1. Quite recently, 2-days-ago recently, my man and I ended a 15 month relationship.
2. One of my best friends, let's call her Cassie, has, yet again, informed me that she drunk texted one of the many guys she "has sworn off and deleted their number...again."
3. Another bestie repeatedly turns down this authentic, kind-hearted, and attentive man when he asks her to be exclusive. She isn't dating anyone else though, and hasn't since they started seeing each other.
4. The friend I've had since 4th grade started seeing a guy nearly a year ago and since then she has committed the cardinal sin of brushing aside her friends and becoming all-consumed with her man.
There are the obvious themes of repetition and reverting to old habits. For situation #1, we had been in this stagnant place for quite a while. I know that he is my match, but he was afraid of fully committing. And it felt a lot like the "not wanting me, but not wanting someone else to have me" type of a situation. My question is, from his point of view, "Why settle?" Not to be self-detrimental, but if he knew that he didn't want to move forward (though he says that I, too, am his match), then why just settle for what we had? If he wants something else than what I want then why not end the relationship and pursue what he needs from a relationship?
Situation #2 always has me rolling my eyes and trying to be supportive of my girl, but Cassie needs to stop reverting back to these men who treat her like crap. Why is it that a man can make an incredibly intelligent, beautiful, and compassionate woman turn into a self-doubting and irrational one? And why is Cassie willingly letting these men run her over? Are women masochists?
Situation #3: This woman is incredibly self-assured and has her life in order. But when it comes to men she always keeps them a yard stick's length away. And the man in her life now is so attentive and kind to her. For the past 7 months he has done everything the ideal, stereotypical Prince Charming would do and then some, but she refuses to let him in. If it is real, why deny it?
Situation #4 is only upsetting because when I jokingly told my friend, Scarlet (again, not her real name), that I and the other 3rd of our trifecta gal circle need to "okay and approve of her man" she responded by saying, "Why? It's not like you're going to be a real part of our lives anyway." ...uh, what?!?! She played the "Supreme Executor on Man-friend Approval" role with such authority over the other 2 of us in the group, that if she disapproved, more often than not, the man went running scared. I understand that she lives 3 hours away now, but for her to totally write-off her best friends? What makes a person give up who they are for another person?
The 4 situations cover the spectrum of relationships: From openly accepting toxic men, to being caught in a passive, dormant relationship, to being completely consumed by another, to snubbing genuine romance.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from the television series Sex and the City, episode La Douleur Exquise!: ...was I addicted to the pain, the exquisite pain, of wanting someone so unattainable?
Love is such an "exquisite pain." It can make you feel like moving across the country for someone. It makes you think about nothing else but what the other person is doing and thinking about. It makes you only see the good, fun parts, in a destructive situation. It makes you hold out for the change in the other person that will "undoubtedly" come...that has to come.
As apparent in the dissimilarity of the situations, love or the idea of it effects us all differently. What is it that determines how it will effect each of us individually? One thing, LOVE, has such power in wildly different ways! It's absolutely incredible!
As I write I realize that I have no clear idea or answers as to how love works. I actually feel more confused than when I began...Because of it's profound impact on us all, I am really interested in your opinions of love and it's influence. Your thoughts don't even have to be about the love between two people in a relationship, it can be your general observations of the idea.
Passionately curious and compassionately confused,
RagazzaC
Carpe Diem
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