Which is better?

I’ve had many relationships. I’ve had one-night stands, friends with benefits, short-term lovers, boyfriends that have lasted a month or two or maybe even three, tons of first dates followed by second and third dates, and so on and so forth. Serious boyfriends? I’ve had six.

1. High school boyfriend (he was in college), lasted about two years, gave me promise ring
2. Late teens/early 20s, lived together, engaged
3. Early 20s, lived together, engaged
4. Early to mid 20s, dated nearly five years, talked about marriage/future but were never technically engaged
5. Late 20s, dated a few years, married
6. Early 30s, lived together, engaged

That’s my serious boyfriend/fiance/husband history, in a nutshell.

When I see this, I think that my picker is broken. Or that maybe I’m broken. One of the many reasons I stayed with The Ex (#6) is because I was so embarrassed to be failing at yet another relationship. Typical me, can’t keep a relationship together/jumps from relationship to relationship/can’t settle down with just one, etc.  

I wish I would have done things different because had I not wasted so much time in these relationships, instead feeling them out and then being able to walk away once I knew they weren’t going to work instead of getting myself deeper into them, I could have been doing other things, meeting other people. I feel like with each relationship, I placed my life on hold.

Friends, on the other hand, complain they’ve never been married or engaged and when they date down or allow someone to treat them like shit and I tell them “you can do better!” they say “I want to give this one a shot, just in case”. And then they tell me “it’s easy for youto say because you’ve already had everything I want – a long-term boyfriend, a fiance, a live-in partner, a husband”.  

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. And, frankly, my perpetually single girlfriends haven’t done anything I haven’t done, seen things I haven’t seen, nor do they all have better jobs making more money. But, the one thing they do have that I don’t is a large group of close friends. Spending so much time in relationships, as well as moving around the country, does not allow one to find a great, stable group of gals. I have friends but not like single people, or at least very stable people (with one person for a very long time) do.

Though I wish I would never have even bothered with any of these men, I guess if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be the person I was today. Maybe I could have been an even better verious of myself though? No use in going there. But I do wonder, generally speaking, which is better? Having had lots of boyfriends/fiances/husbands or having, well, none really?