Shoe Shopping for Men

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about relationships lately. We all (men and women alike) claim to want simple and yet, we make relationships amazingly complicated. Isn't it ironic that both honesty and dishonesty can send a relationship into a tailspin? Too much honesty can be overwhelming or hurtful or both and, dishonesty well that's just always a bad idea.

A friend of mine recently compared dating to shoe shopping (her favorite thing). "You walk around the store picking up and flirting with the few you think are cute and then you try them on. Then you find and purchase THE PAIR." I laughed and told her she was right. Then I realized she's only half right.

Dating may be like shoe shopping but, it's more like walking into the store, picking up the display shoe you like and instead of waiting for the salesman to bring out your size you try to squeeze into the size 5 display shoe. You wear a size 8. The display shoe goes flying embarrassingly off your foot and knocks down another display just as the salesman brings out the shoe in your size.

When we first start dating someone new we try and squeeze into them. We hide all of our weird quirks and flaws and try desperately to be everything we think the other person wants us to be. Inevitably the real us starts to creep out and then we have to spend time getting to know each other all over again. Yet try to start out a relationship on a completely honest note and it's over before it ever really began. Why is that?

Sigh...

I feel like I may have more to say on the subject but, seeing as how it's such a confusing topic my thoughts are still all jumbley in my head. So chew on that for now and if anyone out there actually understands the dating game, PLEASE, I beg you, explain it to me.