Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: bums, laundromat, life, men, observations, prostitution, random
Last night’s drink: Vampire Merlot
I’ve been aching to write about an experience I had at the laundromat last week.
At 7 p.m., it was already dark out, but the inside of the place was brighter than day; florescent lights, white washers, beige floor and dryers made of glass and steel. The hardware gleamed brighter than my whites. The space beyond the windows looked like the backside of theater curtains.
I was one of three people in the place, all stationed at different folding tables, silently piling their faded clothes and bedding. I was wrestling, as I always do, with a fitted sheet, when a gruff man and a stick-thin woman in men’s clothing walked in. They moved in awkward stutters and half-weaves, but were having an active and animated conversation over the rustling of a plastic bag of Chinese take-out.
I dismissed it as bum drivel until I noticed that the man seemed relatively well-kempt. He began to unpack the food before them, using the small magazine table as a dining area. The man was pleased with himself, and kept commenting on the generous portion sizes before them. The woman seemed conflicted, and kept fidgeting in her chair. A shotglass laced onto a cord around her neck waved back and forth on her flat chest.
Man: I want you to eat something.
Woman: I’m not really that hungry.
M: I want to make sure that..
W: You know I pray every day? I pray for theweriwn… iweonodg.. eijgo…
M: Eat! Look at all this good food.
W: Let’s just go back and look at it and do this.
M: I want to make sure you aren’t using the money to shoot up or something. I want you to feed yourself.
W: Let’s just go do it. F*** all these people. I pray every day. F*** them.
The conversation went on like this; the woman cursing the rest of us, who were now folding as quickly as we could. At the time, I was pissed about something totally unrelated, so I missed that this crude scene was actually sort of a touching one. These two were about to engage in prostitution, but this man wanted more than just sex. He wanted to feel like a man, too.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: apartment, bitter, debt, landlords, lease, life, love, men, random, relationships, rent, single, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: Tierra Brisa Merlot
I have to preface this by first saying that I am very lucky to have my apartment. It’s cute, cozy, safe, and cheap, and it has a killer view. The one bummer that I’ve dealt with for the past three or so years is that I live directly next door to my landlady. She sees all, she hears all, she knows way too much about my life for someone who takes a third of my paycheck each month.
There are two primary conditions to my lease: 1) that you must always err on the side of quiet; and 2) that no more than one person is allowed to live in the apartment. The quiet rule, I’ve been busted for on occasion. The one-per-apartment rule has never been an issue until Josh.
Josh spends a lot of time in my apartment, but he doesn’t live here, at least not by my definition. He does have a key, but if we broke up tomorrow, he could walk in, gather his things in both arms, and leave without too much trouble. Definitely no furniture, decorations, coffee mugs or movies. Though he has downloaded a lot of music onto my computer, so that might be sort of a pain. For him.
Anyhow, as individuals, Josh and I are quiet people, for the most part. We’re both pretty internal, so if either one of us is in the apartment alone, no one is the wiser. In the evenings, when we’re together, we watch jeopardy and get a little competitive, but there’s no yelling or slamming eachother. When we have sex, we’re quiet, except for the occasional squeak here and there. We do laugh a lot when we’re together. We do have conversations where there is some inflection. But we rarely fight, and if we do, it’s like two text messages long.
So last night, I came home to a note from my landlady which said that she’d had complaints from other tenants that two people were living in the apartment, and that it was generating a lot of noise. Frankly, I call bullshit on that explanation. If there are any complaints from others about my having a boyfriend, it’s because it’s stirring up a lot of bitterness.
I live a very simple, independent life – I don’t ask much of anyone, I don’t impose myself on others, and I don’t complain about the psychotic guy two doors down who regularly builds things (I’m talking saws and hammers on wood) at 1, 2, 3 a.m.; or my next door neighbor who plays her terrible music loudly, and sings to it with a microphone, karaoke style. Since they continue to do these things, I’m assuming no one else has complained either. Is that because they are doing these things alone, and looking pretty pathetic in the process? No shit – I watched the man have his 70-year-oldish mom help him carry wood into his apartment.
