Single Again… Damaged Yet Amazing

By Kenneth Stepp

For over 6 years I have been single and have been blessed to have a platform to write about it along the way. Because of this I have had the pleasure of meeting so many unique people. Mostly women of course. Most were incredible, all were interesting, and a few stood out from the crowd. 

The crowd… Is that what we are? Are we all in a vehicle crammed full and squished together? There are days when it feels that way. The onset of the internet has taken away much of our anonymity and doesn’t allow us to have as many secrets. We are known more or others know more about us than we are comfortable with.

I was around when there was no online world. Google didn’t exist, nor did Facebook. We could act one way around one crowd and another around another crowd. Now days, everyone’s part of the same crowd. That means what we do and what happens to us becomes known more often. When we feel we look foolish, we probably looked foolish to many. 

If you’ve been single for more than a week, you know what being hurt feels like. You may even know how it feels to love someone who doesn’t love you back. If you are really unfortunate you lost the love of your life forever. They may have left and remarried or death may have taken them much sooner than you expected. No matter what happened to you, it left you hurt, confused, uncertain, and damaged. 

This being single thing is not easy. We know something is missing from our lives but remain unsure if it still exists. There are days when I liken this feeling to a beggar sitting on a sidewalk, everyone walks by ignoring this hurting and hungry fellow human being. Why? Because there are so many? Because people are landscaping now, not people. Because they are afraid of catching what they have? The simple truth is we are harder on one another these days. I struggle with why…

I’ve known a few women who suffered so much loss that the thought of what they lost takes my breath away. Some lost a spouse, some lost a child. My fingers tremble just writing those words. The ultimate fear for anyone who ever had children. Seeing a girl, just an ordinary girl rise after such things leave me humbled in ways I find inexplicable. 

There are trends I see that literally make me want to protect my female friends. I’ve watched some get groomed. Set up for humiliation at the hands of what appeared to be a good man. He was acting. It is a contest to those men. And the damage they leave behind may never heal. Yet these remarkable creatures still wake up and try it again. 

If you’ve read me any length of time then you know I call them the fairer sex often. They are the strong ones really. I’ve only been cheated on once and blocked only one time. Both left me devastated, both left me damaged. But my beautiful friends face these every day and many worse things. I’m almost a giant and retired fighter, and never afraid. They have to have a certain amount of fear every time they even go to meet a new man.

Their logical brain must filter a man’s words through a BS meter because of past history. Yet their hearts remain supple and soft, open and warm. When I’m hurt I close myself off for a long time. Every day has hurtful potential for them yet there they are, exposing those wonderful hearts in hope that the next man will be their knight, the next man will protect their heart, not destroy it.

If you are a man and are fortunate enough to find one of these super-humans, man up, treat her with the respect she’s owed. And if you have enough sense you will work to keep her in your life forever. These special girls make the best friend ever and an amazing mate, they will always have your back either way. Don’t squander the chance with someone so special. Her damage didn’t break her, it made her amazing.