Bitches Ain’t Shit: The Manifesto

When I was four, I remember falling in love for the very first time.  Well, maybe it wasn’t love, and maybe I was too young to really recognize it as anything other than a strong fascination for a female playmate. 

Since that monumental moment as a kid, I have fallen in love several times. 

I thought my very first girlfriend dumping me on Christmas would be a pivotal moment, shaping a truer understanding of what love was.  My reaction to our breakup was a far cry from enlightenment about love and relationships.  I became a champion crooner of Snoop Dogg’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” It was on repeat, either on a CD or in my head, either way, for three years following that embarrassing moment (I should have been clued into…something, since she was trying to link me up with a waitress at a restaurant the night before), I treated all women like the scandalous, lying bitches they were.

I acted out aggressively, carelessly and with no REAL respect for any woman I came in contact with. I was an asshole and I didn’t care. 

Every woman I have dated since G has shown me something about myself.  Loving and dating has been more about a revelation of self and a container of evolution than it has been about mastering relationships or the art of love.  In fact, I don’t think I will ever master the art of love. I don’t think there are any true experts on love and relationships.  That doesn’t mean that there will not be 300 more people writing books this year showing us all how to love our man or woman, what signs to look out for in a cheater and how to tell your man is really gay.  We buy those books hoping to one day find our perfect mate, or shape our existing relationships into something far more phenomenal and passionate than we believe them to be. I’m not saying books don’t help.  I read a lot of books, and I take a lot of things from them that have truly helped me look closer at things in life’s bigger picture.  Admittedly, I don’t own any, “How to Make Your Relationship Hotter in 30 Days!” kind of books.

For the past five years I have been in two relationships with two phenomenal and beautiful women.  They are strikingly different, physically, how they sift through their emotions, how they love(d) me, and how they juggle life experiments experiences.  There was something about them both that I saw could benefit me for a lifetime and I loved them both imagining that forever.  Because of where I was in my life, I was unable to sustain anything beautiful or healthy with either one.  I broke up with one love and allowed the other love to break me.  I was disappointed in myself when I look back on both relationships.  There have been times when I effortlessly assigned blame and made both loves the boogeyman of my relentless and undying love for them (insert dramatic pause). But at the end of the day, I made choices to love them—the parts that I did and didn't like. 

In the past I have treated partners like this:

“You have to make up for all of the bullshit every bitch (don’t judge me) has done to me.  As such, I am going to treat you like every bitch that has ever not fulfilled my ambiguous, outrageous and sometimes reasonable expectations I had of her.  And if you really want me to be patient, get to know you, and understand how you function as a human being, don’t hold your breath.  You WILL be who I want you to be because you’re cute and I have faith in you.  Now, sign here….here…here…initial here and here…”

My Aunt says that I am handling my last breakup better than I have any other break up in the past.  I disagree, of course.  The last break-up was the worst for me (for a lot of reasons), but I am learning to channel sadness in a way that in the past would have immobilized me.  In the past, I found a way to deny my emotions, transform them into a path of vindication or into a bubble of anger.   I didn’t want to deal with the reality of what was and I certainly didn’t want to seem like a loser, like I couldn’t handle or love this person.  I certainly wasn’t prepared to walk onto a stage in front of the “I told you so” crowd.  This has not been easy. I think about her more than I’ll admit to.

Love never changes.  Love has been the same since the first time I laid eyes on my pre-k playmate up until now.  I’ve blamed love for a lot of shit.  I’ve threatened to leave it.  I’ve threatened to warn people about love’s dirty little secrets.  I’ve threaten to take it away from people like a carrot on string.  But love has been static—an immovable statue.  I’ve just been running around it, hopping all over it from different vantage points, accusing it of being inconsistent and hurtful, when it was my own perspective that was flawed or constantly changing.

I’ve never had a failed relationship—ever. I’ve had relationships that ended.  I’ve been hurt and I have been intentionally hurtful. I’ve used and I’ve been used.  I have loved and I have been loved.  I have broken and I have been broken. 

I wanted to regret this last love experience.  I wanted to say, “I KNEW this was going to happen.”  There was something about it that always felt temporary, but I ignored that and tried to spread it as thinly as possible.  I spread it so thin that it disappeared right in my hands.  I wanted to say, “Man I should not have loved that girl. Ugh.”  But I did.  It was a very unique experience and I participated in a marathon of emotions that made me dislike her and love her in one single moment.  I don’t regret the experience.

If I want to love someone, I have to love them like my heart has never been broken.  An impossible feat, I’m sure.  But I don’t want anyone to love me with a broken heart.  In the past I have tried so hard not to be like my partners’ last experiences. I declared myself the great duct tape of their broken hearts, trying to prove to each of them that I was not like their old mates.  I got so focused on dusting off my ill-fitting superman outfit to be the best lover that they ever had, that I spent very little time hearing how to love them and showing them how to love me.  I became Captain, “doing too much and doing too little at the same time.”

I’m not bitter or angry.  And although there is some residual sadness, longing and wonder, I am licking my wounds quietly and with great consideration. 

I love being in love.  The feeling is like no other.  Whoever I meet and fall in love with next will not have to sign the, Bitches Ain’t Shit Manifesto.  I am archiving it, because I don’t want my new love to have to die on the cross built by old loves.  Everyone deserves a fresh start—even me.