As usual, this was a question that came to me while talking to a friend. Mr K, in this instance. Am I self-destructing by hiding my feelings from Mr D? Seeing him going through women like we’re an endangered species, while dying a little every time I see the overcrowded notches on his bedpost? Would it be better if I just blurted it out, let him deal with the daunting prospect of our relationship never being the same again? A part of me is sorely tempted to do just that. After all, it’s at least half his fault that I’m so hopelessly in love with him. Why should he not have to deal with all the baggage that comes with an impossible love like this one?
Another part, the one that’s completely at the mercy of my pride and ego, won’t let me say it. How can I possibly let something as ephemeral as an emotion get the better of me? That’s the part that believes that licking your wounds in private is infinitely better than having to ask someone for balm. This part of me would die, actually die, if I ever get around to saying ‘I love you’ without a 100 per cent guarantee that the sentiment will be reciprocated. With more intensity than I put into it. And so I suffer. Not quietly, as many of my friends, particularly Ms N, will attest to. But I do. And I continue to meet him. Every fucking time he wants to. Again, a saner and smarter person would probably remove themselves from the presence of their torturer. But not me. I’ll dig my heels in and stand taller. Is that self-destructive? Mr B thinks so.
Mr B also thinks I have a disgusting propensity to seek disaster. He says I’m one of those dumb idiots who’ll cut off their noses to spite their faces. Not surprisingly, his declarations are followed by icy glares and long silences on my part and rolling of eyes from his. But every time he holds up the not-so-flattering mirror and forces me to look into it, I have no option but to confront the disconcerting thought--am I self-destructive? Maybe I am. Okay, truth be told, there’s no maybe about it. I am an idiot. Consider Exhibit A: He’s well-read, well-dressed, well-educated, well everything. He’s environmentally conscious, sensitive, perceptive and great in bed. Check, check, check and OMG, check. He’s the forever kind of guy. The Jacob Black of the boy world. And sadly, like Jake, he’s always going to be an option, not a priority.
So what is he doing wasting his time with me? My guess is as good as anybody’s. Slumming it out, I suppose. Or he’s just as much of an idiot as I am. Ms N and I have dedicated many BBM hours wondering how such a guy hasn’t been lapped up by the very hungry, very deprived and very predatory population of intelligent single girls in the city. And after I’m done feeling pathetic and guilty as hell for kicking around a guy as great as him, Ms N and I just decide that it’s one of those rare strokes of luck. The few things that get past Mr Murphy’s radar and happen to you. Although deep down, you feel like you just don’t deserve it. And deeper down, you know you don’t. Which is why you should stop at the second electric blue iced tea. The minute you order the third, you’re in trouble. Because that’s the one that will take you past your ridiculously happy reality and into the scary, dark place where all these uncomfortable truths lie dormant. But that’s besides the point. Coming back to Exhibit A. I was with him last night, helping him pack for London, when the differences between him and Mr D became so startlingly obvious, I wanted to yank my heart out of the rib cage and smack it against the wall till it was ready to listen to reason.
Mr D is messy, selfish, obnoxious and always broke. Which would have been okay if he was a student. Except he’s not. And hasn’t been one for a while. He’s Barney Stinson. But without the money. And yet, every time he calls, every time he messages, I light up. It doesn’t matter whether I talk to him for 15 minutes or 1 hour 15, but talk to him, I must. Everyday. I try to pretend that it doesn’t matter, that he’s just any other friend that I’m happy to talk to at whatever time of the day or night, and that I don’t torture myself with thoughts of who he’s serenading on the nights he doesn’t call me, but I know that that’s not true. For someone who’s always had more pride than needed, it’s a rather large helping of humble pie to digest in one go. I’ve broken pretty much all my dating-dance rules for him. Except one: I simply will not call him. No matter how much I want to hear his voice or see his face, I will never ask him to meet me. The ego won’t allow me to become one of those needy, clingy women that come with the ‘Fragile. Handle with care’ signs screaming from their foreheads. So he has no idea that I wait for his calls with a longing that borders on desperation. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?