By the nature of our apartments, everyone living here is either single or on the verge (aka, not engaged or married). Whether grouped in a bar or huddled together in an apartment complex, a bunch of single people together begin to grow bitter - especially at the sight of happy couples. By policing the sex lives of its tenants, it’s sort of perpetuating that environment. I have to think that my landlady isn’t so much bothered by the sound of my boyfriend and I laughing over YouTube as she is by the fact that my warm body is a man, and hers is a cat.
Of course, I’m pissed that I’m basically being threatened with eviction for having a relationship, but I can’t afford to move. So, until I finally pay down this debt, I guess I’ll have to sneak Josh into my room when my landlady isn’t looking.
I didn’t see “reversion to high school privileges” in the list of credit card penalties.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: cheating, disillusionment, infidelity, life, love, marriage, men, random, relationships, sex, thoughts, women, work
Last night’s drink: Louis Jadot Beaujolais
Helen is a coworker that I spend a significant amount of time with – especially since, at least once a month, we drive six hours together to and from Indio. Helen is in her 40’s, from a traditional Mexican heritage, in her second marriage to a Chinese man who cooks American/French fusion cuisine, and the mother of two daughters about my age. Helen is the kind of person that likes to give advice, and I’m the kind of person that likes to hear people’s opinions - sometimes, I’ll ask her insubstantial questions just to hear what she’ll say.
Last week, I was venting to Helen about my disheartening experiences with marriage, as of late. It seems like, for every four married men I meet, three are having affairs.
“That’s about right,” she said. “Most married people these days cheat. It’s rare to find monogamy in marriage.”
Her response took me aback, but the opinions that followed were pretty interesting.
The people who were more likely to cheat, she said, were the ones who were wealthy, or who wanted to appear to be. This includes young upstarts with nice cars and crappy apartments, and established men with fat nest eggs and even fatter heads. Having multiple women is like a luxury to them – a logical continuation of the affluent lifestyle they seek. It really isn’t anything personal against their wives – it’s just another investment in being the part…maybe even the part their wives expect them to play.
In some cases, men and women in these situations both cheat – or they may even have an understanding between the two of them that there will be others outside of their marriage. Let’s face it – nobody’s perfect. Neither is marriage, from what I’ve heard. If your sole purpose for getting married is to have a comfortable living or simply a body to come home to, then it may make perfect sense for you to get married first, and then find your intimate connections after.
Another reason people cheat, Helen said, is to network professionally. Whether you’re trying to make a name or simply move up, no one can deny that sex sells. Mixers, conferences, professional organizations or even boards – these things bring people together from different tenticles of an industry for their own benefit, and the benefit of the product. In general, the more professional “connections” you have, the more successful and reputable you appear to be.
So you have a lot of like-minded people in one place, oftentimes drinking, and meeting under seemingly serendipitous terms, and it creates all the chemicals needed to produce explosive connections. These types of connections between men and women can feel very emotional and intimate, but it’s more than likely that heterosexual males are having the same connections with eachother. Work or no, it’s exciting to meet people you connect with. The difference is that the prior example will likely lead to sex at some point – marriage or otherwise. If a man can have a professional and a personal conquest in one, why wouldn’t he say yes? It’s twice the food for his ego, with only half the work.
In both the “luxury” and the “success” perspectives, the affair is a way to build yourself up with more instantaneous gratification than, say, honor and hard work will proffer. Plus, guys get to feel like they have a modern day harem, and what guy doesn’t love that image.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the root of the word “harem” actually means “protected” in Arabic, and in other early languages. This is because the harem of classical terms (the original harem) was meant to protect the women, not to exploit them.
Isn’t that the reason why you guys are bigger and stronger?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: debate, life, men, random, relationships, sex, thoughts, women
Last night’s drink: Coffee.
I’ve been writing up a storm, lately, with school and some mild freelancing – both of which I am excited and grateful to be doing. Of course, it also means that my mind is on overdrive, which is why last night, when I received a comment from “Jack” on my Spatulesque post, I ended up writing a response that was long enough to be a post in and of itself.
