29 Secrets

It’s okay you dated these guys.

At one point in my life, I was a dating fool. In multiple ways. Not only would I date pretty much anyone who asked me out, I did it with a blatant disregard for my own feelings. Not even remotely interested in this guy? Yeah, sure, we can go out. Horrible first date? Might as well give him one more chance. With every failed courtship, I would dust off my hands and move onto the next one with neither rhyme or reason, which was really emotionally healthy and mature of me. Not everything is a lesson, but what I used to see as a waste of time and energy I now see as useful field research I can share with others. Because it’s just fine to fail at relationships, and it’s expecially fine if you failed at relationships with any of these guys:

A total asshole
I mean, I guess it was funny when he drunkenly broke off the parking ramp arm with his bare hands even though you had already called his belligerent ass a cab? Oh wait, no it wasn’t. Well, at least he gave you a copy of Atlas Shrugged after telling you it was literally the only book he had ever read.

A short guy
Hey, it didn’t work out with this guy for a lot of reasons. And not all of them explicitly had to do with the fact that you wouldn’t ever be able to kiss him standing up without feeling like you were about to kiss a middle school student. But he opened your eyes to why lanky models are always being sired about town by vertically-challenged men: it’s undeniably and inexplicably glamorous.

A boring guy
No matter how good he was on paper, no matter how surely your mother and father would have liked him, not matter how reliable of a husband and father he would have made, he was criminally dull. With him, you learned that sometimes, “girls don’t like nice guys” really means, “girls don’t like boring guys.”

An “artist”
Artists are great. “Artists” are making excuses for why they don’t have a job, why they don’t pay their bills, why they are sleeping in their cars, why they can’t take hold of their lives. It feels good to be a muse, but you know, only if that inspires actual work.

A guy who thought he looked like Bradley Cooper but really just looked like a lizard
Seeing such a deplorable level of vanity in a potential mate only makes you watch for it in yourself. And realize you kind of look like a strange bird.

What guys are on your list of “failed relationships turned field research?” Any big lessons learned?