A week ago, after 3 days of not having heard a word from Mr D, I called up Mr B in a stinking, foul mood. I hated him for what he was doing to my head and I hated myself for letting him do it. Except, since he had no idea, in all fairness, his behaviour was completely in character. Mr B heard me rave, rant and bitch. And then calmly told me to stop behaving like a 16-year-old girl with raging hormones. That hurt. Big time. And so I decided to give him the silent treatment. But in the way that only your very closest friends can say the nastiest things to you to jolt you back to reality and get away with it, I realised that Mr B was right. I really did need to make a decision about this idiotic situation and see it through.
I had two options: either tell Mr D what’s going on and see where that leads, or, if I was convinced that nothing could be gained by going down that road; to cut him off, wait till I stopped feeling quite so much and then get back to our friendship. And if I was brutally honest with myself, if I did go cold turkey, Mr D would probably just be surprised, maybe ask me why I was being weird and then decide that I would come around eventually. He’d probably just get on with it, onto the next girl and onto the next level of his grand seduction game. So where does that leave me? Exactly where I started. In the middle of a mess of my own making.
I hadn’t decided what I was going to do, and then something else happened. A few of us friends were out for dinner a couple of nights ago. One amongst us really wanted to meet the current flame. They’re in that strange space where you’re intimate enough to know that friendship is a milestone you crossed a long time ago, but you haven’t quite reached the relationship stage yet. Now if you’re both happy enough to be in the middle ground, this no man’s land of the dating game, it’s fine. But if one of you wants to move in one direction while the other wants to stay put, it’s a problem. A big one. And in this case, until that night, I was under the impression that this friend wanted a relationship while the boy was happy to be in no man‘s land. Which is why I kept ignoring her fidgetiness and distractedness over dinner. I was not going to encourage her to go meet him because I thought it was going to screw her up eventually. Yes, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, it’s always easier to hit on the solutions when the problem is someone else’s. But as I ignored her restlessness, another friend, who knew exactly what was going on as well, decided that self-destructive or not, if she wanted to, she should go and meet the boy. Now this guy hates the boy’s guts, for whatever reason, but he still held our friend by the hand and took her to meet him. All because that’s what she wanted. It might not have made sense, and he’s probably going to be the shoulder she’s going to cry on if, or when, she realises that she’s in deeper than she thought, but he still did it. And although we had a mini-argument about him sending her off, I couldn’t help but thinking that maybe I’d be better off if I didn’t have quite so many rules, if I didn’t stop myself every time I wanted to pick up the phone and ask Mr D to meet me.
Maybe, at the end of this road there is heartbreak. But it’s not like my cup is overflowing right now, anyway. If it’s my lot in life to be miserable in love, wouldn’t I rather be miserable with him than without? Because cliché as it is, pride really is a very cold bedfellow. And I know that despite all his you-have-to-grow-up speeches, when the chips are down, Mr B will be around to help pick up the pieces. Because he’s used to me not listening to him and landing in trouble. And after the fifth I-told-you-so, he’ll forget about being angry with me for being an emotional pushover.
Yesterday, Mr D asked me to go away with him for a mini-vacation. I think he needs a break from all the sex he’s been having. Do I want to go? Hell, yeah. Will I actually go? I think I just might.
So yes, I most certainly am self-destructive. But if I wasn’t, I’d hardly be me.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Sex is the simplest part of a relationship, why do we make it the most difficult?
A couple of weeks ago, I had some very interesting conversations with a few friends. All separate conversations, with widely different personalities, but the topic was the same: relationships and sex. Now if there’s one thing on earth that ALL of us--regardless of the depth of our experience--have an opinion about, it’s love and sex. Which is fine. Until you confuse the two. Or worse, believe that the two have a cause and effect relationship. Mr D seems to think that most people, particularly women, cannot view the two as separate and wholly independent entities. My friend, Mr K, agrees with Mr D. Which is not to say that they think women assume love where there really isn’t any (which, in many cases, might not be entirely untrue). What they
mean is that sex shouldn’t define your relationship, love should. And sometimes, love doesn’t come in a neatly packed, signed and delivered package called monogamy. So does that mean it’s a lesser love? I don’t think so.
