Seriously, guys, please go to therapy already

Today is the fourth Valentine's Day running that I'm single. This fact alone doesn't bother me so much, as I'm enough of an over-educated socialist liberal to recognize that Valentine's Day is just a Hallmark holiday created to sell heart-shaped boxes of candy and edible underwear. However, Valentine's Day was also my anniversary in my last long-term, ill-fated relationship. (I thought I was being clever, asking my ex to make our relationship official on Valentine's Day. Kill two birds with one stone, you know? Turns out I was just fucking myself with a two-sided dildo.)

If I sound a little jaded, it's because I am. In case you haven't been around any single thirty-somethings lately, let me illuminate one very important point for you - being single in your thirties sucks. There are no tall, dark and handsome men pulling up in a chauffeured car offering you a completely grope-free ride home. Being single in your thirties is more like that scene at the end of the Titanic, when all the survivors are on the rescue ship - just a bunch of weary, depressed, shell-shocked people stumbling around, wondering how the hell they got caught up in this mess. 

Because if you're single into your thirties, you've seen some shit. You're a vet. You've probably had relationships, maybe even a marriage, that didn't work out for any number of reasons (infidelity, lying, lack of communication, abuse, intimacy issues, and good old "irreconcilable differences). You're burnt out, skittish, so hyper-aware of red flags that your new SO need only cough the way your ex used to, and you're screaming "Dealbreaker!" and running for the hills.

And that's not even taking into account whatever other shit life has thrown at you in the previous three+ decades - family dysfunction, physical trauma, career setbacks, etc. Now, for the record, I'm not saying that people who are in relationships live charmed lives. The grass is not always greener, and can, in fact, on many occasions, be dry, weedy and diseased. The point I'm making is that the older we get, the more fucked-up we become, and the harder it is to find someone whose type and level of fucked-up-ness is simpatico with your own.

Of course, one way to counter-act that (besides hunkering down with a dozen cats) is therapy (with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for psychiatry, bitches #throwback #musicman). Yup, I mean sitting down with a licensed, trained professional to talk about whatever shit from your past is making you depressed, anxious, violent, withdrawn, whatever. Because I believe that is the last, best hope for any of us to be healed enough to have a functional relationship with another human.

And I address this post to the men because honestly, at least in my experience, women don't need to be told to go to therapy. Women (at least the ones I know) loooove therapy. I can count on one hand the women I know who haven't been to therapy. For the men I know, it's the complete opposite. Statistics bear out my anecdotal evidence on a larger scale. And while there are myriad reasons why seeking mental health counseling is beneficial in all aspects of life, for the purposes of this blog post, I'm focusing on one specific benefit - it would make dating a lot fucking easier on everyone.

It's really hard to date someone who's a tangled knot of unresolved trauma, insecurity, anger, confusion and paranoia (trust me - I've been that person, and dated that person). Having recognized that, I did what any reasonable person would do - I sought help with untangling those knots, so that I might be a healthier, more functional partner to some lucky gentleman someday. But I get frustrated knowing that more than likely (and again, there's evidence backing me up) my would-be paramour is not out there doing the same kind of work on himself that I'm doing on myself. So where does that leave me, and all the women like me?

Think of it this way. If I'm a runner who runs 3 miles every day (and remember, this is a hypothetical scenario, because I would never do something so cruel to myself as running), I can't have a training partner who only runs a mile once every few weeks. We're not at the same level, and they're not going to be able to keep up with me. Same with working on yourself mentally and emotionally. I'm not saying I have all of my shit processed and resolved; far from it. But at least I've opened the baggage and started unpacking it. It's frustrating to meet a guy who's still got all his bags stuffed in the deep recesses of his attic, completely untouched.

You can't expect women to take on all the emotional labor of fixing themselves, and fixing you too. Meet us halfway, dudes. Be a little introspective. Think about what might have gone wrong in your past relationships, or how past pain and trauma might be informing the way you currently act towards women. And if you're not sure what to do to change it, that's ok: that's what therapists are for.

Look, I know therapy is expensive. And time-consuming. And hard. As my first therapist told me, "The hardest thing to do is change how you think about something." And that's still true, 17 fucking years later.  But every change I've made, however incremental, has made my life better. And it can make your life better too. Because maybe next Valentine's Day, instead of sitting alone in your room reading my dumb blog, you could be in my room, watching me write my blog, and then when I'm done, we can bust out the heart-shaped chocolates and edible undies, and have some good, old-fashioned V-Day fun.