As such, I’ve decided to dedicate this post to Jack, and Roissy, and “The Elements of Argument,” which is the textbook from my composition class last month. So, without further ado…
Jack said:
“Um, I saw your post on Roissy’s blog. It is unbelievable that you think men shouldn’t ask women about their sexual history. Women, like you, who are opposed to that are usually promiscuous and deceitful. I would have no problem being honest with a girl about myself, and you should have no problem being that way with a man. In this day and age of AIDS and other STD’s, both partners should be able to know the other’s previous activities to protect themselves accordingly. It has nothing to do with insecurity or not liking sex. But a man has a right to know if the girl he is dating is a slut, or if she is a respectable girl. He can better make a decision about their future accordingly. And by the way, there are ways to figure out if a girl is being honest, as well.
So I came to your blog and you appear to be a thoughtful and attractive girl who can write pretty well. I just thinkyour opinion on asking sexual history is ridiculous, and that both women and men should make a habit of doing that. There are already too many STD’s around.”
My response is as follows:
Hi, Jack.
Thanks for the comment, the compliments, and the implicit flash judgement. However, I think you misread what I wrote. Just to recap:
“It seems to me that if a guy is obsessed with the notches of a girl, they are either:
a) a pervert;
b) insecure about themselves and/or their own sexual prowess;
c) considering sex a recreational sport, and trying to figure out if it’s safe to play without protective gear; or
d) don’t or can’t enjoy sex, and want to show they are above it by putting down the other people that do.
There’s nothing worse than a guy who wants to talk about your sexual history. Not only is it pathetic, intrusive, and the ultimate buzzkill, but it’s completely irrelevant.
If you’re just casually fucking a girl, then that’s on you to take the responsibility for that risk. If you want a relationship, and you can’t trust her to take care of her sexual health and abstain from sleeping around with other men, the issues you need to deal with are in the present, not in her past.”
http://roissy.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/it-counts/
–
First of all, I’m not saying that men shouldn’t ask women about their sexual history – I’m giving my opinion that it is a misguided question. Your comment above says that you ask that question to find out if a woman is:
a) promiscuous; b) deceitful; c) a carrier of STDs; d) a respectable girl (as opposed to a slut); e) worthy of a committed relationship (that is what you mean by future here, correct?)
Asking a woman about the number of guys she’s slept with doesn’t really answer any of those questions. Let me go through this specifically:
a) Promiscuity is defined as having sex indiscriminately. If a woman has sex with one guy without any regard for who he is or what he looks like, she is technically being promiscuous. So, unless you are going to sit there and drill her about every detail of that one guy, simply knowing the number isn’t going to give you a hint about her promiscuity. A woman can have sex with a bunch of guys she has meticulously picked out, and not be promiscuous by definition. If you meant to say “slut” here, then I’d be curious to hear 1) your definition of a slut, 2) why you wouldn’t want to date one, and 3) why you didn’t know she was a slut before you started dating her.
b) Deceit has to do with honesty, I’ve never seen a person’s level of honesty measured in past sexual partners. A person’s honesty is evident in every part of their lives, and can more easily and more accurately be determined through your experiences with their behavior rather than the number of people they’ve gone to bed with before you. A woman who’s only slept with one man is, by virtue, no less deceitful than a woman who’s slept with ten. If you want to ask a woman if she’s ever cheated on a man, I think that’s a relevant question, and will probably help you find your answer more accurately and efficiently.
c) STDs: Of all of the arguments for asking about her history, this is the least compelling. It only takes one partner for a person to contract STDs, so the number of people you sleep with has no bearing on whether or not you’ve put yourself at risk for contracting disease. What -does- matter is how a person takes care of their sexual health. Do they always use protection during sex? Do they get regular checkups? Have they recently been tested? Do they talk to their partners about their habits as well? These activities are more important, and more telling, as to a person’s proclivity to STDs than simply asking the numbers of partners they’ve had. I -highly- recommend you use these questions instead.
d) Respectability is a complex and subjective characteristic that typically involves a combination of personal traits, not just one. However, if number of partners is a dealbreaker for you, that’s your call. My question here, though, is a simple one: what is the number of partners that moves a girl from respectable to not? 2? 5? 10? 20? 50? If you have settled on a number, I’d be interested to know how you arrived at it. I’m willing to bet that most guys who ask this question don’t just have a number in their head and pass or fail a girl based on her answer – I’m willing to bet they’re factoring in a lot of other things, too, in which case, this question becomes cursory, not vital.
e) Committed relationships involve so much more than sex. If you hinge your ability to commit to a woman based on her sexual history, then I defer to my original answer for why that might be.
