I Suck at Relationships

I don't think that I would be alone in saying that I am terrible at relationships. As a twenty-something, I'm not sure that this is all that unusual. What is unusual (I think anyway) is that I still can't seem to figure it out, despite having a fair amount of "learning experiences." I feel like I'm going to need to break it down for y'all, so I may as well.

My very first boyfriend was someone I met on the school bus at the beginning of high school. He liked me way more than I liked him, which is probably the first indication of how all of this turned out in the end. I was pretty terrible to him (to be fair though, it was my first relationship). I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted a relationship at that time, or that I was even ready for one, but stupid me goes full steam ahead anyway. I broke up with him in a blog post. I hadn't intended to, of course, but my quoting lyrics of a song made everything a little mixed up and crazy and that was the end of that. I found out much later that he was not necessarily strictly interested in girls, which I think is pretty cool. The major lesson here: be honest with what you need and want out of a relationship, especially if it turns out that you aren't really all that into it.

My next relationship happened in first year university. Again, he liked me a lot more than I ended up liking him. He kinda broke me down in the end; I liked that someone liked me. My self-esteem was in the toilet in those days, so any bit of affection was like the Holy Grail at that point. Before we ended up getting together, we signed a lease to live together the following year (I don't even need to tell you how big of a mistake that was). We ended up breaking up over the summer (he wanted things from me that I wasn't prepared to give -- mainly to go out and spend time with him alone at his parents' farm) but got back together when school started up again. That didn't go too well either -- I'm pretty sure he cheated on me (not that I can verify this claim) because my self-esteem was still in the toilet. Swarovski crystals will never look the same to me ever again. The major lesson here: don't rush into things.

My last relationship to date just ended a couple of weeks ago. This was a guy I had met purely by chance, and by all indications he was a sweet and fun guy. He was in the army (suuuuuuuuuuuuuper fit, I'm not even going to lie) and had no real intention of ever doing anything else with his life. He blew me off a lot and wanted me to change things about myself that I was totally not comfortable with. Get to know me a bit better and maybe I'll tell you what he wanted me to change. In any case, this dude had serious amount of emotional baggage, my best friends and family didn't like him, and he had no control over the place that he would end up living. This relationship was like trying to get blood from a stone -- there was never a snow ball's chance in hell of it working out between us. The major lesson: don't go forcing something if it's just not right.

If anyone has figured out the formula for happy relationships, can you please show it to me? This is one equation that I'm having major difficulties solving.

Welcome to the Sober Engineer Blogs!

Hello there, my name's Kristin. I'm an engineering student that really hates drinking and the awkward university culture-driven pressure that goes with it. I do have a YouTube channel, which you can check out if you're bored I suppose (actually please do, I'd like that very much).

My intention, with my YouTube channel and this blog alike, is to try and address the idea that not liking to drink doesn't mean you don't know how to have fun. Basically, I just want to talk about the various mishaps and misadventures that happen in my life, and all without the assistance of alcohol.

I'll probably blog about the things that I don't feel like talking about on camera (which is still a very strange experience for me, I'm not going to lie) and things that don't necessarily fall into the theme of the YouTube channel. There is a theme there, I promise!

Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy ride. Hopefully we'll all learn something about ourselves and life along the way!


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My channel, if you want to check it out, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/cremeXfraiche/videos