#Romeo: The catch 27 (the aftermath of being rejected by your first love)

May 19

AHHH! What a week.

I still can't believe I lost my mentor this week. This dude LITERALLY meant the world to me, and changed my life - so crazy knowing he's gone. I finally did reach out to his wife and to his daughter the other day, so now I can write about it ... but I'm still genuinely not ready, he was just buried yesterday.

So, that was my Tuesday, then Wednesday morning while I was en route to a Ford press event I got the call from Romeo saying he couldn't date me right now. (Read how Romeo and I first met here. And how he came back into my life here.)

I normally give myself 24 hours to mourn something like this, as you want to compartmentalize to a certain degree so it doesn't incapacitate you - but bottom line, you have to deal with the hurt. I'm terribly hurt over this. It's not the "being rejected" part, it's the ... how have we known each other for EIGHT years and nothing has worked out. He is serving me the karma I dished to him 2.5 years ago when I told him we couldn't date for the VERY same reason. Work. Work. Work.

I've now carved out a solid niche for myself and am just rocking out. I'm LOVING the fact that I'm spending every day growing this business (I'm even in the process right now of talking to some peeps about being our CEO since I'd rather be the crazy marketing/ branding person. Big picture - not CEO), but I'm TOTALLY ready to date and I'm TOTALLY ready to explore an intimate relationship with something other than a website.

I am reminded of this fact every day when I wake up to emails like this ...

NONE OF THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT.

THIS. IS. MY. REAL. LIFE.

I ACCIDENTALLY went out on 103 dates in 9 months while I was couch surfing for a year batering social media to live. I did 96 dates in 8 months before my branding and marketing brain kicked in and said, oh! I could package this!! I still average at least 2 dates a week and have genuinely gone out with more people than I'd ever care to admit but this is what happens when you're 27 and putting yourself out there. I'm a FEROCIOUSLY curious person and devote my life to this site and to what I'm doing in social media - so hell yeah I'm going to keep doing what I do.

I, however, quickly recognized that for me to be satisfied on a personal level I had to take the "real time" component of my dating life offline, so now I supplement that with taking nerdy dudes in the field and helping them get the girl in exchange for me writing about it. (Read more about that here)

I won't ever stop writing. I've been doing this my entire life in my journals, now I just choose to publish them so that it also holds me accountable for all my actions. As far as where the brand goes in the future, that's something I'm working out with advisors behind the scenes. Dudes, we have 75 writers on this site! We'll be good. =)

Either way, Romeo doesn't read this site. Period end of sentence.

I don't think he would genuinely be able to wrap his brain around what I do - but that's not the point. I wouldn't want to know about what he does in television, I just know that he is the best person for his exact position and he will always kick ass and take names.

AHHHH fuck my life I am PISSEEEEEDDDDDDD. He's thirty fucking two - I'm 27!! It's not like we're 19 and 24 anymore!!!

I read recently in the book "Think like a man, act like a lady" that men will never want to be in a relationship until they have their professional life appeased. It's how men are wired - they have to be able to provide. If they can't provide for their lady, they don't want a lady. Period end of sentence.

I KNEW that going into this, but the problem is my theme with my modern day shaman for the last month has been that I need to speak my personal truth. Telling him how much I loved him WAS my personal truth even though I knew logically it wasn't in line with what I knew about men and dating. I KNOW through and through that my lesson in all of it was that I needed to allow myself to be emotionally vulnerable without having a guarantee of anything in return. I couldn't analyze the situation (like I always do) and say yes, yes, yes, this is it, these are the conditions, good to go! You can't do that when it comes to love, and no matter what I am going to take away some great lessons from this situation ... I just wish my heart didn't hurt. It's not even over not having him half as much as I'm just genuinely sick of dating. Guy after guy, date after date, I can't seem to find that person!! People aren't driven, man!! And those that are driven are so freaking focused on what they're doing that they don't want to date. I'm stuck now in a catch 27. (hehehe see what I did there? I replaced 22 for my age 27. I can haz a funny.)

I know I'll figure all of this out. Life really is what happens while you're busy making other plans ... it just makes me sad and angry. At what point do you remove the "idealized" love from a scenario and say this is just annoying and disrespectful? Look at Carrie and Big for example - Big left her AT THE ALTAR and she still took him back!! I was so PISSED watching that movie wondering what woman would do that? This is "true love?" That's fucking bullshit!! At what point do I finally have to put my foot down with Romeo and say enough is enough!! WHY DID HE COME BACK INTO MY LIFE IF HE WASN'T READY TO DATE?? THIS. MAKES. NO. SENSE.