The Curse of the Capable Woman! aka Honey, it's not you, it's me.

The curse is simply the illusion and myth that people seem to have created about me.

This pic has nothing to do with this post - oh well!

People seem to think I am always busy, always happy, constantly surrounded by friends,  and I never need help with anything.

Truth - I often find myself sitting at home alone, dinner for one, TV  for company, knitting and I sometimes accidentally find myself not speaking to anyone for entire days.

Being on your own means finding ways of doing anything and everything on your own.

I don't have people around to help me so if the garbage needs to go out, groceries need carrying in, light bulbs need changing, cleaning, moving furniture - it's all up to me.
With no one to rely on I have to figure out ways to cope, and I do. Always have apparently.

I was told recently that I don't need help or looking after. It's mostly true, but sometimes it would still be nice.

There is only one man in the world who ever got to really know the real me. The me before I put up all the walls and created this overly confident and capable persona. Any one since then gets a version of me but no one will make it to the core. No one will ever meet the same girl, full of hope and dreams, so naive, so fresh. I  feel like I have weathered a few battle scars by now, hardened with age and the war of love, but now immune and desensitised to it.  I used to see it as a sign of weakness. I have watched  a friend of mine fall in and out of love so easily; She would and does give herself so completely into relationships. and its beautiful.  I can't do that.

The sad part is when I sit back and reminisce about some of the "what if's" and "if only's", the men I know who tell me they are my friends, they want to know me and then I eventually find out that they really liked me in a romantic sense . They tell me this when they are married with children, or about to have them, as if I am a priest in a confession booth.  It makes them feel better to have it off their chests, it pumps my ego for a while and then they go back to play happy families and I go back to my hermit hole in my beautiful beachside apartment. I don't get it?

After 20 years on the dating scene a marriage, a divorce and a few heartbreaks I have decided to take a little responsibility and accept that maybe it really is me and not them.

Over the years I've had a number of male companions who have never quite made it to boyfriend status. I know it's just a word and a label but no matter what we were doing it was shrugged off as "just casual" or "nothing serious" or however else you want to label it. Guys that told me they weren't interested in having a girlfriend or a serious relationship who went on to get girlfriends and have serious relationships shortly after our friendships diminished and fizzled.

Here's the catch - I meant what I said. Did they? Were they just saying it because they though it would make me happy and that that's how you are supposed to treat women and that I would come round in the end because ALL women want is a relationship? I don't think I ever really wanted it and now don't even know if I would be capable of it. You see it's a curse...