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I whole-heartedly understand that I am to blame for 99.98 percent of the trust issues that I have in my life. I worry too much. I'm too anxious, and I jump to the worst possible conclusion without having any valid reason or knowledge.
I fear abandonment, ultimately. And because I do, I overcompensate one fault with the fault of another.
If you think I'm over exaggerating or being dramatic about the level of my anxiousness, this is my desktop background on my computer:
Notice it's not, like, some cool photo that I took when I went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's literally a black screen with the words, "your anxiety is just unsubstantiated fear." Well... I mean, you see right there what it is.
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I don't know if it's therapeutic or fucked up that I need to remind myself of this; that my anxiety is just unsubstantiated fear. Fear, that I feel constantly, based from nothing or something that I cannot control. And I remind myself of this every time I get back to the desktop. Which is about a hundred times a day.
My blame aside, and it's substantial. I do put some blame on some of the women I've dated (emphasis on some).
Pretty girls will do that to you -- pretty girls will force you, in some way or on some level to come to grips with an insecurity that you didn't know you had, buried deep, until it suddenly explodes. Pretty girls will force you to not trust them completely. It's awful and unhealthy.
The good part is that it's actually not even their fault or her that you don't trust, it's more yourself. Not only is it not their fault, they're probably doing everything in their power to make you trust them. They want you to, after all.
But there is something that gives me a paralyzing anxiety that I most times cannot help, prevent, or quickly hammer down when I feel it surfacing. I try extremely hard to do it, and I am getting better at it. The process of improvement is always slow, which is where big-picture-thinking comes into play.
But this thing is debilitating. It leaves me absolutely helpless and vulnerable, like an ostrich stumbling into a lion den. And the feeling of being helpless, as a man (or ostrich), can very easily and very quickly burrow its way to my id and fuck things up -- royally. And it does that quite often.
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So what am I talking about?
I'm talking about men. Ya. Me. Well, not me, other men. I'm talking about men being men. Men not respecting the solid relationship. Men being creeps, basically. Men who have suddenly reverted to cavemanitis and think they need to procreate with every woman who breathes air, regardless of whether that woman is with somebody else. Men who believe there's no better way to swoon a pretty girl than by tweeting your girlfriend, asking them to a concert via Facebook, commenting sexist shit on her Instagram, or suddenly forgetting what the word "friend" means and sends a douchey text asking her to hang out and watch a movie. I'm a guy. I know what that means. We all know. We all know that "want to hang out and watch a movie" is the adult version of the phrase we've all come to know as, "Want to watch Netlfix and chill?"
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Can you be annoyed? Sorry, I'm speaking to the good-hearted normal guys out there. Are you annoyed? Sure. Of course you are. It's normal to be protective. We are still, to some extent, shaped by our early hominid DNA. It's why males go up against rival males in nature. In a way, it's exactly what I'm talking about. Some creep-ass buffalo thinks he can replace you. But he can't can he? No. 'Cause your foot rubs are dope.
None of that shit is her fault -- the creepers, I mean. It's not. It's not her fault she's desirable. It's not her fault she's a fifteen on the ten scale. It's my fault for letting the noise affect me. Because that's just what it is -- noise. It's like I suddenly think I can unplug the cord to the internet or hit reset or throw a black shroud over her.
I can't do any of that. Nor do I want to.
I can't prevent any of the (sic) "Hey, just reaching out. seeing whts up (wink emoji)" Twitter DMs either. It's just how it is and what you have to deal with in a world where everyone can be connected to anyone in the amount of time it takes to order take-out at Chipotle. And in that short amount of time, you can overreact, jump to conclusions, fuck-up what is right, and set your relationship back to an irrevocable place.
So just trust her. Because that anxiety that you're feeling, that urge to just walk out the door and break down and have one of those crying fits where you inhale and make that weird horn noise, that's all just unsubstantiated fear.
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[Image credit: Marcus Thomas/ Deviantart.com]