"Missed Connections"

What are "missed connections?"  I keep finding myself browsing through the listings on various websites reading through the ridiculous and helpless posting people send out into cyber abyss that our Internet has become.

Has a relationship ever formed from one of these postings??  Or are these people simply looking for a shameless one night stand?  Still, I find myself drawn back to them at least once a week.  I just can't seem to help myself from wondering....what are these people really looking for??  And what are earth are they really hoping to find?

I've been doing some internal searches of late...trying to find some "missed connections" of my own; within myself.  So far I've come up with a whole lot of nothing and "what ifs."  But I continue to search nonetheless. 

When I was young(er) I had this overwhelming feeling that somehow I was different.  Somehow I stood out, thought differently, or ...or that maybe, just maybe I was meant for greater things.  So far none of those feelings have panned out either, but I'm optimistic that there's still hope for me. 

Missed Connections huh?  Well I'd say that I've had more than my fair share of those.  I missed my career connection somewhere back in college.  I missed my relationship connection along about the time I got divorced.  I've even managed to miss several friendship connections over the years...or at the very least I've severed a few trying to hide-out from the prying eyes and minds of the people that "knew me way back when."  It seems I'm on a path to nowhere lately...and I can't seem to find my way off.  I'm not even totally sure how I got here...just one more "missed connection" I'm sure......

Until today...

Up until today I wore a ring on the third finger of my left hand.  I say the third finger because some people don't really consider the thumb a "finger."  The ring itself meant nothing.  I put it on 5 years ago when my wedding ring came off.  My finger felt funny naked so I replaced my wedding band with a plan little silver ring.  My grandmother gave it to me several years ago, and I had never really looked twice at it.  At the time it seemed to fit the need I had for it. 

I wore that ring for years after.  At first as a filler for my missing band, then later as a decoy so others wouldn't know I was single.  Finally I kept it on because I thought I'd found a new love, but marriage seemed out of reach.  So I wore the ring to symbolize...something. 

Today I removed the ring from my finger for good.  There is no point to it.  My finger will not fall off without it, and if the "love" I thought were so right and good there would be a ring to replace it by now.  But there is not.  So I embrace the nakedness of all my fingers.  There is no meaning in a symbol that means nothing...and there is no point in pretending something stands for something it is not.

How is it even possible...

How is it that everything is automatically my fault?? I posted something pertaining to this on Facebook a little while ago and a (female) friend actually responded with "Because you're female..." Really??

So because I have a uterus all of the crap that happens, the fights my significant other and I have, all of it, everything...is my fault??  Sounds like BS to me...  I am far from being a feminist, I think that everyone is entitled to think and feel whatever makes them comfortable...mostly, but this...this "the woman is always wrong and to blame shit" is really making me want to rethink some of my core beliefs. 

It's probably nothing...and I am intelligent enough to know that not everything is my fault...I don't even have control over most of what happens in my everyday life so it couldn't possibly be my fault.  And I suppose, as far as the fight goes, blaming me was probably just a battle strategy...but still...the whole thing has made me think and reflect back on other fights and other happenings...