Any other takers?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: dating, friends, life, love, men, random, relationships, thoughts, women
Last Night’s Drink: 7&7.
Anyone over the age of 24 should remember the “This is your brain on drugs” public service announcement with the frying pan and the egg. The insinuation is that your brain is a soft delicate mass that is irreversibly affected with drug use and, since you assumedly value your brain and wouldn’t harm it, you should value a drug-free lifestyle.
People are also irreversibly affected by the relationships they allow into their lives – arguably, at a level that is more damaging than recreational drug use. Dating and loving people inevitably leads to a string of broken hearts, baggage, and damaged goods, all of which permanently affect your brain at an emotional level.
Before you started dating, it was new and exciting. You just did it here and there, sometimes with your friends. But the more you did it, the more important it seemed to become. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough that you were dating – you wanted something more hardcore: a relationship. Once the relationships started, it was too late to go back to simply dating. Now, if you dated, you laced it with relationship cues, recognition of red flags, and hypercritical observation. It wasn’t just a good time anymore – it was part of your life.
Once you’re in a relationship, your subconscious knows that stopping will kill you, because the withdrawls will be so intense. Suddenly, you’re schizophrenic and paranoid about the slightest things – what did he mean when he asked, “how can you eat that?” – does he think I’m a fat slob? Or Why did that girl at the store smile at him – is he mouthing suggestive comments to ladies at Nordstrom while I’m not looking? You don’t know who or what to believe anymore, and your logic and composure have long since flown out the window. The egg is officially frying.
If the core of your relationship is good, though, your significant other will take you by the hand and lead you away from the superficial high of a new relationship, and into a methodonish sort of come-down of companionship. Here, you can exercise the roots of all your dating and relationship evils, and put the past behind you. You become healthier and happier. You become yourself again.
Your dating friends will say you’ve changed, but if they truly love you, they will stand by you and wish you well on your new-found happiness. Relapse is highly likely, until you find the companionship that truly supports you.
And that, like a new leaf, or a fried egg, flips you over.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: advertising, expectations, gifts, life, men, random, relationships, thoughts, Valentine's Day, women
Tonight’s Drink: Puerto Viejo Malbec.
With the help of popular advertising and a current canoodler, one of my rarely seen qualities is raising its head out of its ugly little hole, and peering toward the horizon of two weeks from yesterday: the little part of me that always wishes for jewlery for Valentine’s Day.
I don’t want anything crazy – it doesn’t have to be Oscar jewelry or Tiffany’s, or Tiffany’s, or Tiffany’s - it doesn’t have to have mind-blowing sentimentality or be an analogy for my current relationship. I just want to have something small and solid that I can reach up and feel every once in a while. I just want something that doesn’t go bad.
The thing about jewelry is that it get a bad rap. A girl that wants jewelry is instantly branded a money hungry bimbo, with superficial and material taste. Even though I love to look at expensive jewelry, the truth is that I would likely never wear it. Jewelry’s endearing quality to me is that it’s the result of wanting to exceed expectations. The guy who is really excited to give jewelry is that guy that knows you’re expecting Russell Stover chocolates from Rite-Aid – the small heart box. When he’s ready to show initiative to go above and beyond, he’ll play the jewelry card. Unless someone really cares about something, they will rarely exceed use of 90% of their faculties to complete it. Just like a guy will give 110% to win a high school football game, he’ll give equally as much to stomp the competition for your affection. Otherwise, Valentine’s Day shopping gets lumped in with a beer run – if you’re lucky.
Sufficed to say, I know I’m not getting jewelry this year – probably not next year, either. I can easily reason this out with my little green monster by justifying that we’ve only been dating for three months. It doesn’t keep me from scowling at the DeBeer’s commercials, though. Love and infatuation are marketing tools for Valentine’s Day, but for whom? It really smacks a woman around mentally, but she’s not the one expected to make the purchase here. Maybe a handful of men see those commercials and connect the dots with their own lives, but for some reason I find that a little hard to believe.
