I’ve been on several dates with beautiful women. I can’t tell you how many times it has been brought up that I’ve been divorced not just once, but twice now, and whatever interest might have been there simply disappears. It’s as if somebody who is divorced once is “probably okay.” Divorced twice, uh uh. There’s obviously a reason this guy can’t hold it together. Right?

Even here on the internet, those who love tearing me down point to the fact that I’ve been divorced twice as if it will prove that I’m a phony. They think it will prove that I’m a jerk. They think it will prove that I’m not credible and not worth listening to. It’s as if somebody who is divorced once “probably could be a sound voice in this world”, but divorced twice… uh uh. There’s obviously a reason this guy can’t hold it together. Right?

That’s just me. That’s my plight. Most people have their own things that people judge them on, whatever that might be. Most people have their “dirty secret” that they fear will hurt or destroy whatever they hope to build that is beautiful. They have that part of their pasts that if discovered by others will make them seem idiotic or unstable.

And twice-divorced… well, that one’s a doozy.

In the end (when I’m on these dates, which isn’t every date), it usually goes down like this. Either the fact that I’ve been divorced twice comes out and the date just kind of putters out, or the girl asks me questions to try and determine why I got divorced, and why I got divorced twice.

These questions seem like fair ones but they drive me nuts. They put me in a predicament. I can choose to make myself look good and appear the victim (which is what they want to hear), or I can tell the truth and declare that I had my part in it. Being me, I try to always go for the latter because I hate when people claim that they had nothing to do with the demise of their marriage(s), no matter what events finally ended it.

But really… why do people ask these questions at all. I don’t really ever want to know why a girl got divorced. I don’t want to know why she’s had a crappy past. I honestly don’t ever want to know any of that, at least not early in the relationship. What I want to know, and what’s most important to me, is who is she now because of it?

As far as I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world with crappy pasts.

Those who have become better because of it.

And those who are still defined by it.

And that’s what I look for.

The damned sexiest thing on earth to me is a woman who has had the crappiest past you could imagine and is now strong, determined, mentally stable, and happy. I don’t care if there were drugs, addictions, divorces, abuse, stealing, affairs, or anything else. If she has taken the burdens of the past and triumphed over them, that’s a person I want to be with.

Think about it. There are people who, yes they’ve had challenges, but they haven’t really been drug through the mud yet. They haven’t been slammed against rocky shores. They haven’t been hurled about by life’s tornadoes.

And everybody, at some point in this life, will have that happen. I don’t care who you are. Life finds a way to test you by dragging you down to the bottom and almost nobody escapes that right of passage.

Which is why it’s so important to recognize the two types of people with crappy pasts.

Somebody who hasn’t been there yet… they’re a loose cannon. There’s no way of knowing whether life buckling them at the knees will make them stronger or if it will weaken them to the point of implosion. There’s no way of knowing how they’ll react when their face is being pressed into the proverbial pavement. There’s no way of knowing if life will build them or destroy them. And that’s scary.

But somebody who’s been there and risen above it?

Damn.

They’ll probably rise above anything.

And that’s a sexy idea.

But then there’s the other type who never really grows at all…

I’ll tell you that from personal experience, there are plenty of people who have had crappy pasts and they never do rise above much of anything. They are always defined by what they’ve been through. They spend their time licking their open wounds, complaining about the hard knocks, and feeling jaded… sometimes years or decades later.

These are the kind of people that scare me the most when it comes to any situation. They’re the kind of people who will one day drag me down because there’s no way to pull them up. It’s not hard to spot these kind of people.

At least it’s not hard for me. But then again, I know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the bottom, and so maybe I can more easily recognize those who are still there and those who have long ago left it behind.

And knowing all this, and believing all this, I’ll tell you that there has only ever been one girl that asked me who I am now because of it all. And I fell in love with her. And she fell in love with me.

I realize I’m an idiot for letting her go.

At the time I didn’t realize that to find somebody like that was such an anomaly. I didn’t realize how freakishly rare it really is. I didn’t realize that almost everybody everywhere actively looks for the past surface reasons to discredit or disinterest themselves in other people. It doesn’t matter if it’s dating or if it’s in business or if it’s just friends or family members. People do it, and they do it to each other all the time.

You know… it’s been asked of me (as I’ve talked about this) why I don’t just hide the fact that I’ve been divorced twice until things progress more. Some people think that I have every right to not tell every detail of the past on a first date.

I guess at the end of the day, I want to find that special someone who recognizes the two types of people with crappy pasts, and I want her to believe that I’m one of those that have become something incredible because of it. I want her to believe that I’m a better choice because of what I’ve been through, not a worse one. I want her to understand the power of life experience. And I want that to be a turn-on to her. Not a turn-off.

I guess I just want her to define me by who I am now. Not by a number.

And I’ll wait as long as it takes to find somebody who truly wants to know me.