My Own Worst Enemy
I have a deep appreciation for the 1999 classic “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit. Beyond just being an absolute banger 25 years later, it gives a catchy hook to a grounding truth: Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy. And today is one of those days
The internet meme culture has made a huge joke out of the ability for a woman with a crush to be a better sleuth than a police officer or FBI agent, using all available (legal!) means of learning information about her crush. I am no different. This big brain has to flex its muscles in the name of love! So I am as liable as anyone to fall down a ‘googling my crush’ or ‘gently stalking an ex’ rabbit hole.
Today I fell down such a rabbit hole. In an attempt to distract myself from the sting of the aforementioned recent heartache, I looked up a former flame on social media. I knew something was brewing when he popped up on a social media platform we had never connected on, so I followed the bread crumbs to the platform where I know he does most of his business.
I was not prepared for what I found (are we ever?). In a startingly short time, he was tagging a new woman in his posts. The captions he thinks convey depth of thought take on a new meaning to me when I see that he wasted no time in making things more official with her than he ever did with me. Naturally, I followed the trail to her posts and saw all the signs of a deeply enmeshed life together. They’ve adopted a cat together. They are vacationing together. He even changed his screenname to match hers. `They show the moments, both small and large, grounded in care, connection, and commitment. The three ‘C’s I could never get from him.
I won’t lie - this discovery smarts almost as much as the emotional pistol whipping I got last week. Not because I still want this Major League Rebounder back in my life. I really don’t. But of course, the feelings that I nursed for a long time are feeling crushed. In the past, I could tell myself that he wasn’t respectful or caring of me because he was incapable of it. Now I see that he is capable of it - just not for me.
Maybe I deserve to feel this bite. I let myself be curious and turn over a few rocks that I should have just left in place. I let my runaway train mind blow off the tracks. I deviated from the mission of grieving what was right in front of me. I let my own worst enemy win.
All this leads to the age-old, unanswerable question: How come he couldn’t do that for me? What’s so bad or wrong about me that makes men treat me like that?
Why not me?