Friday, January 04, 2008

First is the worst, Second is the best....

Being the 2nd born kid, I'm used to be screwed over.

My sister gets more attention and money (albeit most of the attention she gets is negative) any my brother is the the wonderkid boy genius that could get away with murder. Me? Well, sometimes I get the short end of the stick, the shorter phone calls, less presents at Christmas, etc. (And all you 2nd born kids know exactly what I'm talking about)

But the problem that I've now come to realize is that I'm used to being 2nd, I'm used to being taken for granted. And this generally shows in my relationships with others, mostly guys.

Take the guys I've dated, for the most part I was never a priority in their life. I was just Jamie and that was it. I wasn't anyone special for them to carve anytime out of their schedule or their life. Or even take the guys I haven't dated but were interested in me. They never made any statements of how they feel about me, they never took the time to say.

And now, that's what I've come to expect from relationships. Which can pretty much be summed up into one sentence "Don't expect too much from anyone because then they will end up hurting you; so just go with the flow and let it be 'whatever'."

I know it's not a good perspective and I know it's one that needs to change, mainly because I deserve better. But the problem is, I don't know where to start.

How to you start teaching yourself that you deserve better when you feel like all that you have ever been treated is second rate?

1 comment:

Doug said...

Big "I agree" to all of the above. I still fight with this stuff. I was the oldest, but I grew up with my grandparents. My mom was still in my life but didn't treat me the same as my bro & sis (who lived with her), while my grandmother treated me like her grandkid, not her child. So I understand the whole "second rate" thing. For me it manifests itself in extreme avoidance of assumption. For instance, even if somebody is driving home, right by my place, I would never assume that they'd take me and would take off by myself before the subject even arrose. It's stupid, I know, but that's just one example.

In relationships (or non, as my first relationship didn't happen until 25), I always assumed that people wouldn't date me because there were better people. I was wrong (about the not wanting to date me, not the better people), but it took the jolt of losing 50 pounds rapidly and suddenly being "hot" (or whatever) to make me realize that I was desireable.

Anyway, where am I going? I don't know. There is no answer to your question. There's all the feel good mumbo-jumbo about "you're worth it, sistah!" but it's so cliche and not worth repeating. I think you may have to find a person who feels lucky to be with you (as I did). That feeling, that the other people actually felt lucky... made me feel the luckiest of all.