On Love and Loving: Apples and Chicken Nuggets

I never understood the whole " playing hard to get" movement.

In my head, if you liked someone and felt like it could go somewhere; if it felt like you'd done your due diligence - a.k.a you'd checked that there were no obvious red flags and that you shared similar values, then you'd let things flow...albeit cautiously.

That was my old thinking.

Photo credit: Cate Storymoon via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

I now feel like a scarred person, and I don't like it.

I mean with other things in life, it makes sense that you adjust your behavior as you learn, that you go into the future armed with lessons learned. But for this, it feels like a bad idea that I'm allowing negative experiences influence how I approach the future. Then again, I think it'd be stupid not to.

It's now so bad that I no longer go into any _ships (read as: situationShip, friendShip, potentialShip and other ships) with open arms. There's no longer my usual excitement-filled intro when I meet people: the "hey, this is me! This is where I've been, this is where I am now. Oh and where are you? What's your story". I barely graze the surface now with superficial "hi's" and "hello's".

Before now, I'd meet people and get deep real quick (maybe that too was a problem, who knows?). Within minutes, you could pretty much know my story if you wanted to. I didn't mind being an open book (I mean I have a blog about my life...well it's not about my life, but it kind of is about my life). 

I'm not preaching anything here, these are just the things on mind. It's also an attempt to make sure that I hit the biweekly blogging target I set for myself.

But back to it... I think I'm going to love a little less in the future. Or maybe love a little less quickly. Hmm, that doesn't sound too bad.

I feel like there are now walls to be broken through. Well maybe not walls, but a curtain that needs to be pulled away to see me. A protective film to be broken through maybe?

I think one last way to describe it, is that I'm now like boxed chicken nuggets at the grocery store. I'm stuffed inside all that packaging. There's a cardboard box with pictures that might show what I sorta look like, and then the nylon see-through bag is there once you take the carton away.  You open the bag up, and there's still a ziplock to be broken. Then finally, you get to see me, the chicken nuggets....but you still have to pop me in the oven and heat me up before I'm edible.

I used to be an apple. All you had to do was wash me and I'd be ready for a bite.

I think it's also noteworthy to see that I've gone from being fresh fruit to packaged processed food...whatever that means.

So what are your thoughts? How much should your past "leanings" influence your future decisions? Where's the line between putting walls around your heart and simply protecting it? (Tweet this)

There's a God-component in all of this...somewhere. Somewhere.