all you need is love, da da da da da
Why are relationships so damn hard??
It doesn't make sense to me how a person can be good at relationships in general but not romantic relationships.
One major difference in the 2: Never in normal everyday relationships does a person feel the urge to "outsmart" their feelings. If you want to be friends with a person and you consider them good company, there's no real reason to want to make yourself feel otherwise.
Now the opposite problem can arise using the same technique: I often times try to outsmart my feelings into caring about a guy that is safe and dependable. The only problem here is that I can only manage to convice myself of these emotions for a certain amount of time, usually a couple of weeks to a month.
Lets just be honest, there's no fun in problem number 2. Problem number one, outsmarting in hopes to divert feelings, is a lot more frustrating but at the same time much more exciting. I unfortunately do both depending on whichever situation may arise.
I have a friend, Pete, who works across the hall from me and we sometimes do the IM version of outlook where we email 1 or 2 line sentences back and forth for about 30 minutes at a time. In our last email convo, I had asked him about a guy that drops by the office every now and then that I am just starting to pick up on his possible interest. I asked Pete how I should find out and he told me to do a little bit of harmless flirting to get a reaction out of him. It occurred to me then that I didn't even have a good grasp on what flirting is after all of this time so I asked him, in his opinion, how exactly I should go about doing this. He told me to smile and giggle and make lots of eye contact. Of course my reply to that is "I already do that.. quite often". My problem is, and I let Pete know this, that in all honesty if I really like a guy I tend to tone down on the smiling and giggling. I'm not completely sure why.. it might be a by-product of problem #1.
So we all have barriers, walls, fronts... whatever you may want to call them in order to keep certain people at a safe distance. The only trouble is trying to figure out how long we continue to do this and if they are at all efficient, and just for the sake of knowing how high our walls might be. I have 2 different walls for different occasions. I have a very high wall in the case that I actually meet a guy that I find charming and genuine and overall very attractive. These guys I like to be on a first name basis with but I don't really want it to go much further. It might be DC, just like any major city, but I don't typically trust these guys. Chances are they have lots of other girls swooning over them that they can choose from at any given moment and the logical young bachelor thing to do in a big city is to not dare tie yourself down with just one of them.
My second wall is more like a step. In the case that I meet a guy just like the one I described earlier, and the conditions are different (meeting out one weekend downtown or at a party rather than the office down the hall) I will generally get friendly with them a lot quicker. 2 main reasons- Chances are I will never have to see this person again and a little flattery never hurts; # 2: I can let myself feel by pretending this "relationship" will work even if it is just for a few hours. My reasoning is that for the time being, I can survive on knowing "this is what it will be like for me for real one day so maybe I should just get to know and enjoy the feeling right now". I mean it's only a matter of time before I become comfortable enough to start sending signals to the not so safe but could be potentially great guys. Of course I will hope that time and age on the account of the guy will help to narrow the possibility of me becoming another statistic in the life of the ever ambitious young adult male.
I want a family guy that is willing to go sky-diving on any given weekend. I want a guy with an edge but someone who is (or wants to be atleast) completely grounded. I need someone sensitive enough to somehow understand how emotional I am (though I could quite possibly never show it), while at the same time help me to rest outside of myself. I want to learn from and respect a guy and feel like he respects me (quirks and all). I want a guy that truly desires a genuine relationship with God but knows that it's not always easy. I want a guy that is not going to question my journey, and in the same way that I might be able to only enjoy his.
Occupation, money, style of dress, ethnicity.. none of that really matters to me at all. Certain personality traits will probably be evident in all of these. It will be harder for me to maybe find a guy on the hill to fit these characteristics than say in a non-profit, but it doesn't mean it can't happen. I'm not holding my breath in hopes of finding a guy at work, but there are certain people that surprise me. Pete being one of him. He's probably one of the coolest, big-brother like mormon guys I have ever met (not that I have actually met that many mormons in the south. They're a couple of notches under Catholics in the popularity pool).
As my brotha, Pete, would say: "Man was not meant to be alone". Maybe we're just supposed to be alone until we can stop jumping over the short walls and actually take a stab at climbing the real one. At least that's what I have to make out of this ever-changing, ever-uncertain life that I hold right now. I'll look back one day and decide that I am glad that I've had this time, but for now it just feels frustrating.
