Want to know a secret?

I have to be honest with you. I may not have been completely transparent with my intentions for this blog. 

I’m a massive fan of the philosophy of sharing secrets in order to give others permission to see you vulnerable, to let them know that everyone is in the same boat. We all have weaknesses, fears, triumphs, ambitions, aspirations, longing and dreams.

I’m going to share a dream of mine with you.

I want to write a book – Not just any book. A New York Times best-seller.

So what I’m trying to say is, this blog is a stepping stone for me to get where I want to go.

I’ve taken the liberty of mapping out a path to take to achieve this:

1.  Start blog (check)
2.  Write cool and interesting stuff.
3.  Drive traffic and awareness to blog.
4.  Acquire internet fame.
5.  Pray and wait for someone with a lot of money to discover and heavily enjoy blog.
6.  Convince aforementioned rich person to help fund my novel.
7.  Tick off item number 1 on life’s to-do list.

.... Now that I've come clean, and you know my motives, let’s get on with it, shall we?

I mentioned in my introduction post (click here to jog your memory), that one of the things I wanted to share with you was my search for love, and I figured, you can’t really understand someone’s journey without being given some context into their past. So, in the spirit of sharing secrets, and I think enough time has passed for me to be able to talk openly about this, I'm going to give you a brief rundown on the colourful past few years of my life, the reason I am the way I am, and why some of my choices have been less than ideal.

Let me take you back in time, to the 90's. John Howard had just been elected Prime Minister, Michael Jordan was at his peak, and double-denim was still socially acceptable.

This is a photo of me circa 1996.

 
















Yes, yes... laugh it up. The sad thing is, it only gets worse.




Zerah Gallardo circa 2000.

I managed to convince my parents I would look great with curly hair, and I got a perm at age 10. A legitimate perm.
Although there are several things wrong with this photo, I make no apologies for my metallic blue zip-up vest. I was sporting that badass piece with style all year round.

But despite contrary belief, and I know this may be hard to believe, but I was not fighting off the boys left and right.

Growing up with two different coloured eyes, buck teeth and a raging monobrow is not exactly a great recipe for attention from the "cool guys" at school. In fact, what it is a great recipe for is being incessantly bullied and coming home crying almost everyday. My low self esteem didn't necessarily stop me from being confident in other areas of my life. I've always known what I am capable of. I've always had amazing friends.
What my childhood did do to me was convince me that I am ugly, and that I couldn't attract attention from boys (now men) I was attracted to no matter how hard I tried. 

I have what I like to call "ugly duckling syndrome". I'm not saying I am a dazzling, vivacious swan, but I at least have two very distinct and separate eyebrows now, and when I do attract some sort of male attention, to me it's miraculous, because ingrained in my mind is that I am still that girl growing up who despite all her efforts to be something, anything else was always branded as unattractive.

So, with this in mind, I've subconsciously always tried to hold onto any male attention I receive, no matter who from. I have a real fear of being alone, so I've often settled for relationships which compromise what I might want for myself because I don't know when an opportunity to be with someone is going to arise again.

I rocked the McDonald's arches monobrow look up until about 2002/03, and then high school hit and things started to change for me. My.... interesting relationship past began to form, and is as follows:

2004 - Year 9. My first "real" boyfriend. (I say real, because when I was in year 6, I "went out" with a boy for 2 weeks, but after we were "officially going out", because we were so shy around each other, we only ever spoke on the phone after school and completely avoided each other when we were in the same place).
 
So this first REAL boyfriend was funny and talented and everything I wanted at the time, and because he was the first person I ever really received romantic reciprocation from, I obsessed over him until the end of high school, despite the fact we only went out for 5 months. He was my first love and he taught me a lot about the qualities I wanted to find in a partner. He's a good person and we're still loosely in touch every now and then.

2008 - The year after high school. Nothing much to mention here. A brief stint with a Uni tutor (from another Uni), but not much else.

