Taking Stock

It’s been approximately a year since I got out of my last relationship and started this journal.  Looking back and reading some of my earlier entries, it’s very encouraging to me to see that I’ve come a long way from where I was back then.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was an extremely late bloomer. When I was in high school, I was always around a fair number of girls and went through a handful of girlfriends as well, but I was still somewhat reserved in my relationships.  Whatever I was doing back then to attract girls was completely natural for me and I never really put that much effort in trying to pick them up.  My college years were a completely different story, however.

My first mistake was going to a (unbeknownst to me at the time) primarily academic school.  Not only did this mean that the majority of the women on campus were unattractive, but the student body as a whole was quite conservative.  Based on movies and everyone else’s recount of their college years, I expected a full helping of ass to be handed out with my welcome packet.  Sadly, my hopes couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Unlike high school, I found myself suddenly short on women, in college.  Sure, I had a few female friends, but I didn’t really find any of them attractive and I wasn’t hooking up with any new prospects.  I’d completely lost my mojo.  As the semesters passed, I found myself spending more and more nights hanging out with the guys.  For whatever reason, I was completely unable to convert when going out with the few girls I did manage to meet.  Crestfallen, I began to let myself go and before long, I was out of shape and a bit down on myself.

I’m not sure exactly when or why it happened, but eventually I decided that enough was enough and decided to make a change for the better.  I started going to the gym and altered my entire outlook on life.  Within weeks, I was a bettered person and people began to notice this transformation.  I took this new attitude with me when I went out and suddenly I was meeting people again.  It wasn’t long before I found myself involved in a serious relationship.

That relationship lasted through the end of college.  If I thought it was difficult meeting and hooking up with girls in college, I was really in for a surprise when I entered the real world.  Suddenly, I found myself in another drought and praying for relief.  I reverted to my high school mindset and took a very passive approach to dating (it's a lot easier to be lazy, after all).  Care to guess how many women I hooked up during that period?  Yup, zilch.  I reevaluated my methods shortly thereafter and tried to decide what I really wanted and how to go about obtaining that goal.  I began to take a much more proactive approach to dating and suddenly found myself enjoying it, again.

It wasn't long before I found myself amidst another relationship (the one that preceded this blog).  After about a year and a half, I came to the realization that that person wasn't the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with (actually, I think I came to that conclusion well before then, but I wasn't ready to fully accept it, at the time).  When I finally ended that relationship, I felt more liberated and set to take on the world of dating than I had at any point in my life. 

Those circumstances and that attitude have made the past year or so very exciting, enjoyable and, above all, educational.  I've learned a lot about myself, as well as the world of dating, in that time, but I know I still have a ton to learn.  If gaining more knowledge continues to be this pleasurable, though, then I welcome the future with open arms!