Before I start I just want to say a big hello to y’all reading! I’m Kellyhope (kellyhopemurphy.blogspot.com) and while Roisin is off sunning herself in Spain (The B*tch) and is basically wifi-less so I am going to be your blog babysitter! Don’t worry mine and Ro’s brains are basically connected (All that matters in life is cocktails and sunshine right?) so you are in good hands! Sit back, relax and try not be too jealous of our Fashion Observer off getting a tan that will be ten times darker than my Coco-Brown! xo
I was talking to one of my girlfriends yesterday (I really need a new opening line for my blogs) and we were discussing our dream weddings. Both of us at 22 (I think she’s 22, sorry if I’ve aged you over the internet, forgive me) were able to real off in a moments notice how our dresses would look, how our hair would be and at the exact same time – I was getting tinder messages and texts from a guy who thinks my name is ‘Shelly’. The irony, was not lost on me.
I sometimes envy my parents generation when it comes to love. They simply met people, whether it was at a Roller Skating Disco (my parents actually have that as their story) or in work or at a bar and not one of them ever had to worry about who else their boyfriend was texting on whatsapp or what girls were sending him on snapchat. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure men (and women) back then cheated and let their eyes wonder just as much as they do now. Sadly however I feel like the whole world has shifted off kilter and now all anyone wants is Mr.Right Now.
I tend to be one of them, when my friends point out a (long) list of issues with guys I’m seeing I always come back with ‘It’s not like I want to marry him‘. But when do we draw that line. When do we stop looking at our list for Mr.Right Now and start looking for the qualities for Mr.Right? I have friends who have already found him (or who they think he is) and the idea of it terrifies me. I mean who moves in with someone at our age?! Do you need me to bring you to the doctor to make sure you are okay? This isn’t what I mean in terms of looking for Mr.Right. I think that when you are young you should be having fun and exploring the world – but does ‘having fun’ always have to equate to accepting less than you deserve?
When I search through my phone and look at text messages I receive from guys – it makes my skin crawl. I’ve posted a few on various social media networks and everyone’s always like ‘What a jerk’, ‘what a creep’ etc etc. It’s fair enough for them to quick judge but what else am I supposed to do? At 22 am I supposed to turn around and vow to never kiss another stranger until they can prove to me that they have a five year plan, a passion for coffee and a future that includes me with three of their children? I will admit that I let guys away with too much. If people actually knew some stories I’m sure they’d look at me like I had ten heads. But in the back of my mind I always come up with the same thought process, if it works for right now then it’s fine. I don’t need him to love me so who cares if he treats me this way. From an outside perspective even I want to kick myself.
So then I look at my other options. I delete my texting apps, I delete tinder, I stop kissing strangers after too many drinks and then what? Do I settle on being alone until I get desperate enough to try and find someone the old fashion way and hope they ‘fall in love with who I really am’. Does that even work? My biggest worry is that because we are growing up in the computer bound era where all it takes is a guy to ‘poke’ you on faceboook or send you un-requested (may I stress un-requested) ‘Dick pics’ on snapchat for them to show us they are interested, will we ever learn how to function in a loving relationship? I will be the first to admit that I don’t know if I would know how to react to someone actually treating me properly. When someone is even sweet to me – my initial reaction is ‘who did you sleep with’ or ‘what have you done’.
Maybe one day I’ll simply wake up and know that things have changed. That I’ve to leave all the ‘mistakes’ behind and demand better. It’s not like I don’t know I deserve it, we all do. We all should end up with someone who makes us a better person, loves us for the right reasons and is with us because they can’t remember what it felt like to fall asleep next to anyone else – but that all terrifies me. I think that it terrifies most of us and that starts us right back on the vicious circle of us running back to guys who have hurt us and phoning your girlfriends crying over sleeping with someone who cheated on you because it’s like letting people hurt us and letting people treat us like crap is sometimes easier than putting ourselves out their and asking someone not to.
Mr.Right Now has become the only thing we know. He’s the guy that doesn’t know our sisters name, doesn’t even spell ours right. He doesn’t use full words in a text message, because he’s too busy with his GIRLFRIEND to put effort in. He refers to your lady lumps as ‘Fun Bags’ and he isn’t what we want. He’s what we think we deserve.
Mr. Right has become this distant dream of – the guy who sits in the book store with a well kept beard and a bill phone he can actually pay the contract for. When he phones you at 2am it’s not because he’s drunk and wants to bang you, it’s because he doesn’t like falling asleep without you. He tells you that you’re beautiful even without a scrap of make up on and he’s the guy you don’t think will ever come around.
Is it our own faults though? By me letting guys treat me the way they do – am I letting them think that it’s okay to only be Mr.Right Now? Am I stopping myself from ever finding someone who will actually remember more than my snapchat name by spending my life tangled up in these people who simply want something right now? Where is the balance? Why don’t I have any answers and when am I going to figure this out? In ten years time when I’m already over the ‘Thirty’ mark am I still going to be saying ‘Well at least with this guy I’m not asking him for anything, so he can’t hurt me’.
I’d like to think I’m a romantic, I’m the girl that watches Romance Movies and cries even on the 36th re-watch just because it’s so moving. I’m the girl that fights my friends when they tell me love isn’t even real (Louise still doesn’t believe me, or so she says). I fight for the dream that I think we should all have in the back of our heads. It’s not that we should all be sitting at home planning our wedding or how many kids we have but – I think that if we want to be with someone we should be striving to be with the person who is the right kind of person. I’m sick of hearing my girlfriends tell people ‘Kelly will never settle, have you seen her history with guys? I’ve watched more romantic car crashes’ – even as I write this post I’m getting angry at myself for how I am but I know that once 11pm hits and I start to question if I’ll ever be good enough for anyone I’ll find myself on Tinder or texting someone just so that I can feel like I matter to someone, even though in reality none of those things prove it.
Do we have to kiss the frogs to meet the prince? Maybe. I always thought that every guy or relationship you go through just teaches you something and makes you better for the next. But now I’m at the stage where I’m wondering if it’s the opposite. Every guy that treats me like a piece of meat or cheats on me and only texts me when they are drunk – those are the guys that are making me wonder if I’ll ever be able to trust a man, or believe a man when he tells me he loves me. Am I destroying my dream of Mr.Right by only knowing Mr.Right Now?