2009 - Brace yourself. - I had the pleasure (sarcasm) of having an internet boyfriend. He was from North Carolina. It's funny, because although we only ever spoke on Skype and on the phone, to me, in my sick and twisted mind, he WAS my boyfriend. I would speak to his friends and family like I knew them. My friends at Uni would talk about their boyfriends, and I would join in their conversations and talk about things "my boyfriend" had said or done. 
The worst part is my poor friends who knew what was going on just played along with it, like it was normal, because they knew how much it meant to me and how serious I was about this guy. 

It eventually ended because he "cheated" on me with a (real life) girlfriend, and I cut him out of my life. Today, we are occasionally in touch, though nothing more than polite small-talk.

2010 - Chinese whispers seems to be a favourite game for some people, so you may have heard parts of this story, or even augmented versions, but put simply, this is it.
I met an older man who, from the get-go, just got it. He got me. He was smart and funny and politically incorrect, just the way I like. I fell in love far too quickly, and long story short, he turned out to be married. Despite any moral obstacles, we continued the relationship for over a year. It was life-changing and I grew up and learnt so much about myself this year. It was an intense and sadistic relationship full of heartache and drama and everything that makes it passionate and exciting.
We broke up due to me not wanting that situation for my life anymore, but shortly after his wife found out about the entire thing, and, as you could probably imagine, it was less than pleasant for all involved.
He is now single, and has been for over a year. We've considered getting back together, but the truth is we are too similar. We have the same perceptions, the same flaws and we're both looking for the same things in life. But the thing is, you can't provide something for someone else that you are yet to find for yourself. Although I think being with him taught me some life lessons ahead of my time, he'll always be "the one that got away".

2011 - The beginning of 2011 was when all the drama of the above occurred, as well as losing my best friends (another story for another day). I was really on the search for something stable, something drama-free, and I was lucky enough to meet someone who was the perfect gentleman to me. He was my saving grace at a time when I really needed someone who I could depend on, and who could be my companion. The relationship only lasted 7 months, but I have nothing bad to say about it. We broke up because we were trying so hard to make something work that just wasn't meant to be. I learnt the hard way that a relationship can't fix the brokenness inside yourself. I don't talk to him anymore, but I do wish him all the happiness in the world. 

2012 - The first half of this year has been a whirlwind of searching for another companion, and filling the void with knowingly temporary substitutes for the real thing. I think I have been on more dates with random men this year than I can count, including a couple of real catches (sarcasm yet again) from speed-dating sessions I went to with my friends. After realising the casual dating scene really wasn't for me, I've recently started to, as they say, C.T.F.D. But my psychologist (will elaborate in a later post) was an absolute legend for being able to keep up with it all. 

I am currently seeing one person more seriously. It's still early days, but he is smart, funny and also a perfect gentleman. He works back and forth in Western Australia, so I hardly see him which I think is a good thing for now. It gives me time to focus on myself and figure out what I want instead of irrationally rushing into something like I normally would. I don't think we know each other well enough to predict whether it's going to be a long term thing or not, but I really enjoy his company, so I'll give it a go and will keep you updated on progress.

Lastly, since we're on the topic of love, I want you all to join me in my pursuit of a date with my number 1 celebrity crush: stand-up comedian Arj Barker. I often use my twitter account to try and get his attention, and he's tweeted me back a couple of times.

So yeah, you can tell we're pretty serious now.

So, every now and then I will post about any progress I've made with him, and hopefully, together we can make this dream come true.

Consider "OPERATION: GO ON A DATE WITH ARJ BARKER" officially underway!

If you would like to keep up to date with any contact we may make, please follow me:

https://twitter.com/zerahaha

So, I feel I have revealed a lot about myself in this post, and hopefully that is enough to earn your respect, rather than an opportunity for you to use something against me as blackmail.

Please feel free to leave me any comments or questions.

Be well with yourself.