Some people say I’m too jaded when it comes to the L word, they wonder why I don’t believe in true love. I did once. But I don’t think I will again.

When you’re young and eager and innocent, you believe in the fairy tale bullshit, but life chips away at that theory. I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I got married pretty young, twenty-three years old. What did I know about love? Nothing. Well I knew what love wasn’t. I just didn’t know what love was. I had been in a two year relationship at the age of eighteen with a thirty year old man. I was a virgin when we met. He lied to me about his age and over the course of two years, lied about more things than I even know.

He was emotionally abusive with a very bad temper. He was extremely jealous and possessive, always accusing me of ridiculous infidelities. When he wasn’t acting crazy and in a rage over something, he was making up for it by buying me flowers and gifts, writing me poems and promising soon a diamond ring.

Thank god I got out of that relationship before I ended up pregnant or married to that bastard. After I broke up with him he stalked me for a couple of months and I had to get the police involved. Only then did he finally stop following me around and contacting me.

So this is how I knew what love wasn’t. Love wasn’t jealous or possessive. Love didn’t keep secrets. Love wasn’t mean and it didn’t belittle you. Love wasn’t destroying the inside of your apartment or kicking you out of the car on a busy highway. Love was hopefully going to be at maximum, five years older than me, not twelve.

So that’s how I laid out what my “standards” were. And I was so proud of myself for setting standards, something I had never done before. I thought this would set me up for 100% success rate when it came to finding that perfect someone.

Little did I know…