Basically, women are expected to pressure their men into buying them things, but women aren’t subjected to the same strategy for their men. Is that because women are essentially expected to give it up, and that’s their gift? Or is it that women already have a fabulous intuition for gift-giving for males, so advertisers don’t want to waste the dollars? I think I’ll go with the first option.
In any case, I’m ratcheting down my expectations day by day, so that by the time the day actually arrives, I’ll be ok with going to the “Anti-Valentine’s Day Party” at the coffee shop on 5th & Laurel. Actually, no… I won’t go that far. But, they do have half-off flights… and a nice wine buzz would take the edge off of another giftless Valentine.
But before then, Groundhog’s Day.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: conversation, life, love, men, random, relationships, strategy, thoughts, women
Last night’s drink: Gilley’s merlot.
When I was little, my favorite thing about my grandparents’ house was that they had an entire cupboard dedicated to board games. Monopoly, Life, chinese checkers, cards, dice, Trivial Pursuit, Operation, Candyland, Uno – you name it, they had it. I used to love to picture them sitting together with a bunch of old people friends, drinking coffee, and laughing over moves and answers that I didn’t understand. The truth is, my sister and I were the only ones that played them, really. Except Bupkis - that’s a family treasure.
Risk was one of the games in the cupboard that I hated – not because I thought it was boring or especially chauvinistic, but because I couldn’t get past the rules to even pass judgement. I can only take so much strategy in a game before I become faced with a case of diminishing returns. The energy it takes to plan your moves and play the game supercedes the enjoyment you get from it. I prefer little bursts of strategy – like in Ocean’s 11 and the Thomas Crown Affair. You plan first, carry out your calculations, and escape with the rewards.
I don’t know if this is impatience or laziness on my part, but I’m seeing this mimicked in the way I handle my relationships. I can’t be bothered with the stamina of a drawn-out, ongoing strategy that’s carefully played, one turn at a time. Instead, I hold out, and simmer, and think about all the what-if’s and the questions I want to ask, and I keep them all inside to keep the tenor of our relationship relatively steady. Meanwhile, my insides are quaking with the pressure of its contents, until I wait for the “right” moment to let these things spring out of my gut – sort of like that scene in Alien, only slightly more uncomfortale and less gross. Suddenly, there I am, thinking, Was this really the right moment for this? or Should I take that as a yes or a no?
Obviously, the problem here is twofold: 1) my strategic planning sucks; and 2) my delivery is even worse. I spend too much time incorrectly anticipating a number of things, like his reaction, or my ability to articulate what it is exactly that I’m trying to say. If someone invented a vaccuum that could suck up all the words that just left your mouth and effectively clean up the mess they made, I’d be first in line. I really should just stick to writing – computers give you at least three ways to stop you from making a fool out of yourself (Delete, Backspace, Ctrl+Z… etc.). It’s as if a bunch of shy, inarticulate hermits came up with these things in order to communicate with the rest of the world. Wait a minute…
Joking aside – I totally sprang one of these gut busters on Josh last night, and immediately regreted it. Not only because I had just come back from the bar, and was ineffectively putting sentences together, but because I wasn’t planning on saying it until the end of next month, right before he left. His response was much less than I had hoped for. Basically, he’s leaving at the end of next month, for pretty much the rest of the year, and I just wanted to know if he thought our relationship was good enough to wait for.
Poor Josh – how do you answer a question like that after dating someone for three months? Is that long enough for anyone to know? The truth is, I don’t even know – but I do know that I care about him a lot, and I don’t want to screw up the rest of the time we have left. So, my strategy in that regard is to just pretend the conversation never happened, and see what the next few weeks bring. If that doesn’t work, I’ll think up a new plan.
And if I have anymore questions, I’ll just pass him a note.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: advice, conservative, Dr. Laura, liberal, life, love, men, politics, random, relationships, talk radio, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: water. For now.
It’s raining in San Diego this weekend, and it’s a peaceful sort of rain. As if San Diego is so inexperienced with weather, it doesn’t know how to have a proper storm. A little jingle from a wind chime here, a little puddle on a street corner there, and -look out- it’s getting wild and woolly. It’s sort of endearing.
