immense joy and pleasure while single. I feel optimistic that that can be done.

My whole life up until this point I’ve rolled my eyes when I would hear women tell me that they didn’t like labels. The idea that categorizing what human beings are to each other puts pressure on the relationship that might eventually lead them to ruin is something that I once found bogus. To just be a man's undefined indefinitely seemed insane to me because in my mind becoming a wife and mother was a woman's destiny and now I see that carving out a life plentiful of achievements and projects is a woman's destiny. Actually its every human being’s destiny. Or maybe the secret is having both.

I thought it was a backwards way of thinking when I'd ask my friends, "So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?" and they'd reply with, "Not sure." At this point in my life I can admit that maybe I have had it backwards all these years. Maybe I have caused unnecessary pressure and unpleasantness in my life that could have been avoided if only I had stopped categorizing myself as either relationship or non-relationship girl. Maybe I am both and neither at the same time. Maybe one does not look for love but it simply comes to you when you become a walking talking dose of love. Maybe to get love you must become love. Maybe to be human is to be a mix of relationship person and the one that is always chasing their own dreams. I know I am because if I am brutally honest with myself and do not give power to the heartbreak, disappointment, and everything else that one carries with them after you have spent over 17 years dating, I can honestly say I love the idea of being my own person but I hope one day I will meet someone who inspires me to go into my neighbourhood On The Run and buy a brides magazine. And if that does not happen, I will still be okay.