Do You Know What Your Romantic Flaw Is?

When something breaks around your house or apartment, it is usually pretty blatant. The microwave blows up and leaves a black smoke ring against the wall, the cabinet pops open no matter how often you close it, the colors on the TV are all in shades of green. When something is wrong with a relationship, it is often much less obvious. Most relationships do not end over one specific thing, rather a combination of chemistry and issues that even the most learned scholar might not be able to explain.

When you have more bad relationships behind you than good, when you are repeatedly left by seemingly different sorts of partners, when you just cannot seem to make things work, I have a question for you. Do you know what your romantic flaw is?

Now, don't take me the wrong way. I'm not saying everyone has only one flaw when it comes to romance. I, myself, have upwards to twelve different (and very distinct) flaws. But I am a believer in that there is perhaps one issue that we all carry with us, that one last piece of baggage that encumbers all of our romantic entanglements. Like the purse or the wallet you just can't do without, like that red sweater you will not throw away no matter how godawful it looks on you because it's so warm and comfy, like that horribly cheesy picture of you and your friend you won't take off the wall - we're all carrying around something that's just a bit unnecessary and probably hindering our relationships.

Only when you know what it is can you find a partner that might be able to overcome it with you.

I have said it before, I will say it again - my specialty is the love-hate relationship. I love-hate everything in my life, from my hair to my apartment to my friends to my parents. Love-hating is my romantic flaw - it has been said that I can barely separate the two. Both sides of intense emotion, my love-hate trends cause me to fly for ever into drama, to hysterics, or into one helluva freak out at any given time. Sometimes I love to hate and hate to love. I mean, seriously, sometimes I think I'm a big mess.

Aren't we all?

First things first, to figure it out you need to explore within yourself. Sometimes it is best to work backwards from past relationships. Sometimes thinking about the past makes you produce projectile vomit and it is simply better for you to focus totally on yourself. But explore the relationships in your life - all of them from friendships to familial relations to co-workers to strangers on the street. Think about the way you react and the things you like and do not like in others, the things you like and do not like in yourself, and what exactly you want from another person you might become involved with. Sometimes the best thing to do is take a good, long look at yourself. Often, we focus too much on where the relationship went wrong, why the other person was not the right one, what we need to do to get back on track. It is an ugly business to objectively look at oneself, good qualities and bad.

It is an ugly business to point at yourself and say "this is what my problem is", and sometimes you can come up with thirty things. But there is a common thread, a common trend, some issue which makes you do all those little things you do that seem to drive partners crazy. Finding it will not make it go away. It will, however, make it a whole lot easier on you.

So what do you do? Do you cling, do you need too much? I do this one, too - fear of abandonment, of being left. Do you jump in with too much, too soon? I do that, too (this is why I'm perfect for this job, I'm bound to stay single a good, long while) - it's from being over-anxious and lonely, a longing to go ahead and fall madly in love. Do you make unnecessary demands and refuse to be satisfied with things the other person does? I've done this one a few times, especially when I was a bit younger - that's a way of testing them, goes back to fear of abandonment and it's about seeing what it takes to make them leave (really if they will leave).

But think about it, figure it out, study yourself. Find your romantic flaw. Then, maybe you will find your romantic "fix." The goal is, after all, to be in a healthy, happy relationship…right? You can only do that once you have figured yourself completely out.