Posts tagged with "relationships"

The Ivory Box, The Penis in a Jar

The idea of unbal­anced rela­tion­ships was brought to my mind over the week­end. For a rela­tion­ship to work, both par­ties must be sat­is­fied with the rela­tion­ship. If one per­son isn’t hap­py, then the rela­tion­ship is bound to fail, unless work can be done to appease that per­son.

An inter­est­ing idea that aris­es from this is the occur­rence of rela­tion­ships in which both par­ties have dif­fer­ing rea­sons for being togeth­er. For exam­ple, one per­son might like the good time that the oth­er is able to give, while the oth­er per­son might like the intel­li­gence of the first per­son.

I imag­ine that a tro­phy hus­band or wife rela­tion­ship would be like this. One per­son has mon­ey to offer, where­as the oth­er per­son has looks, and both are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for the oth­er.

Even a rela­tion­ship as unbal­anced as this is able to work, as long as both peo­ple are hap­py. And what if one per­son wants one thing from the oth­er that can only be tem­porar­i­ly pro­vid­ed? The rela­tion­ship becomes tem­po­rary itself, although not to both peo­ple.

Yet can such a rela­tion­ship work? That depends on the def­i­n­i­tion of “work”. I don’t think that such a rela­tion­ship can last for long. After all, it is based on the fun­da­men­tals of hedo­nism, to one per­son at least. The oth­er per­son, aware of this or not, will only be left alone in the end.

So, hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, one may look at both cas­es, one case where both par­ties are aware of the tem­po­rary sta­tus, and the oth­er case in which only one mem­ber knows of such sin­is­ter moti­va­tions.

The for­mer can be suc­cess­ful, as both peo­ple have an under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, although an end­ing of the terms may cause prob­lems such as the end of a friend­ship. The lat­ter, on the oth­er hand, can only lead to pain.

Being con­fused about either can only lead to worse.

Vs.

I remem­ber watch­ing Seinfeld, and not being able to stand Kramer. He seemed to ruin so much of what his friends were doing, like hir­ing cig­ar rollers to roll crêpes, only to have them explode in the faces of cus­tomers, some­how caus­ing George’s girl­friend to break up with him.

It always made me won­der why Jerry would nev­er break off his friend­ship with him, why Jerry would always put up with some­one who nev­er seemed to give as much plea­sure as the amount of strife he cre­at­ed.

I find the sit­u­a­tion to be so com­mon. I sup­pose that I’m con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, and that as soon as a lim­it is reached, I have no inter­est in con­tin­u­ing the rela­tion­ship. It’s prob­a­bly the rea­son why I get over my break-ups so quick­ly, if not the idea of the sit­u­a­tion, than the com­fort. The fact that I’ve always been the breaker prob­a­bly helps too.

I spoke with Aaron about it, and he explained to me very well that to Jerry, the friend­ship was worth it. I now under­stand that peo­ple see their friend­ships in a dif­fer­ent man­ner, and that what I would­n’t put up with may just be a sim­ple mat­ter to oth­ers.

Sometimes I wish that I did­n’t see every­thing so day-to-day. However, by con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, I not only clear­ly see the prob­lems with bad ones, but I am able to appre­ci­ate the ones that are good as well.

An idea that has become com­mon in my beliefs is that I should live as a demand­ing per­son, but I should give as much as I get. Perhaps that’s why I stop being friends with cer­tain peo­ple, where­as oth­ers I would die for. I would pre­fer to live with a few close friends, as opposed to a pletho­ra of acquain­tances. Sometimes it still con­fus­es me though, how peo­ple can put up with what I can only see as a ter­ri­ble flaw.

There’s a fine line between know­ing when to be self­ish, and know­ing when to be kind to oth­ers, even if kind­ness means sac­ri­fice.

Confusion

Confusion is some­thing that has always struck me in the worst cir­cum­stances. Yet it’s some­thing that’s very dif­fi­cult for me to under­stand at the time. I am usu­al­ly very unaware of my con­fu­sion. I find that it usu­al­ly takes about six months for me to come full cir­cle, and come to a full com­pre­hen­sion of what has hap­pened. It’s as if I can’t see what’s going on in the present, but I have an idea of what will hap­pen in the future, and a knowl­edge of the past, like the damned in the Divine Comedy.

I under­stand that it takes time to be out of a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion and to be able to free one­self of the bonds or con­se­quences of deci­sions made dur­ing that time. Sometimes it just feels like the only thing that mat­ters is for the con­fu­sion to go away, so that one does­n’t make an incor­rect choice or deci­sion.

Confusion was an aide to me once in a rela­tion­ship. It caused me to see things clear­er, and I end­ed up in a bet­ter place because of it, although I did­n’t real­ize it at the time.

I just wish I felt like that was true.

5 am vs. Acceptance

A while ago, I tried to under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ties I would face in hav­ing chil­dren. I see now that a very fun­da­men­tal prob­lem with the entire con­cept is that I haven’t accept­ed what I’ve become yet. Such an inabil­i­ty is rel­e­vant inso­far as the fact that I haven’t accept­ed who I am cre­ates fur­ther dif­fi­cul­ty in accept­ing some­one else.

The same sort of prob­lem aris­es out of rela­tion­ships, but in an inverse man­ner; how could I expect some­one else to accept me, when I haven’t done so already? I feel that such a dif­fi­cul­ty is prob­a­bly the most promi­nent obsta­cle in my rela­tion­ships. Another would be the fact that I’m not sure if I am strong enough per­son to prop­er­ly take care of some­one else. Relationships are sup­posed to be mutu­al­is­tic, and it feels as if I’m not ready for them yet.

I’ve been think­ing this for quite a while now. So many things seem to be point­ing me to this fact. I’ve been slow­ly accept­ing it, and it has very slow­ly been work­ing.

Yet some­one is tear­ing my rea­son­ing apart.

My Turn

Darren and I were talk­ing about the unre­quit­ed feel­ings we’ve expe­ri­enced, and he asked me if I ever felt like no oth­er per­son could ever match up to the per­son I felt the strongest about. I was­n’t quite sure what to say. I was afraid of the truth, and I did­n’t want to admit it to myself.

I real­ize that it’s some­thing I have to face, because it has affect­ed my rela­tion­ships.

Yes, I am very scared.

Sometimes I feel emo­tion­al­ly numb, as if I’ll nev­er have the same feel­ings again. Infatuations end up being sil­ly fris­sons. I’m not sure whether it was the inten­si­ty of my feel­ing, the fact that it was sim­ply the first time, or even if it’s the fact that I haven’t met the right per­son yet.

It ter­ri­fies me when a female has many qual­i­ties that I feel are impor­tant for a rela­tion­ship, but I have no feel­ings for them. It makes me think that I have some set of lofty stan­dards that can’t be met. I feel hor­ri­ble about it. I feel like a mon­ster.

How can I know what I feel is true? How can one be sure of such fick­le, con­scious­ness alter­ing emo­tions? It’s so dif­fi­cult to remain cere­bral in such cir­cum­stances, espe­cial­ly when the absence of such an adjec­tive is what defines such emo­tions.

I’m bare­ly scratch­ing the sur­face on a sub­ject I have so lit­tle expe­ri­ence about. What can some­one like me say about such things? I should hum­ble myself to oth­ers. I only know that I’m scared.

I’m scared that I’ll nev­er fall in love again.