Why My Dating Life is Not The Titanic

Some of you may know that Titanic is coming out in 3D soon. I was a bit conflicted when I first saw the preview. Should I, should I not? I finally decided to see it, especially as Atala hasn't ever and is interested. Anyway, a guest blogger is sharing her post with us, comparing her love to the Titanic ship. Like Celine Dion's song, My Heart Will Go On, her love life will continue in spite of heartbreak. Alicia Aubrey blogs at The PassionSearch. Enjoy...

Over the last three years, I've put my heart through the Titanic of feelings. I've built it up, I've let it fill, I've seen it crash, and I've tried my best to collect the pieces of what was left to see if I could learn what exactly it was that went wrong in the first place. It was only recently when I met Drew, the second-worst decision of my life, that I realized that a heart isn't like the Titanic, but that lesson doesn't come until the end of this story. And this story isn't about the second-worst decision of my life.

It's about the first.

Three years ago, I made the same mistake that brave women around the world have let themselves make for years-- I fell in love with a bad boy. Colin was exactly what you'd picture when you think of a bad boy. He drove a motorcycle, smoked like a chimney, he never called when he said he would, and had a job that parents simply don't approve of: He was an actor. He had all the red flags that came along with the kind of guy that would break your heart, but I decided to go against my better judgement and date him anyways. I mean, which girl wouldn't want a boyfriend who could take her to the MTV Movie Awards as his date?

Colin (and by 'Colin' I clearly mean 'his name is something completely different but I don't think it would be in my best interest to say what that is') and I dated for six months while he was filming in my town. In that short half of a year he took me to Peru, cheated on me twice, bought me a diamond for my birthday, missed my birthday party because he was drunk, wrote me a song which he learned to play guitar specifically so he could play it for me, hit on my mom, brought me to the hospital he did charity work for, and got arrested for a DUI. Needless to say the relationship was very bitter-sweet, but being the hopeless romantic I am, I couldn't help but fall madly in love with him. After all, that is the dream: Taking a bad boy and making him into husband material.

But a dream is a dream, and this is reality, and the reality is that men, no matter how good their intentions are, generally don't change. A leopard can gain and lose weight but their spots will always be spots, so no matter how much I wished for Colin's bad boy spots to change, there they stayed.

After his film wrapped, he moved back to Los Angeles and, like most boyfriends do, promised he'd call when he landed. Four weeks of me calling him, e-mailing him and texting him finally resulted in a 4AM voicemail from him saying, "Hey babe-- sorry for being late calling. Been busy! I'm coming back to reshoot next month so I'll see you then, yah? Stay true."

Six months of me telling my friends he wasn't the guy they thought he was and what did I end up with? A slap in the face from reality showing me that the people that care about me were-- shockingly-- just trying to look after me.

Colin was my mistake to make. If I hadn't put myself through those four weeks of insane-ex-girlfriend-style phone calls, I may have simply forgiven him when he left that voicemail. Having those times of complete heart break and total agony don't just strengthen you as a dater, they strengthen you as a person. If he had called me the second he landed, I might not have seen him for the careless guy he really was. So even though I felt rejected, I was glad he ignored me for that month because it gave me the strength I needed to not return that call.

I did, however, return the next one. Sometimes we make mistakes and, unfortunately, sometimes we make those mistakes twice. Colin was a mistake I made twice. After hours of swearing to my friends that I was done with and over him, one phone call from him saying he was on his way to my place was enough to make me break. At first I insisted we were just going to be friends this time. Then I insisted it was just physical. Then i insisted it was just going to be a casual relationship. Then, after a mere two weeks of him being back in town, I finally admitted to myself that I was back in love with him.

The bad boy pattern not-so-surprisingly repeated itself and I eventually came to find (thanks to the Internet of all things) that he might have been spending his nights with me, but he was spending his afternoons in his trailer with a PA from his movie doing something that was most definitely not in her job description.

That second break up is what I refer to as the Titanic. When I was falling in love with Colin, it was the building of that ship. It was the biggest and best thing I'd ever built and even though other people were skeptical of it working, I was confident that what I'd built was strong. As the relationship went on, it felt like the ship's journey. People all around (even ones who hadn't seen this ship in real life and couldn't say first hand whether or not it was a sturdy structure) still thought it would sink, but I went along believing in what I made; believing that it would float on. Our first break up is when the ship hit the iceberg. It forever damaged what we had, but I thought that with a little time, I could think of a solution. Then came the second break up, the part where Jack dies. I saw that final blow as the part where things were so far gone that I simply couldn't get them back. My feelings were all but parts of that ship scattered across the ocean floor for everyone to see and say, "We told you this ship couldn't last."

But like I said before, Colin was the first biggest mistake of my life, the mistake that made me believe my heart was the titanic, but Drew was the second biggest mistake of my life. The one that makes me know that I do not, in fact, have a ship in my chest.

After breaking up with Colin I was sure I'd never look at relationships the same way again. I was damaged in a way that I didn't think could be undone. I had trust issues. Resentment. Fear of commitment. I felt every feeling that makes for a bad relationship, and I couldn't for the life of me get them to go away.

Two years after meeting Colin, I was at a friend's surprise birthday party where I met Drew. He was funny and charming and charismatic and, of course, a bad boy. Did he break my heart the same way Colin did? You better believe it. But this time, it didn't break me.

I realized from letting myself fall in love with Drew that you can let your heart crash and sink and scatter across an ocean floor, but that doesn't mean its ruined. A heart isn't the Titanic. You don't have to dive into the unknown to pick up the pieces and try to re-build it, because it will do that itself when it's ready to move on.

Whether you're breaking up, broken up, or waking up every day alone, your broken ship hasn't sailed its last journey. You'll have plenty of more icebergs in your future, but that shouldn't stop you from embarking away from that dock. The fear of getting hurt should never stop you from dating. If you're willing to try your hand at love, no matter what has happened in the past, you're going to eventually find smooth waters to sail.

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To read more of Alicia's stories, log onto the PassionSearch Blog!