The Race

Now technically I am posting post Valentines Day but I did not have time yesterday to fill everyone in on my thoughts regarding the hallmark holiday.  I have never truly ever had a reason to celebrate V-day so I just have an outsiders view on the holiday.  This day is meant to celebrate Love, the spirit and nature that bonds two people together in a caring and submissive union.  This is a day worth celebrating.  Now being a single guy on Valentines Day is not the worst thing that could happen, considering I spent my whole day in classes and then a business meeting to top the day it was probably for the best that I was no where near a relationship this year.  I did pay close attention this year to see what many of the guys that I am on staff with and am good buddies with did for this special day.  It was interesting to me, to see this as a one sided affair, this must be the one day of the year that guys are overly submissive to their ladies.  It is the one day of the year that they must spend living up to the expectations of the day.  
     For the guys I did watch it appeared that all of them did a good job making the day special for their ladies.  I won’t disclose any details about any of them so that their ladies will think theirs was the best, lets just say they didn’t beat flowers ordered from Australia however, Benny takes the cake on that one.  This day however always gets me thinking about relationships more and more.  Since it has been a while since the last time since I was “in the zone” I’m able to observe relationships on a constant basis.  I see those that are great matches and those that are not so great matches.  I hurt for guys who constantly poor into their ladies with nothing in return and I smile for those relationships that appear to just click.  
     It seems that my view of relationships is always changing, it seems that with each time I possibly get closer to one I learn something new about them and I back off.  This really hurts my dating life and my opportunities for bent up sexual tension release (kidding).  Awkwardness and me do not mix and I have found especially even today that whenever I have the opportunity to really get close to a person (male or female) the awkwardness drives me away, the fight or flight takes a rise in me and I immediately want to run.  I feel I might need counseling who knows.  My inability to engage past a certain point would be a interesting counseling session (might take many).  It has spawned my one new years resolution that I would moderately say I have kept this year, to embrace the awkward.  To seek to not be freaked out by the minor things and allow people past a certain level, I have put up some walls that I don’t know really how they got put up or how exactly I can bring them down.  This might be my greatest sabotage.
     Every now and again I read a book that really influences my thinking, my perception of the world.  I have started a book that does just that, Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller.  Donald Miller has already been an influential writer and speaker in my life.  He presents truth in such a way that you wonder how you didn’t see it before but are so excited that you see it now.  In a section that I read last night it talks about two types of men, those who look for a woman to complete their lives or those who look for a woman to join in their complete life.  I almost stopped reading there at that point.  Which type am I?  Of course any guy would like to put themselves into that 2nd group.  We are to be invincible beings that do not need or want anything; it is part of our God complex.  I would have to say that throughout most of my life I have always thought of that first and put myself into that group.  I thought you really had to have the right girl in order for your life to begin.  That she was the missing piece that you needed.  This might be confusing to understand, think of it as you are running in this first example you are waiting to start running until you have someone running with you and with the latter example you are running, and you are looking for someone that is running to that same place at the same pace you are.  I think I am more built for the 2nd, I have just not decided to start running, I’m gonna start running now however and if your out there I hope to catch ya, I know which type I am now.  What type are you?