That's all I've got in me for now. Y'all take care :)
It doesn't make sense to me how a person can be good at relationships in general but not romantic relationships.
One major difference in the 2: Never in normal everyday relationships does a person feel the urge to "outsmart" their feelings. If you want to be friends with a person and you consider them good company, there's no real reason to want to make yourself feel otherwise.
Now the opposite problem can arise using the same technique: I often times try to outsmart my feelings into caring about a guy that is safe and dependable. The only problem here is that I can only manage to convice myself of these emotions for a certain amount of time, usually a couple of weeks to a month.
Lets just be honest, there's no fun in problem number 2. Problem number one, outsmarting in hopes to divert feelings, is a lot more frustrating but at the same time much more exciting. I unfortunately do both depending on whichever situation may arise.
I have a friend, Pete, who works across the hall from me and we sometimes do the IM version of outlook where we email 1 or 2 line sentences back and forth for about 30 minutes at a time. In our last email convo, I had asked him about a guy that drops by the office every now and then that I am just starting to pick up on his possible interest. I asked Pete how I should find out and he told me to do a little bit of harmless flirting to get a reaction out of him. It occurred to me then that I didn't even have a good grasp on what flirting is after all of this time so I asked him, in his opinion, how exactly I should go about doing this. He told me to smile and giggle and make lots of eye contact. Of course my reply to that is "I already do that.. quite often". My problem is, and I let Pete know this, that in all honesty if I really like a guy I tend to tone down on the smiling and giggling. I'm not completely sure why.. it might be a by-product of problem #1.
So we all have barriers, walls, fronts... whatever you may want to call them in order to keep certain people at a safe distance. The only trouble is trying to figure out how long we continue to do this and if they are at all efficient, and just for the sake of knowing how high our walls might be. I have 2 different walls for different occasions. I have a very high wall in the case that I actually meet a guy that I find charming and genuine and overall very attractive. These guys I like to be on a first name basis with but I don't really want it to go much further. It might be DC, just like any major city, but I don't typically trust these guys. Chances are they have lots of other girls swooning over them that they can choose from at any given moment and the logical young bachelor thing to do in a big city is to not dare tie yourself down with just one of them.
My second wall is more like a step. In the case that I meet a guy just like the one I described earlier, and the conditions are different (meeting out one weekend downtown or at a party rather than the office down the hall) I will generally get friendly with them a lot quicker. 2 main reasons- Chances are I will never have to see this person again and a little flattery never hurts; # 2: I can let myself feel by pretending this "relationship" will work even if it is just for a few hours. My reasoning is that for the time being, I can survive on knowing "this is what it will be like for me for real one day so maybe I should just get to know and enjoy the feeling right now". I mean it's only a matter of time before I become comfortable enough to start sending signals to the not so safe but could be potentially great guys. Of course I will hope that time and age on the account of the guy will help to narrow the possibility of me becoming another statistic in the life of the ever ambitious young adult male.
I want a family guy that is willing to go sky-diving on any given weekend. I want a guy with an edge but someone who is (or wants to be atleast) completely grounded. I need someone sensitive enough to somehow understand how emotional I am (though I could quite possibly never show it), while at the same time help me to rest outside of myself. I want to learn from and respect a guy and feel like he respects me (quirks and all). I want a guy that truly desires a genuine relationship with God but knows that it's not always easy. I want a guy that is not going to question my journey, and in the same way that I might be able to only enjoy his.
Occupation, money, style of dress, ethnicity.. none of that really matters to me at all. Certain personality traits will probably be evident in all of these. It will be harder for me to maybe find a guy on the hill to fit these characteristics than say in a non-profit, but it doesn't mean it can't happen. I'm not holding my breath in hopes of finding a guy at work, but there are certain people that surprise me. Pete being one of him. He's probably one of the coolest, big-brother like mormon guys I have ever met (not that I have actually met that many mormons in the south. They're a couple of notches under Catholics in the popularity pool).
As my brotha, Pete, would say: "Man was not meant to be alone". Maybe we're just supposed to be alone until we can stop jumping over the short walls and actually take a stab at climbing the real one. At least that's what I have to make out of this ever-changing, ever-uncertain life that I hold right now. I'll look back one day and decide that I am glad that I've had this time, but for now it just feels frustrating.
That's all I've got in me for now. Y'all take care :)