Birth Order

As a middle child, things always look a little different. There have been many studies about birth order in life, but I haven't read any of them. So here's my take on things. Being a middle child means that you have to find your way to be special. The oldest is the oldest and the leader. They were around before anyone else, so they got the "alone time" with the parents (even though, in our case, it was only 3 years). The youngest is the last chance. They get the parents holding on to every memory. Graduation will be the final graduation, the wedding will be the final wedding (hopefully!), so they get that aspect of it.

From what I can tell (since my extensive research includes myself and one other friend), being the middle child means that you are extremely independent, but you also are constantly wanting attention and force your way into getting it.

But here's the thing that sticks out in my mind about growing up a middle child. I remember never picking the restaurant. Even when the whole, "It's Amy's turn" came up, I was always very tentative about it. I usually let Kelly and Megan decide, and hoped it would be something I could stand.

I remember this driving my college boyfriend nuts, because I did the same thing with him. I told him that it was because I would rather myself be miserable with the decision, because that was something I could control, rather than making someone else unhappy.

It seems as if I have carried this over into adulthood. In a lot of things I do, I get walked on because I'm afraid of making someone else unhappy. At a cookout, I calculate out carefully how much food or beverage I will eat and multiply it by three to cover others. I never take charge and plan events in case someone else doesn't want to do it. And decisions in general have become increasingly hard.

But lately, it's been more detrimental to my dating life than anywhere else. I'll meet a great guy, and immediately try to think of people for him to date, friends of mine who are single. I have dated a couple of guys that I didn't see things developing with, only to stick with it because they seemed more sure than me (yeah, ask me how that worked...), and most of all, I will step back when a friend says they're interested, because I would rather myself be miserable than for her to be.

Now, let me go ahead and put in a disclaimer. Many of you already know that my plan since about May has been to not date until I get back from Africa. This wasn't because I thought that going on a 10-day trip with a boyfriend back home would be hard, but because it put a finite timeline on getting everything ready and healed in my heart before I could move forward. I've already ignored that once which meant failure, so I won't ignore it again.

But I can still look back and see my mistakes. I can still see where I let others opinions get to my head, and stopped leading with my heart.

The definition of insanity is this... one who keeps doing the same thing expecting different results.