The Becoming

I haven’t called Caroline since Saturday when she agreed to see me on Thursday, which is tomorrow. I should have called her on Tuesday as latest. I will call her in a little while. That is what I like about a girl like her. She is so uncomplicated, and easy-going, none of the ego except when it comes to vanity. Everything she wears are brand-name clothes, and even if you offered to buy her a gum, she picks the most visually appealing to her (usually, the most expensive ones). If we go out, she doesn’t demand any special treatment, and if you go about naturally, and quietly but manly pursuit as a silent hunter, simultaneously teasing her, listening to her, positioning yourself in charge as you are the one spending and courting. See, before I didn’t know how to have fun with a girl like her. She isn’t as horrible as I used to conceive her when we were together. Our affair lasted for a few months before I called quits to a battle I was fighting all by my own. Ah, what a noble creature I was, and my whole rational way of seeing things through filter after filter of reality didn’t quite crack down on my failed relationships. One of the few relationships that seemed sane to me that didn’t include alcohol, infidelities, and quite the opposite stressed exercise, sex, walks, movies, good hygiene and an strict diet, water, lots of water… could have failed? In fact, while still with her, I met Claudia. Cheating is a sign of weakness for some and a sign of strength for others. But to me is a sign of personal deceit, and I decided that as a cheater I had not been happy. Cheaters cheat themselves. Now I won't be advocating for celebacy anytime soon and that doesn't necessarily translate going deep into long-term relationships either. I had gone through relationships hiding, looking for instant satisfaction and not being able to go the extra mile in that wilderness of misbehaving. No, I wasn’t naïve enough to know that we were attracted to one another. Our friends tell us much of ourselves, don’t they? I was going down the wrong path. Certainly, I needed help if I wanted to be successful with the opposite sex. That was when I started reading literature into the subject distributed through the Internet freely, advertising the better and more sophisticated types of advice. I became absorbed into the lectures, and I began to grow more aware than ever before of the need to adopt masculine traits and appropriate techniques than unraveled a universe I had to rediscover all over again. I embraced my masculinity, my semi-chauvinistic ways, and took charge of situations, granting myself space and time to constantly apply what I learnt. I lost weigh, I thought to myself and kept it off for almost three years, built muscle-mass, earn more than ever before and writing still more than that. I think that the turn-around came when I began to notice the attention received, as I implemented the way I looked, just as had done with the way that I felt, and followed with my appearance by buying wardrobes of new stylish cloths from retailers such as both H&M’s on 34th street and Century 21 downtown. Shoes from Aldo, yes, for I suffer an addiction to that store that dates as far back as when the sole notion of self-improvement had to deal with anxiety and overcoming shyness. That took years out of me, and landed me on several relationships that were not completely fulfilling. Passive individuals don’t get results. So I changed my name even, and went by the alias of Damian. I partied from my twentieth birthday to my late twenties, and led a meaningless existence. As such, my relationships were and still are a mess. This process of maturity propelled me to seek help with the ladies, I must admit, and found perhaps that what avoided me from doing so before was that I, like most men, found doing so a little too revealing. So, all of this time, I conducted myself like a jerk and had no structure just lots and lots of invertebrate links hanging loose, each on their own. No particular foundation until it gradually dawned on me. That’s it, I have almost most of the pieces necessaries to say that there are certain manners which define an individual’s character that were developed through the individual’s life and rarely challenged. These beliefs I had of self-efficiency and personal growth will bring about the girl of my dreams. It was just a matter of time. If I failed in any way, I had admitted, I will work on whatever I thought went wrong on my part. But I ended up failing, day in and out.