For most of us, sex comes naturally. We’ve all experimented, rebelled, been madly in love and had flings. And I’m assuming sex has played a fairly regular part in all these phases. Sometimes as a much-awaited houseguest, other times as a regularly visiting friend, but it’s never been a ghost that you only dream about when you’re alone at night… At least I hope it hasn’t. So as somebody who’s had a quickie under the bar just for the thrill of it, and enjoyed it thoroughly, I refuse to judge my relationship on the basis of who I did, or didn’t do. Would my romp under the bar have been any less enjoyable if I’d had a boyfriend waiting back at home? Probably not. Because that romp wasn’t inspired by the desire to share my thoughts, hopes and dreams with the hottie with a three-year subscription of Maxim. My relationships, on the other hand, are. Which is why they are infinitely more important and worth investing in.
An average relationship has several benchmarks. The first time you kiss, the first time he holds your hand in public, the first time you speak till 5am despite an early start the next day and the first time you have sex. But that’s only one part of it. The shiny packaging on the Pandora’s box that accompanies most relationships. Beneath the packaging are a whole host of other firsts. The first time you decide that finishing your story is more important than keeping your waxing appointment, the first time he doesn’t rush out of the room when he feels the need to fart, the first time you pick flannel pyjamas instead of lacy bits of nothing and the first time he smiles back at the bombshell flirting with him from across the bar. All the not-so-pleasant trappings that come with sharing your world with someone.
For most of us, the shivers running up our spines and hammering pulse rates settle after the twentieth time he kisses you or holds your hand. Or two hundredth, if you’re the overly romantic kind. But subside it will. And somewhere, at the back of our minds, the yearning for the thrill of the first kiss begins. We begin to long for the feeling that comes with being wooed and seduced, with being wined and dined. The heart might still belong to the girlfriend who’s the only person alive who understands your rocky relationship with your parents, and she’s probably still the only girl you actually want to hug and sleep with after sex, but it’s undeniable that the mind
wanders, weighs the possibilities and imagines things that we would never admit to. All because we’re in committed relationships and loyal partners don’t think about other men and women like that. But we do. Then why don’t we admit? And why do we judge people who do? Now if you’re the kind that can make peace with the flights of fancy and locker-room talk, more power to you. But some of us aren’t. Which doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else. It just makes one set of people different from the other.
Coming back to my relationships, or relationship, considering my grand total is one, it was nothing like I imagined. But everything that I could have possibly wanted. There were nerve-wracking moments, pounding hearts, murderous rages, crazy dates and mad fun. And sex, lots and lots of it. With each other, with others, with each other AND others and whatnot. We tried monogamy, for six whole months, but it didn’t work. We were miserable and the relationship would probably not have lasted as long as it did if we’d decided to stick to the gospel. At the end of the six months, we could have called it quits, gone our separate ways and probably been happy. But we didn’t. Because he was still the only one I wanted to be with. And I was the only one he could be his arrogant, asshole self with. So we decided to stick it out.
Only this time, there were no rules about who we could sleep with or couldn’t. We both had our reasons. I wasn’t prepared to give up my childhood for the relationship and he wasn’t okay with having sex once in three months, which was how often we usually met. And so we stayed together, doing our own thing and living by our own rules, most of them so weird that our friends still don’t know whether we were ever actually together. Those were four of the best years of my life. Sure, there were fights, an alarmingly large number of them. But only because we’re both
stubborn as mules. I hated his arrogance, he hated my vagueness. I hated that he expected me to magically read his mind, he hated that I never answered any question straight. Adjusting to each other’s eccentricities took time. And patience. Something that neither of us had an abundance of. Imagine complicating an already difficult relationship by adding sex to the list of things to fight about. Something that both of us enjoyed immensely. Then why change the status quo? Why fix something that wasn’t broken? Simply so that our relationship could fit into a convenient label?
