I picked a real winner to open up my New Year. A young man who told me right off the bat that he was going to be mean and that his personality would not allow him to cater to my dreams and hopes. I shrugged that revelation off, thinking he’s just making it harder for me. This is the challenge that I love so dearly. It is not a warning sign, it is an opportunity to shine and show that I can change this emotionally-crippled soul into a paragon of virtue. This did not happen.

I ended up getting stomped on and hurt both physically and mentally and I have no one to blame but myself. Yes, this guy did a number on me but I certainly gave him every advantage by sticking around for it even when I knew I should have left. I wanted the possibility of love so bad that I was willing to sacrifice my dreams and hopes to get it. I imagined the stories that I would tell friends about how difficult he had made it for us to be a couple but we managed to overcome those issues. There should not be any issues in your first month of a relationship. This is where you realize, you should be jumping ship if things are not going well at all.

I think I may secretly like being the victim. It makes me feel as though I’m effecting a change in someone. If this guy has to treat me bad it is because he wants me to work hard for his love. That was exactly what I did. I worked hard and bent over so far back that you’d think I was in an Olympic event. But love should not be that hard to work for. Love should just be.

This guy that I dated was not able to say one kind word to me outside of enjoying my cooking. He was not able to express his feelings or reciprocate any kind of emotion. I ended up doing all of the work and getting absolutely no where. I started to feel that this was the price to pay for love to work out, for a relationship to happen. Maybe I had been out of the dating game for so long that I just forgot that this was what it was about. Maybe it had evolved while I had taken a break from it. That was just a stupid thought and I was giving this guy more power then he was worth. I was handing him the key to taking advantage of me. I wanted him to feel things for me and to say nice things to me. These were things that would never come.

I still stck around because I was willing to settle at this point. In hindsight that is the scariest thought of all. Willing to settle for someone who had clearly pointed out that their goal was going to be to hurt me as hard as they could. Did I want to get hurt so that I could run to my friends, cry like a baby and say see what this guy did to me? I think I did just a bit.

Usually, I am a very strong person who knows what I like and dislike but it took a very aggressive act on his part to open my eyes and realize that the changes that I thought I was going to help him make were never to come. Long story short, I told him no when he asked for something. I can handle the pestering of somebody continuing to ask when you’ve said no to them. What I cannot handle is someone trying physically to take from you that which you have deprived them. It is a dangerous line when what is wanted is a physical act. Suddenly, my blindness that I had placed over myself disappeared.

At first I felt guilty because I could not give him what he wanted but then when he told me that I should feel shame, I realized that you can never encourage anyone to change unless they have good intentions from the get-go. This is where being a victim had got me...in a very dangerous situation where I could have really got hurt. I didn’t like the feeling anymore. Being the victim and feeling rewarded was very different from being the victim and being hurt. I decided if this was what it took to be a saint, I’d throw that application out the window.

Best of all, from this mistake I learned to speak again for that voice which I had used in other situations had been simply removed by me for the sake of this guy. In essence, he did not know the real me because I gave him everything he wanted and that was who he hurt. But he knows the real me now because he was sure I would be coming back to take more and I haven’t and my fascination with the bad guy is over. That dark horse can just trot on by. I will take the man who has less confusion to offer me because that is the guy who will listen to my voice, respect my wishes and deny me the chance to be a victim. Because for that guy, he won’t want to date a victim…he’ll want to date a person that is on the same level – a compatriot.

In four weeks of not wanting to lose this guy and living completely anxious, I have nothing positive that I got out of the relationship. But in ending it all and realizing what a mistake it was, I have attained a lot. I have learned more about myself and what I think I deserve. And I definitely deserve to be happy and not settle. And if ever I think that it is okay to be a victim because it can have its rewards, I will just remember this guy and what he almost did to me and know that being that kind of a victim is not okay.

Jeff Grixti works at a publishing company by day. He is currently looking for Mr. Right but unfortunately having no luck whatsoever. In his spare time he loves to write and travel.