mister pan,

i’ve always found your storyline amusing…but even as a little girl i was frustrated with your inability to grow up, leave neverland, and love wendy (and NOT like a mother).

as a (still little and arguably wiser) adult, i find your refusal of maturity downright irritating (albeit charming..and whimsical). you remind me of just about every guy i’ve ever dated. a discerning fact that is painfully obvious by my ex-boyfriend’s facebook posts (i’ve removed him from my feed at least 5 times. facebook, please stop changing your settings on a weekly basis). i try not to be judgmental, i really do…but if you’re over 30 and posting about getting wasted every weekend and acting like a frat boy, i don’t think you sound cool. i think you sound pathetic. and because i once dated you i start questioning my own judgement.

…but then i realize, i grew up. i outgrew you. you were a phase.

over it,
great white buffalo.

guys who don’t grow up can be fun…but they can’t (usually) be ‘the one.’

the ex loved a good time. but he seemed so lost and had never been serious about a career. he had several low-level jobs since i’d known him. life wass one big party. he was unreliable (and that’s putting it mildly). the only kind of follow-through he knew about involved his golf swing.

is it that difficult to achieve a healthy balance between work & play, seriousness & silliness?

don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with having fun. no woman (that i know) wants to be with someone who is perpetually uptight. but when fun-loving & lighthearted cross over into unreliable & irresponsible, the teeter-totter lands on the ground with a painful thud. and the girlfriend is the one left with bruises (or depleted bank account, in this instance).

in the movie version of ‘peter pan,’ the iconic man-child tells his new lady friend, “forget about them, wendy. forget them all, and come with me where you’ll never, never have to worry about grown-up things again.”

truth be told, despite the fact that she didn’t end up submitting to peter, wendy was too much of a pushover for me to identify with anyway. i much prefer tiger lily. she’s stubborn, she’s adventurous, she’s loyal, and she dances!

my advice: if a charming, fun-loving man-child says something like the above to you, think twice about becoming a resident of never-neverland. i will admit that (at the time) the departure of my ex was a devastating heartbreak, but looking back now all i think is ‘AMEN! there IS a reason for everything.’

it’s six years later and the aforementioned ex hasn’t grown up a bit…although i think he is beginning to grow out…of his hair. (smirk)