Epiphany

I've always wanted a man who is the complete opposite of me. In my mind, the perfect man would be rational, quiet (yet strong), even keeled, realistic, grounded, level headed, and every other thing that I am not. I figured a man like this would bring balance to any equation that involved me. He would reign me in, curb my melodramatic tendencies, and be my voice of reason. Total opposites would meet in the perfect ying and yang. In retrospect, I can honestly say that The Guy Who Shouldn't Make Me Cry is definitely that type of man. So if he was everything I'd always wanted, why didn't we work? I think I figured it out. My perception of a man who is my total opposite was always based in behavior. In my head he would act nothing like me. What I forgot is that actions are driven by thoughts. If someone doesn't act like me, it's more than likely that they don't think like me. And therein lies the problem.
When I was with The Guy I had a lot of time to think. I would come up with all types of relationship scenarios in my head then play out all of the possible outcomes. Depending on the envisioned outcome, I could often get extremely worked up about the mere possibility of something happening. Once I was done analyzing things until they didn't even exist, I would bring my thoughts to The Guy and ask him, "What would happen if..." No matter what scenario I gave him, his answer was always the same. "I don't know. I never thought about it." While I could fathom him reaching a different conclusion, it seemed impossible to me that he never had these thoughts in the first place. I refused to believe he had never thought about what would happen if either of us met someone else or an ex came back in the picture or I lost my limbs in a freak shark attack. I was under the assumption that my thoughts were like everyone else's and it was only the reactions to them that differed. I was convinced that he simply hadn't gotten around to thinking my thoughts, so it was my duty to make him do it. It never occurred to me that his mind never even went the places that mine did. No matter how many times he told me, "I don't think about that stuff," I never believed him. Instead, I insisted on dragging him down the dark tunnel which is my brain. Needless to say it was a very scary place for him and he ran away screaming.
I've come to realize that opposites don't attract, they merely fascinate. When confronted with the reality of dating my total opposite, I found myself refusing to accept that anyone could possibly be that sane. Instead of embracing our differences and allowing them to provide balance, I made it my mission to make him just as neurotic, paranoid, and off balance as me. And really, who wants to date someone like that? I don't, and obviously neither did he.