A combination of Josh, school, and the elections have made me start to question my sociopolitical stance, once again. When I entered junior college, I didn’t know the difference between liberal and conservative. My family never spoke in those terms – not because they are neutral, though. My family is pretty much conservative, through and through. But the more liberal topics I got to taste, the more my palate began to prefer them. By the time I walked out of my last final exam at UCSD, I was confident in my decision to register as a democrat – at least, more than I would have been as a republican.
My confidence began to shake when I started listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on KOGO, AM 600. It was an accident, at first – I was listening to local talk show conservative Roger Hedgecock for my boss to give his opinion on homelessness and City government. I was driving to the store or something, and when I got back in the car, Dr. Laura was in the middle of giving her opinion to a caller, and the rest of the world. I’m sure I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but it was enough to shock me into listening to the rest of the show when I got home.
She was brutal, bitchy, opinionated, and bone-cracking-ly conservative – but logical. Extremely logical, actually. Women would call her, crying, and try to argue their point with her, but she would shoot them down with simple reason every time.
Caller: “My husband’s lazy. He won’t get a job.” – DL: “Did he have a job when you married him?” – Caller: “No.” – DL: “Then you married the wrong man.”
Caller: “I think my husband is cheating on me.” – DL: “What do you do to make him want to cheat on you?”
Caller: “I can’t talk to my husband like I talk to my girlfriends.” – DL: “Your husband isn’t your girlfriend.”
Of course, these are simplifications of the typical conversation you’d hear, but representative nonetheless. The freshly gilded feminist I was turning into was disgusted, at first, at what she was hearing. It’s the woman’s fault if her man cheats? The woman should always make an effort to look nice? The way the man takes care of his family depends on the way the woman takes care of him? What the hell? I thought the man should be thanking god that he scored an awesome chick like me, who takes care of herself, can carry on a conversation, pick out a good restaurant, and pay for the half the groceries.
It started to make sense, though. I feel better when I look good or when he compliments me, so I can at least do my hair on the weekends. The way to man’s heart truly is his stomach – no one has ever disproved that statement. Men like lovin’ – no one ever will disprove that statement. While she sort of puts the responsibility on the woman, it’s almost a compliment. Her philosophy, basically, is that men are simple creatures, and women can use that to keep their relationships simple (as simple as relationships get). I even bought her book, “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands,” and found I was comforted by the animalistic banality of its contents. How to make your man happy: feed him, boost his confidence, and give him sweet lovin’. The end.
The more I fought it, the more I realized that I could still be smart, independent, and fun while taking care of my man. Taking care of a man doesn’t make you a slave or less of a woman – it makes you a good partner. In turn, if you take care of your man, he’s supposed to take care of you. So I get to keep everything about myself that I like, and I get a man that takes care of me back, as long as I pick a good one.
With my slow breakdown of feminism, the rest of my left seemed to follow. I’ve switched from dating artists to military men, and I like it. I can’t listen to Air America without rolling my eyes. I see America’s negative qualities still, but I’m not embarrassed to be American. I see the value of religion, rather than the hegemonic hypocrisy.
Maybe I’m just getting older, and I’m mistaking it for a sort of creeping case of conservative values. But I still read my horoscope every month, I am and will always be pro-choice, I will always love wine, I hold on to the little earth mother inside me, I love artsy things & people, I will forever eat sushi, I find vegetarian “meat” innovative & tasty, and I hate greed.
So, which of the candidates matches those qualities…
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: evolution, life, love, men, random, relationships, sex, thoughts, women
This morning’s drink: SLO Roasted Peruvian (still the best coffee on Earth).
Alright – it’s time for me to make the announcement that some of you may have already suspected would come. Big Josh and I are a couple.
The evolution of our relationship began with a post I wrote back in November, and at the time I wasn’t expecting it to come this far. In fact, I was expecting it to die during Vegas, for a number of reasons. Even just last week, I had this feeling that it was all just my imagination, or the product of some poorly placed trust. But these last few days have made me start to believe that it’s true. And that it’s good. And it’s freaking me out.
