Sweating the Small Stuff...

I just had a moment of clarity.

A lot of people that know me extremely well, especially my inner female circle, know that I tend to be rather cool, calm and collected when it comes to guys. It takes a lot to phase me, and I don't let a guy into my heart for a very long time. Part of that is I don't want to be hurt, and part of it is it's just not in my personality to be the gyrl all hyped up about a guy.

I don't like PDAs. I'm not an I need to see this dude every day and be on the phone all night type of gyrl. In relationships, I'm often the one saying as long as we have a communication everyday (goodnight text/email will suffice), we only need to have a thorough conversation or visit once a week, unless the need arises to do more. I'm pretty low maintenance in terms of what I need emotionally from a guy I'm involved with, once I feel secure of my position in his life. I'm not the jealous type, I have healthy male friendships and I have no problem with him having healthy female friendships.

All of that means I'm typically in relationships/situations where there's very little drama, stress, and arguments. Typically if I'm upset at my mate something MAJOR has occured, &/or I feel I'm being disrespected.

On the flip side, this also means I don't sweat the small stuff. Now the problem with that is I either end up internally rationalizing whatever small thing occured, or I try to just forget it happened. While some may say it's slightly passive agressive of me to behave like this, I just don't have the energy to argue/discuss something small enough for it to not affect my behavior or feelings towards my mate.

Well one of the guy's I've been seeing for a few months that's pretty much my favorite non platonic guy to spend time with has been PERFECT in all the major areas people tend to care about. He treats me WELL whenever we're together. He's vocal about his feelings, there's no guessing game. We have AMAZING all-around chemistry. We also have the same values. BUT, there's been something small that he's not been so perfect in/about.

Everytime the small thing happens, I pull a typical me and I don't say anything and just know I'll be over it in the morning. Well the small thing has occured in different forms a few times lately. And needless to say I've been doing a lot of internalizing, and of course with that comes me rationalizing his behavior. I was on the phone with one of my best friends telling her for the first time about the situation, and him (I actually like this guy, which is another rarity for me, and I tend to keep those situations to myself until I can tell if it'll end well), and I found myself getting mad. I realized this was no longer a small issue with me. This issue had ballooned from "I don't sweat the small stuff" to this is making me wonder if I should still see him.

I finally built up the courage to call him (yes courage, because I hadn't decided if I was ready & willing to let him go if the conversation didn't go as well as I wanted it to go), and found that he was EXTREMELY apologetic, and said he'd do better. I'd gone through this long period of simmering about his behavior, and semi stressing about it, when all it took was for me to STOP internalizing it and just say something, for it to be fixed.

So I'm not saying I will stop not sweating the small stuff, but I am saying I will do a better job of realizing when something is no longer "small" and has become an issue I need to discuss. I shouldn't let something eat me up inside in a friendship. It's not fair to that person, and it's not fair to me.