A Year to be a Prude

So to those of you who know me, I'm a self proclaimed prude.  However, now I'm going to take it to another level.  As of 12 AM this morning I have committed to staying single for a year.  For the purposes of this commitment, single is being defined as any romantic relationship, or any relations with anyone that could be deemed inappropriate between myself and a female friend.

So why the year to be a prude?  Well as much as I swear up and down that I don't want to get married, it's a lie.  I've spent my teenage years searching with my heart on my sleeve for Mr. Right.  It wasn't until this year I realized I'm not ready to meet him.  I mean even if I were to meet the man God designed for me, I'm too much of a wreck to handle a relationship with him.  Not to say that Mr. Right wouldn't be able to handle me, I'm not ready to handle him.  The prime example of this is my relationship with God.  When I'm single and not distracted by a boy, I read my Bible and talk to Him everyday.  When a boy comes along I stop looking up at God and start looking at the boy.  That's a problem.

The other big issue is something a friend pointed out to me.  We were having coffee and I was discussing some of the problems with an ex-boyfriend, and she was being a saint and lending me a sympathetic ear.  After I'd gotten everything out there and was staring miserably into my coffee cup, she reaches across the table and grabs my hand.  I look up at her and she quietly asks if I love myself.  I (being the sarcastic person I sometimes am) laughed hollowly and shook my head.  What's to love about me?  My size twenty pants?  The thin scars from cutting?  My inability to navigate?  All my flaws start bubbling to the top of my mind.  Now I don't have particularly high self-esteem anyway, so after a recent breakup I was a wreck.  So I'm thinking all this while she's watching me (I'm pretty sure she can read my mind sometimes), and she says, "Well that explains so much!".  At this point I'm super confused.  She goes on to explain that as long as I dislike myself, and have no respect for myself, I'm only going to attract guys who also have no respect for me.  The example she used to clarify this was the funniest, "If you're 20 feet tall would you look for your spouse in a midget convention?".  So this year is the chance for me to stop focusing on looking for Mr. Right and start looking for me, and how to like me.

So some of you will think I'm crazy, but I'm hoping you can help me.  I'm not particularly boy-crazy, but this is going to be hard.  I mean I get lonely just like every other single person, just like I have nights where I want nothing more then to cuddle on the couch with a guy.  Temptation itself is going to be hard to conquer, so I'm going to need all the friend support I can get!

Brianna