Vulnerability: sounds like truth, feels like courage

I read (when I say read I mean passively glanced) at this book called ‘Rising Strong’ by Brene Brown about vulnerability. Brown compares the success of someone by how vulnerable he or she is; openly displaying emotions and ideas for the world to bear witness to. When you’re vulnerable you have your guard down, you’re showing your pocket aces to the table and ultimately do not have a care in the world. Brown stated that the most successful people in the world put themselves in the most vulnerable situations. I decided to compare this notion of vulnerability to relationships and dating. If someone told you they loved you after four dates, chances are you’re running for the hills, not returning text messages and blocked the person on social media accounts. Even the dreaded question of “Where is this going” can scare your potential boyfriend or girlfriend away. How long do we wait until we can expose our true selves? When should we start asking those deep dark questions? My neighbour is impossibly open – open about everything; sex, love, lust, family, anything is fair game. I have to think, is what we choose to reveal about ourselves truly what we want the world to see or are we all just liars trying to be the best fake version of ourselves? To be fair we all have given fake names, fake numbers and created illusions of another life. “Hi, I’m Olivia. I’m a flight attendant, I just actually flew in from Vegas – I’m here vacationing with my girlfriends…” and the lies go on and on. My biggest fear with dating someone is thinking, is this person who they really portray themselves to be or should I be hacking email accounts?

Being vulnerable can lead us away or into situations where we are forced to act impulsively to either get in or out of predicaments. For example, I usually don’t go anywhere without at least a touch of make up on, especially the Safeway right across from my house (hottest men in Calgary shop there). Why you ask? I don’t want to be caught dead looking like I am dead. Living near a Safeway is a blessing yet also a curse. You have the liberty to walk across the street with flip-flops on and fulfill any craving within 30 seconds. However, it’s a curse when you see the guy you used to date in the check-out line in front of you buying healthy food like a normal person, while you’re holding a family sized bag of ripple all dressed chips. Couldn’t have mixed in some carrots with that purchase, could you Kathleen! In that moment, one of my dreaded nightmares, I couldn’t be seen. So I hustled my way through self-check out and walked like an Olympic speed walker to the door. At one point I dropped my keys and I thought, “Just leave them! We’ll move to a new house, start a new life!” Thankfully with cat-like reflexes I turned around and grabbed them and hoped karma wouldn’t smite me as headed for a hopeful tomorrow.

When we are ready to make the next step, see if we can move mountains with this person and be so bold as to say, “I like you” what does this vulnerability give us? In that moment you have to hope the other person feels the same way, what if they’re not? Do you bolt? Change your number, actually start going by the name Olivia. Or do you wait – wait out the silence, see who blinks first. Until six months have gone by and you’re still in the same spot you were in six months ago only now its summer and you’re wishing you had gotten carrots with your ripple all dressed chips. The biggest worry about being vulnerable is that your true self will get rejected. Even if you have the be all end all of ideas – someone can still tell you it’s garbage. The worst is when you do have feelings for someone and its not reciprocated. You’re sitting over here looking at wedding venues and buddy can’t even remember meeting you! Perhaps this is why people hold a little bit back of his or her real self. Because in the dreaded moment of “I’m just not that into you,” you can walk away thinking, well that wasn’t really me anyways.

I will leave you with this last thought. I find it interesting that now we are putting way more work into having our ducks in a row and then saying, “Hey world I am ready for a relationship – summon me a man!” And even then when a man or woman comes along and you’ve put all this work into making a perfect life, what if they’re just ok but not great. Go back to swiping right I guess. Are we too lazy to put work into finding a relationship that actually could work? We spend our days building our empires while each potential relationship slips away.

But who am I to say this I’m swiping left and right as we speak!

XOXO Witty Kitty