The Ordinary v. The Extraordinary

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Good afternoon! I was talking to a couple of good friends of mine about interactions with men and one of the conversations got me to thinking...do we sometimes accept the ordinary and pass it off as extraordinary?

 Now let me clarify (because I'm sure that you are thinking huh?). I was telling my cousin about a guy that I went out with and how I had the best time. I was just explaining how I just knew that things were going to go well because we hung out and talked for over 3 hours and I wasn't tired of his voice or his presence. Now, I was really excited about this...until I talked to my cousin. After I told her about everything, she was like ok? She explained that this is ordinary. There wasn't anything that he did to show me that he really liked me...he didn't do anything extraordinary. He did exactly what was he was supposed to do…he showed up and you had a conversation. She then when into detail telling me that his personality allows him to talk to anyone about anything. It wasn't like he brought flowers (or a dozen red velvet, vanilla, or lemon cupcakes from Crave, Sprinkles, or Celebrity Cupcakes...Hint, hint to any prospect who might be reading this lol) or did something to set himself apart from the other ordinary guys that I've met. And it got me to thinking...I've never really demanded extraordinary. Not in the way I've chosen the guy that I wanted to share my time and energy with and not during our time together. I've always just gone with the flow and never asked for anything more...and I've never truly been happy in the situation either. I've never had a prospect or a boyfriend send me flowers "just because" or go out of his way to make me feel special. But, I've never given off the vibe that these are the things that you need to do to get me...and to keep me. I went out of my way for them, but accepted way less when it came to me. I guess I thought that if I demanded more, then it would seem like I was nagging or I felt like I shouldn't have to tell them and they should do it on their own. WISHFUL THINKING! I didn't really think about all of this then but, it finally clicked a couple of months later...


Last week, I was talking to another good friend of mine about female interactions with men and she was explaining that since she had issues with her weight [in the past], she would use her womanly wiles to get and keep the attention of men. She would entertain conversations that she didn't really want to have because she thought that she had to do that to keep their interests. She never demanded anything more out of them. While she was explaining this and how now she is trying to move out of that mindset, I remembered Cheezie's words and it finally clicked. It's a matter of knowing and being confident enough in yourself to demand more. If a guy is taking a conversation to a place where you're not ready to visit, tell him and direct the conversation in another way. If he keeps going there, stop the conversation altogether. I know it's been said many times before, but a lot of times we take things just for the sake of having the companionship and to say that we have someone there. But if we aren't happy and/or if we're going to later regret our decisions or resent the other person, shouldn't we just bypass that headache and move on to the next? Or even better, shouldn't we spend the time that we are by ourselves to redirect our focus on understanding why we continue this cycle so that we can prevent it from happening in the future? I know I sometimes think about past relationships and I now feel so foolish that I allowed them to go on as long as they did. I try to remind myself of my part in it so that I don't continue the pattern…but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes we get caught in the same cycle with a different person.


Bright Side: Having this conversation the first time and explaining this concept to my friend helped me to realize that maybe I'm not as ready as I felt that I was for a relationship...maybe there's some work that still needs to be done on my part. I need to put more focus on loving, respecting, and caring for myself so that I can stop accepting the ordinary as extraordinary...and truly understand the difference. I.WAS.MADE.FOR.MORE!