Tuesday, February 27, 2007

To me, Risk = Hurt = Scary

This is kind of a comment (and by comment, I mean question) related to Rachel’s blog, to satisfy Erin’s need for a new post, and the fact that I need some input.

For someone who doesn’t know how or feel right taking risks … How does one know if it’s the right guy?






P.S. It was risky enough for me to post this.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

you don't.

risk it anyway.

Rachel said...

obviously, i have no freaking clue about any of this stuff. but mdog's comment is intriguing.

Anonymous said...

i suppose it should be noted that i don't know any backstory here.

if we're talking about jumping into dating some dude, then my comment stands emphatically. if we're talking about marrying some guy tomorrow, then my comment stands with a shrug. [if you're asking the question at that point, i would be wary; but then again, will we ever REALLY know?].

people keep telling me that because i've never dated anyone, i've been able to avoid a lot of hurt. what they don't understand is that never being considered as a dating option, still hurts.

isn't not taking a risk, a risk in itself?

Anonymous said...

yes, good question -- how does one know it's the right guy for what? If you mean marriage, then I can tell you that I knew because after dating shaun for so long, I couldn't imagine my life without him, and all my future thoughts included him in it, and i loved him very much. If you mean dating... yes, dating is a risk, but that's why you date... to try guys out and see what works and what doesn't work for you. It's a good risk I think.

joybird said...

OK, let me clear something up. I AM NOT talking about marriage, god no! That post is many years off, if ever. I appreciate the comments and it's really making me think...probably too much and that is part of my problem with not taking risks. I've found that not taking a risk is much more safe that actually diving in...even if it is a risk itself.

Erin, I'm disappointed that you haven't commented yet...considering you were requesting a new post! :-)

Anonymous said...

If I hadn't taken a risk and gave Jim my #, I wouldn't be married right now or as happy. Take a risk!

I'm very intrigued . . .

Heidi said...

I had a professor say that the opposite of mistrust isn't trust, it's courage. By that he meant that if you have a hard time trusting you don't have to learn how to trust, you have to learn to be brave enough to take a chance. Which clearly, you've identified here is scary. One way I think you can take some control of the scariness of what is unknown is to think ahead of time about what the risks are, and what the benefits are, and decide if that pay off is worth it to you. Sometimes it really helps to think about what is the worst that could happena, and how could you either avoid that or handle it if it does. But remember that it's completely up to you how much you want to put out or not.

Erin said...

Gosh, I feel bad now. I am always so eager for people to post things and then I fall off the blogwagon for a while and then I make my way back and I feel so behind. The same thing is happening at work right now.

I could really go on and on with talk about dating, which I've done a lot of, and about marriage, which I've avoided so far. I think I might make a blog post about it myself. To hold you over, I'll say I agree with m-dog. I think dating is just a way to decide if you want to spend more time together. I think potch's point is good about knowing when it's the right guy to marry, but I will also say I've felt that way with several guys before and I didn't marry them and I'm still OK and don't have any regrets. I kind of think maybe we can't know if a person is the right person to marry, we can only know that a lot of guys are the wrong person to marry. And sometimes, the guys we really, really want to marry fall into the latter category, and then you have to go to therapy for a long, long time. But that's another story for another blog.

Oh, and I think that the sort of fear and hesitation you feel are normal, but I like to take the band-aid approach. If you don't just go ahead and rip it off, then one day, you'll look down and see that you have a gnarled, dirty, fuzzy band-aid stuck to you and it isn't doing you any good.

that is a terrible analogy.