It’s not freaking me out in a bad way, like I want to bolt. But it is giving me that anxious, spastic sort of spell where I start trying to predict the future. I can sum up my biggest relationship-future fear with the scene in “Look Who’s Talking,” where Kirstie Alley is smoking in the kitchen with last night’s mascara under her eyes, the kids have spaghetti and lettuce all over their faces, and John Travolta is making farting noises and wearing a stained wifebeater. Relationships, and the people in them, never stop evolving – but what determines how and where the forks in the road come to be?
I think the first influence relates to each person’s goals. I want to have a career that I love, and a life that keeps me stimulated. Once I feel those things are secured, I’ll consider the whole baby thing. He needs to have goals, too, so that both people have things that keep them on track and centered in their own minds. Two people have to be centered in themselves before they can balance a relationship – and yes, this is different than being self-centered.
The second influence relates to principles – you have to know where you draw the line. Admittedly, this has taken me a long time to get to, but I’m definitely getting there. You don’t think Jenn came up with her list of dealbreakers and warning signs all by herself, now, do you?
The third has to do with sense of humor. Even though the things that make you laugh will change, your sense of humor remains pretty stable. A sense of humor gives you a way to relate, to cope, and to enjoy the world around you, in a relatively simple way. If your humor matches in class, type, and intensity, you can sort of rely on that to float you through sucky times, and to really enjoy the good ones. Otherwise, it’s just very grating.
This is what I know so far, but my relationships to date haven’t exactly been ironclad. I’d be interested, and grateful, to hear some other perspectives on the qualities that keep two people evolving together.
And don’t worry – this will not turn into a mushy gag-blog.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: chaos, life, love, men, random, relationships, society, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: vodka and olive juice.
The woman’s monthly dip in hormones can be a blessing and a curse. For some, it may put a cramp in evening activities, or even daily activities for the extra plagued. It has an influence on wardrobe choices, and whether or not she is pissed at herself for deciding to wait until next weekend to do laundry. In fact, it influences whether or not she is pissed off at a lot of things, and can even prompt her to call ex-lovers and stop protecting them from the things she always wanted to tell them. Or, it can be the catalyst for the explosive realizations she has about current lovers, and the domino effect those can produce. There is less patience, less inhibition, perhaps even less tact. There is more justification for eating cookies for dinner, having another glass of wine, or crying while listening to the same song over and over again.
I was craving a writing prompt this evening, along with the rest of the Nutter Butters in my kitchen. In answer to the first craving, I reverted back to an October blog of Jenn’s which, in turn, was a play off a Chris Brogan blog post about 100 topics he wanted others to write about. Obviously, I am not as into the thick of social media as others, so I can’t relate to about 80% of them. However, I found two that seemed to play off of eachother right now in my life – numbers 51 and 93: “The Art of Chaos” and “Giving It Away.”
The art of creating chaos starts with disorder – stepping out of line and going straight to the front. Cutting corners and skipping steps takes away the infrastructure that the rest of the world depends upon to get through the day in an orderly fashion. You grow up in this world, and make social faux pas as you learn civility, because it isn’t animal nature to get in line and wait your turn to meet your needs. An infant sees a toy and grabs it for his own, and he has to learn how to share, and to play nice with others.
Civility exists to reign in our animalistic behaviors of self-serving competition so that we all obtain what we need to survive. In that sense, giving it away is a subtle though surefire way to start a little chaos both inside and outside of civilization. In the animal world, freebies go against the rule of competition, and dismantle things like evolution and food chains. Within society, freebies create a disincentive to contribute to the common good. Both situations could feasibly lead to chaos.
Even though giving things away can create chaos amongst the people, it seems civility creates little pools of chaos within people, because it sort of replaces one set of rules for another manufactured set that is contradictory to our instincts. It is within us to lay claim, and civility sort of suppresses that. Instead of relying on our strengths and accomplishments to not only survive but thrive, we have to depend on eachother and on the surrounding systems to tell us whether or not we have earned the life we seek.
I’m not suggesting that civility is bad – just that it sort of explains why we all feel like we are going a little crazy inside. You have these urges inside that you’ve been conditioned to fight, and the little struggles cause confusion in the backdrop of your everyday. The parallels to love, sex, hate, hunger, justice, etc. are easy to make, but what does it mean?
It means that hormones or no, just roll with it – and maybe, don’t get caught.
