I Kinda Always Knew I'd End Up Your Ex-Girlfriend...

For those of you who haven't been in the dating world for a while, let me forewarn you: It is a scary, annoying place that makes you want to do crazy things like drink to make dates more bearable, keep friends on back-up to call you to get you out of emergency situation (thank you, Sam V., you are a lifesaver,) and consider punching grown men much larger than you in their big stupid faces for some of the comments they let fly.
I'm no good at this, to be honest. I've always been the girl with the back up. I know that a lot of people don't understand that or are like "whaaaat?" but it's true. When I was in high school or college, I'd break up with a guy and then there was another I'd know before I broke up with him that there was another I could start dating if I broke up with the current. Thing is, when I got married, I didn't need a back up. He was my forever. I didn't need someone else because I was his and he was mine and it was going to be a life-long devoted love...'cept he didn't get that memo. Whoops? He had lots of backups but broke the cardinal rule of having a back up. You don't touch them until the current is gone. Again, I say, whoops? Dumbass. Anyway.
So I've been tossed, less than gently, back into the world of dating. I sort of feel like I'm running an obstacle course. There are easy parts of rest between where I meet someone and I talk to them and things are easy because we're just getting to know each other. Then we jump into the mudpit. Normally, I make it out, but they get swallowed up by the mud on the way through. I trudge on, climb out, and down I go under the barbed wire. I lay low, belly to the ground, and crawl through and pick up my next teammate on the way, but when I make it out the otherside, I look back to see them caught up in the briars and I shake my head. I grab the rope and stick my feet firmly to the wall and start to climb, someone gives me a gentle push and I turn to thank them and see them climbing with me, but when I reach the top, they're still at the bottom realizing they have a fear of heights. By now, I wonder if anyone is going to stick this out. I drop off the other side, see the end is near, hear the bangs and see the flashes, so I drop down and low crawl across the live fire, finally I see that someone else has made it this far, they're crawling beside me, they are gonna make it to the end with me, and then... he stand up before we're clear of the firing. Sigh. Oh well. I finish the course alone. Break time.
I'm not sure what it takes to find the guy who is right for me and who wants me and wants to stick it out with me, but I wish I did. There are so many who talk a big game about wanting to have a wife and get married and have a family, but the problem is I don't think they realize that means that they have to overlook the flaws that come with some women just like we over look the many, many, many flaws of the men we care about.
Someone told me once that every girl falls off the ledge, and when they fall, the right hero swoops down to catch them.
I guess my problem is that I see a lot of heroes talking about their capes and how cool they are and how fast they can fly, but I get closer to the concrete with every second they spend at the top of the building talking.
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought."
--Henri Bergson
"A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action. You must act as you breathe."
--George Clemenceau
I want a man of action. Talk is cheap. Words come easy. I want the man who says what he means, and means what he says.
Before me lies a sea of faces, but who among them will stand out?