Just a brief moment of disbelief that life is what it is:

Why is it that all the men I seem to meet nowadays are either looking for a one night stand girl or a girl to buy a ring for and settle down with tomorrow?

Where are all the normal, self-confident, well-adjusted men who just want to have a good time with a nice girl and see where it goes??? 

I am looking for way more than a one night stand man and I'm way too young to be thinking about settling down with the first decent guy I meet. 

I am starting to feel like I'm the only person in this stage that I'm at, but, alas!  Patty Loveless at one time understood me...

I ain't the woman in red
I ain't the girl next door
But if somewhere in the middle's what you're lookin for
Yeah, I'm that kinda girl

Goin dancing tonight!

Why is it that people are so like...people?  How can you be so popular and have so many friends and still be lonely?  How is it that good people cannot correct their own faults enough to keep from losing those they love?

I sit here tonight and I think about people.  There are people who have hurt me, people who have protected me, people who have loved me with little return, and people whom I have loved with little return.  There are people who hurt those they love and don't mean to and there are people who refuse to let go of hurts.

The situation often years in the making goes like this:

How do you confront someone you love and you know loves you who repeatedly angers you but who does not intend to do so?  You say it nicely, they say sorry, and you go about your day.  Days, weeks, years go by and the same thing keeps happening.  Eventually, you give up because you can't say it nicely any longer.  You yell, scream, cry, anything to make your hurts heard.  They hear you loud and clear, realize they have caused this, and break down in tears.  You clam down, knowing you finally got through.  They sob, I am so sorry, I didn't realize I hurt you this badly.  Then they feel guilty and it is no longer about the act they do that hurts you but about them.  They moan, I can't do anything right, I am trying, really I am.  You sympathize because you have been there - trying to do what's best for someone and only hurting them.  You vow never again to confront them in a way that hurts them like that because you know the pain of guilt so well and you can stomach the things they do that hurt you to avoid causing them guilt.

But they keep hurting you, not because they mean to, but because that is their personality, or because they really just don't see things through the same lenses you do, or because their understanding of the situation that seems so obvious to you is different.  You shut off.  You don't want to allow them to hurt you any longer, but neither is the argument worth it anymore.  And you can't stand to make them hurt.  It becomes a silent, distant stand off.  It feels like they are hurting you on purpose, even though, at this point, you know they are not.  But you know they can't change, at least not yet.  And the hurts are cutting deeper.  You become alone, slowly losing your friend, lover, or family member.  But you have to pretend like everything is ok because you remember their tears, and you know that if you let on that you were shutting off, they would be cut just as deeply as you because they love you - or at least, they are trying to - and you can't do that to them. 

What do you do at this point, before you lose either the person you love and who loves you or yourself? 

Ask for explanations of comments in later settings, when your request cannot be mistaken for an attack or defensive measure to help you see their perspective and reasoning.  Do fun, light-hearted things together to reacquaint one with the other.  Find an adequate balance of time together and time apart.  All these things can help, certainly.

But ultimately, I think, you must make a commitment to let the hurts go.  You must make a commitment to continually work to put your trust in the fact that you know they love you rather than the feelings their comments or actions cause.  You must make a commitment to continually try to open yourself to their way of expressing love and their perhaps blindness to your sensitivities.  Perhaps, in cases like this, it is the injured party that must do the most work to keep the relationship rather than the injuring party.

It is a lonely feeling to feel the stand off.  It feels like no one in the world understands you, especially not them, the ones you love so much.  It is even more lonely when you look around at the world and see how many relationships ended at this point.  Does no one have the courage to continually be open anymore?  Does everyone believe the psycho-babble about past baggage, that once one is deeply hurt by someone else, the effects are inoperable? Do we have such a need to be pitied as victims that we cannot be strong for those who love us but may not understand us?  Do we have such a fear of pain that we cannot bravely feel it and openly cry our tears with each injury and then just let it go, standing up again for the sake of love?  I am certainly not pondering abusive relationships or acquaintance relationships, but ones that are committed in some fashion.  Do we have such a fear of guilt that we cannot feel it, admit it, and move on? 

It is a rare gift anymore to have even 1 loving parent, 1 good friend, or a significant other that lasts longer than a one night stand or a few months of good conversation, and each one of these people in our lives will hurt us.  And we will hurt them.  Sometimes repeatedly, sometimes reaching the stand-off that brings with it a deep loneliness like they write country songs about. 

The question is, what do we do then?  It sounds like an easy decision when you write it like this.  It's not so easy when a fresh hurt comes along. 

I pray that it will all be ok.  For everyone.  And I have a cool dog who boats with me and swims in the lake with the best of them!