Betting against Bitter

‘I don’t know what happened, he thinks I don’t really care, but I do, I’m just not dramatic about it!’ Pixie was clearly hurt.
Busy B nodded sympathetically, ‘Each one takes something away from the next,’ she wasn’t being metaphorical, ‘one guy took away phone calls, the one after him, text messages.’
‘It’s not fair that they do this to us!’ No it’s not. We’re fishing in a tiny pool, almost a puddle, where the big fish think they’re sharks.
‘How ironic that almost anywhere else in the world, the three of us combined would have a following,’ I made my contribution.
‘It’s true, we’re pretty, we’re fun, we’re as educated and intelligent...’ the irony is Pixie told me who his last girlfriend was, and she was bland, as in blech. Pixie’s awesome!
‘He’ll be back,’ I told her, ‘it’s the grass is greener phenomenon, and he’s not gonna do better!’ I meant it.
‘But I don’t know if I want him back!’ he hurt her, he didn’t mean to, they never do. And they do come back, almost always, but you can’t help feeling less satisfied, much less in love, ‘they’re taking the fantasy away from us, and it’s just not fair!’
We don’t have to take them back, but we usually do, there are only so many of them here. It’s a choice between, the place you live with a man who just about appreciates you vs. Almost anywhere else in the world with a man who adores you. No, I’m not deluded, I know it’s out there, I’ve had it before!
It’s strange here, you’re only as good as your family is appropriate, and if you’re a girl, the degree of appropriateness is directly proportional to the degree of pressure exerted on the poor lost soul who can’t make up his mind. Which in all fairness to him, is probably because it’s too early on anyway for a decision engraved in stone, but you have to at least walk in with an open mind and an open heart. If you’re looking for a million and one reasons to stay away, I can give you a million and two for each of us, and only one reason to stay... Because you want to!
Busy B’s boy complained that all the other girls come across as one thing, and then I guess, devolve to another, and so things end. I guess that’s kind of like seeing a butterfly metamorphose back into a caterpillar. Caterpillar’s can be pretty too. I know this for a fact because I saw one when I was about 9, and I thought so then, and kids are always right about these things. Maybe the boys have been overexposed to butterflies, and innately need them to be real. Some guys actually look for the caterpillars, I’ve seen that too, others are mortified and move on to the next butterfly.
And the de-stressing continued, amidst laughter and raised eyebrows of course, you have to see the humour in life or it can become exhausting.
We end up feeling like we’re settling... It’s funny how the cream of the crop feels like settling...
I guess it comes down to the way they make you feel. You’re not enough, you never will be, but nobody ever will be... Not until they’re ready to be vulnerable, embrace another person’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and risk getting hurt, again... I’m sure they have in the past, before they became this...
Am I bitter? Nah... Disappointed maybe... Not so much for myself, I always manage with men. And they will always manage with men, they’re phenomenal girls! But it’s upsetting to watch them have to play games, patronise and baby sit the thirty-something year old men, that they would prefer to just love.