Cheers to Not Lowering Standards for Guys

I have a history of letting guys walk all over me. It’s annoying to admit, but it’s true.

When it comes to love and desire, I’ve always found great difficulty in sticking to my standards. 

Part of the problem is that my brain is particularly skilled at coming up with benefit-of-the-doubt excuses for others’ shitty behavior.

Last week, however, I finally felt like I got socked in the stomach by a lesson that has urged me to unlearn that behavior. 

This is what happened: I’d had a light and fun flirtation with someone over the last month and change that looked like it was finally going to materialize into a date. But in the time leading up to our prospective rendez-vous, he got all non-committal and flaky. 

Truthfully, it pissed me off. My mind was screaming, “who does this guy think he is, wasting my time like that??” 

So, I did what all reasonable girls would do in this scenario—I called my best friend. 

Her response was both helpful and unexpected. She (rightfully) brought up the point that he didn’t exactly owe me anything—the situation was very clearly ‘for a good time, not a long time’ from the start. 

But through her playing devil’s advocate, we got to the root of my disappointment: I had been emotionally and energetically taken advantage of by guys too many goddamn times. I was always defaulting to the care-taker and the peace-maker—to my own detriment. 

It was time to change that. I needed to make a new commitment that I would never let anyone breach my standards—under any circumstance. 

It may seem silly that this was a lesson I needed to learn, but I’ve noticed this kind of thinking in others close to me as well. In a conversation with a friend on the weekend, she made a throwaway comment about how she didn’t feel the need to voice her needs to the person she was seeing because “it’s not like he’s my future husband.”

That may be true. But, similarly to me, him not meeting her standards was causing her frustration and distress. 

And, most importantly, if we can’t practice setting our boundaries with people that are ‘lower stakes,’ how can we really expect ourselves to hold firm when it really counts? 

We can’t. 

The lesson is a valuable one. 

My guy turned out to be kind of an asshole—but I smile at the thought of the universe putting him in my path for the sole purpose of arming me with knowledge I will need for the beautiful and meaningful relationships that are to come.