It goes back to my childhood, as so many issues we have do.
I was raised by crazy people. My mom had her mental health and substance issues, and dad was just drunk, stoned, or gone all the time. When I was a kid the adults I was around were wacko in one way or another. I didn't grow up seeing what normal, non-issue having people were like.
I knew my family wasn't normal and that my home life wasn't normal. I learned to be deceptive about my family and our home. I learned to think that my clothes, my family, my house, and my self were all sub-standard to what others had.
I wasn't a drinker or a drugger when I was a teen, but I got along with that group better because I knew how to relate in that environment. I had nice friends from nice families where the beds were made every morning, TV was on only a little while every evening, and the house was calm and quiet and clean all the time.
I hated going to their houses. I never knew what to do with myself there. I never knew what the parents wanted or how to talk to them.
i think I am still dealing with the same issue as an adult.
I'm 29 and a professional teacher and working on my second master's degree. But I don't know how to talk to other professionals! I don't. So I sit quietly and wait for a topic to come up I know about. But small talk, chit-chat, interactions that professionals need to be able to do to "network" , I can't do that shit.
Its the same is social settings. I know how to get along with happy-go-lucky, permanently down on his luck types because thats the kind of person who raised me and the kind of persons my brothers are. I get comiserate about not having a car that will get you where you need to go or having to pay a debt off in food stamps. I am part of that world in a lot of ways.
And I end up being attracted to those types of guys. Even if I know I don't want to be. Part of it is that the guys who have all their shit together and their ducks in a row really don't want to date a fat single mom to three boys, degrees or no degrees, job or no job.
And just because a man isn't successful, doesn't mean he's a bad man. In this economy and in this area, there are lots of men who got out of school, looked around, realized that the deck was permanently stacked against them, and decided they'd be happier if they stopped trying so hard. In a lot of ways I really understand that.
Which comes back to my love life.
I am socially awkward in most settings. I can't do the small talk, non offensive, lets not get too personal or too specific thing. I don't get double entaundres at all. I don't fit in the laid back party crowd because I don't drink (much) and never used or use drugs. They don't like it when one person won't partake. ITs weird.
I am intimidated by the rare successful guy I meet (most are partnered up and did so in collge, maybe I shoulda gone for a MRS degree), and I intimidate the others. I do.
And hence, the broken people picker. Instead of leading me towards someone sweet, kind and on my level, it takes me to someone who reminds me of my dad or my brothers. He isn't a bad person, in fact I think he's a better man than either of my brothers or my dad. But he's got a lot of issues and junk he's dealing with, mostly as a result of poor choices as a teen. (and who does that remind us of?)
Maybe I'm not explaining this well. Maybe who ever reads this will come away confused and thinking I'm nuts.
Maybe I should go back to be perpetually single.
Except I keep looking at my phone and wondering if I'll hear from him . . . . .
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