So, it’s June now, which means that May is over, which means that ManFreeMay has come and gone.
A little recap: for an entire month, I tried my best to avoid winking at men, coyly smiling at men, touching the arms and chests of hunky men while talking with them. I tried to avoid hunky men, in general, actually, not just avoiding talking to them, but also doing my darndest to avoid noticing their tight asses and broad shoulders and charming smiles and snappy styles. I also tried to avoid walking into the room like I’m a tasty dish on display- no swaying of hips or biting of my lip or cocking my head to the side while I talk and giggle and take interest in the inner workings of the mysterious male mind.
There was, I admit, an itsy bitsy little ManFreeMay “infraction,” shall we say, in the first weekend of the month, an infraction that involved industrial strength Cosmopolitans, the impulsivity and diminished inhibition brought on by industrial strength Cosmopolitans, and a young little thing whose name I didn’t know until he texted me a week later. This incidence of an alcohol-induced loose interpretation of the rules of ManFreeMay provided perfect evidence for the Me&Men Truth # 7: “Decisions made about men while under the influence of a mind-altering substance are generally not the best decisions.” True, indeed.
Well, what can I say? I hit the Reset button. What else could I do??
And since that early May morn, and my sleepy, tussled recommitment to the principles and practices of ManFreeMay, I’d say it was a relative success- success at least in terms of my actual actions, in terms of my conscious choice to resist acting on impulses and temptations, my active efforts to be more disciplined, selective, pro-active rather than reactive, efforts to be more aware of my behaviour, in general, and my behaviour around men specifically, and efforts to catch myself when distracted or daydreaming or obsessing or overanalyzing or preening or feigning or drooling about anything remotely related to some dude who’s just not worth it.
Was I successful in permanently booting out of my headspace all the boys (and beliefs about boys) that unlawfully reside there? No. Not exactly. Not always. Remember that rope coiling back to the shape it knows best? That seems to be the case here- old habits die hard. And it seems that, sometimes, the almost desperate decision to NOT think about someone or something brings it to an even more heightened awareness, and it seems that some of these people and ideas are so potent that they even crept their way deep into my subconscious, showing up in dreams or under layers and layers of daytime thoughts, popping up at random moments when least expected. An important lesson learned, though, is this: it’s all well and good to try and remove an idea, but it’s much more powerful and effective to replace it. I think that’s actually a scientific principle or a biblical principle, or maybe it’s just common sense. If you dig an energy-sucking, life-killing plant out of the ground, and you leave the hole where it resided empty, eventually that empty hole will get filled up with dirt, rot, weeds, whatever’s floating around, whatever’s closest and most recent, and it will happen in an almost passive yet inevitable way. How much better to decisively fill that hole up with something that brings beauty, sustenance and longevity to everything around it?
So that’s the new approach, or should I say the renewed approach. Replace old, energy-sucking, mind-wasting thoughts, ideas, beliefs with new thoughts and ideas and beliefs that are soul-nurturing and inspiring. I will consciously keep myself- my mind, my body, my lived out day to day schedule- busy and filled up with all that is true and good, with people and ideas that make me a happier, healthier, better version of myself. That way, there is simply and absolutely no room left for the passive yet unhealthy thought patterns of the past. Nope. Nope. Nope. No room at all.
And, if anything, a little distance from the dating game helped solidify the need to really really remember some important truths about me and men, truths that are smack-yourself-on-the-head-for-forgetting obvious. I had big hopes of exploring all those truths during ManFreeMay, of inviting everyone into my mind and giving a little glimpse of my experience, but, alas, I guess Life gets in the way sometimes.
Oh well. We’ll just have to explore those truths later on, now won’t we. After all, truth is truth is truth, no matter what month it is, right?
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