Use the Past as a Tool, Not a Punishment

Everyone has at least one past regret when it comes to dating. There’s that one guy or girl who vibrated on a similar wavelength as you, but circumstances simply didn’t work out and he or she was shuffled into the pages of your past instead of your present. You look back months or years later and wish you’d done things differently. Regret takes root in your heart, rents out space in your mind. You really messed up. Or did you?

The Power of Perspective

I indulge in more than my fair share of nostalgia. You can call it a comforting technique or a motivation tool to get back to that place of peace. I pump my veins full of old memories and go on the nod for a while as I hurl myself back in the past in search of answers. I’m especially indulgent when it comes to matters of the heart.

There was one guy I dated named Brandon. He was an intellectual, had this raw honesty about him, was a bit of a geek. When I first met him at a coffeeshop, he was reading a book and sipping tea. It made my soul sing in three-part harmony. We had fantastic chemistry, but there was just something about him that I couldn’t latch on to 100 percent. I called it quits. Looking back, I knew my hesitation was entirely superficial, and I wasn’t willing to “settle” for “good enough.”

And then there was Michael, the first offense on my rap sheet of love crimes. I was about 17 and just starting to figure out the equation to my “love diagram.” He was a nice guy, but a bit too feminine for me (blame it on my youth). He cancelled a dentist’s appointment to be with me, gave me a gift for my birthday, respected me enough not to have sex on the first date. I called it quits. To this day I still use him as my true north when determining whether a guy is treating me well.

There are a few more guys I think about from time to time, but Michael and Brandon are the two situations in which I ended the relationship. What it all boils down to is that I can’t keep beating myself up over my mistakes. I read a book recently with a quote somewhere along the lines of, “You can’t use present knowledge to judge past actions.”

Bad Dates & Horrible Mates

Besides past relationship regrets, I’ve also gone on a few bad first dates. There was one guy who struck me as a bit of an alcoholic and seemed to like black guys a bit too much. (To avoid confusion, know that I myself am a black man.) There was also a musician who seemed more like an old man who loved to talk about pipe organs. And let’s not get started on Self-Deprecating Dude who was quick to point out his flaws and felt every silence was an awkward one.

While these experiences could be filed under Bad Dates, I prefer to see them as learning opportunities. It’s the same way I prefer to see what I had with Brandon and Michael as learning opportunities. I could become bitter about these “failures,” keep examining my mishaps from every conceivable angle, and tell myself I’m going to be a lifelong bachelor. But I realize it’s much more productive to view them as guideposts in my future romantic endeavors.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ve fallen into despair when you’ve simply fallen into a pattern. And patterns can always be broken.