Crap, in and of itself, is somewhat harmless — it only gains power when someone else falls for it. No jerk on this planet has the ability to climb inside your mind, put you under a spell, and force you to do his douchey bidding. If you find yourself getting the doormat treatment from a smug bastard whose confidence surpasses his offerings, that’s on you. He fed you lies, but you swallowed them whole without a second thought. That stuff has to stop.
- You’re choosing to believe lies. Falling for lies is completely voluntary. In a way, gullibility is a side effect of nonexistent self-esteem. You should never be so desperate for attention that you’re willing to look past behavior that has the potential to hurt you. It’s one thing to be told a lie, but it’s another thing entirely to actually believe it and let your life get ripped apart because of it. If you’re capable of believing BS, you’re just as capable of disregarding it.
- Reading people isn’t that difficult. You’re an adult — surely you can tell the difference between a nice person and a mean one. It takes a dizzying amount of ignorance to be genuinely shocked when you get screwed over for the umpteenth time by someone who was a POS in the first place. “POS” is probably readily apparent, and ignoring that is pure stupidity, plain and simple.
- Dating a terrible person kind of makes you one by association. You aren’t accomplishing anything by allowing a manipulative scumbag to call himself your boyfriend while you complain to your friends about all of his terrible qualities later. Listen to yourself. You dated the guy with all of those terrible qualities. You voluntarily let him into your life and kept him there even after he hurt you repeatedly. What does that say about you? Staying with a douchebag isn’t being “supportive” or “accepting” — it’s weak and naive.
- You’re in charge of your own life. You’ll always have the final say in what happens in your life. With that kind of power, you should know what’ll make you happy and what will cause you misery. When things are falling apart, it’s up to you to be strong and walk the hell away.
- Dating habitual BS’ers should not be considered normal. Falling for some douchebag’s BS, getting hurt and then spending months picking up the pieces should not be a normal routine in your life. Finding yourself heartbroken over yet another jerk but then admiring your savage breakup skills in the same breath isn’t something that strong people do — it’s a destructive pattern that needs to be recognized and broken.
- Breaking up with an endless parade of jerks isn’t “cool.” Loudly declaring the end of your latest embarrassingly terrible relationship over shots of tequila doesn’t make you a badass, it just makes you someone who finally accepted a reality that’s been there all along. It’s best to just avoid this whole debacle. “Girl power” isn’t dating a complete jerk for six months and ignoring the many times he treats you like crap and walks all over you. Real “girl power” is never giving a person like that the time of day in the first place.
- You should always strive to improve yourself. Dating isn’t about steadily losing your ability to trust — it’s about building trust with the right people. If you haven’t been able to do that, its time to take a step back and reevaluate how you value yourself and how you perceive others. When you truly respect yourself, your self-esteem becomes a diamond-infused force field that acts as a shield between you and the rest of the world. You’ll be a confident badass who takes life by its big, hairy balls and doesn’t sweat the small stuff or take crap from anyone. That kind of woman is a nightmare for the average jerk who is on the prowl for his next emotional punching bag. You’ll be invisible to guys like that. Yes, that is a good thing.