My friend M says that we spend 80 per cent of our time worrying about things that are 20 per cent important in out lives. And leave only 20 per cent for the truly important 80 per cent things. I think he might be right. Which is not to say that sex was only 20 per cent important in our relationship. But there were other things that were equally important. Things that needed our time to fix and mould, time that we would have probably spent bickering if we’d decided to continue with monogamy. So we spent the precious little time we had together exploring each others minds. And by the time we finally split up, I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. I knew what his looks meant, what was going on in his head and the exact moment when he switched off from a conversation. I had his heart early into the relationship, but by the end of
it, I had his mind. And that’s the most powerful aphrodisiac there is. V once told me that orgasms with me started in the head and then moved on to his body. That night, we had the most spectacular sex of our lives. His thoughts were all mine, and that was power so addictive that I couldn’t think of relinquishing it. I could share his body, but not his brain.
What I learnt from the relationship was that I’m a very possessive girl. Only, possessing the body means little to me. V made me the queen bee, and now I find it difficult to abdicate. I realised this a few days ago, while talking to Mr D. It would be all too easy to become a part of his harem, there’s enough sexual energy between us to light a village, but somehow, that’s just not good enough. His mind still hasn’t found The One. And even though it’s an incredibly selfish thought, I hope he doesn’t find her till I’ve fallen out of love with him.
For the first time in my life, I feel like someone’s dirty little secret. And it’s a hateful feeling. Karma really is a bitch, and it’s come back to bite me in the ass. And how.
More on that later. For now, this is it.
mean is that sex shouldn’t define your relationship, love should. And sometimes, love doesn’t come in a neatly packed, signed and delivered package called monogamy. So does that mean it’s a lesser love? I don’t think so.
For most of us, sex comes naturally. We’ve all experimented, rebelled, been madly in love and had flings. And I’m assuming sex has played a fairly regular part in all these phases. Sometimes as a much-awaited houseguest, other times as a regularly visiting friend, but it’s never been a ghost that you only dream about when you’re alone at night… At least I hope it hasn’t. So as somebody who’s had a quickie under the bar just for the thrill of it, and enjoyed it thoroughly, I refuse to judge my relationship on the basis of who I did, or didn’t do. Would my romp under the bar have been any less enjoyable if I’d had a boyfriend waiting back at home? Probably not. Because that romp wasn’t inspired by the desire to share my thoughts, hopes and dreams with the hottie with a three-year subscription of Maxim. My relationships, on the other hand, are. Which is why they are infinitely more important and worth investing in.
An average relationship has several benchmarks. The first time you kiss, the first time he holds your hand in public, the first time you speak till 5am despite an early start the next day and the first time you have sex. But that’s only one part of it. The shiny packaging on the Pandora’s box that accompanies most relationships. Beneath the packaging are a whole host of other firsts. The first time you decide that finishing your story is more important than keeping your waxing appointment, the first time he doesn’t rush out of the room when he feels the need to fart, the first time you pick flannel pyjamas instead of lacy bits of nothing and the first time he smiles back at the bombshell flirting with him from across the bar. All the not-so-pleasant trappings that come with sharing your world with someone.
For most of us, the shivers running up our spines and hammering pulse rates settle after the twentieth time he kisses you or holds your hand. Or two hundredth, if you’re the overly romantic kind. But subside it will. And somewhere, at the back of our minds, the yearning for the thrill of the first kiss begins. We begin to long for the feeling that comes with being wooed and seduced, with being wined and dined. The heart might still belong to the girlfriend who’s the only person alive who understands your rocky relationship with your parents, and she’s probably still the only girl you actually want to hug and sleep with after sex, but it’s undeniable that the mind
wanders, weighs the possibilities and imagines things that we would never admit to. All because we’re in committed relationships and loyal partners don’t think about other men and women like that. But we do. Then why don’t we admit? And why do we judge people who do? Now if you’re the kind that can make peace with the flights of fancy and locker-room talk, more power to you. But some of us aren’t. Which doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else. It just makes one set of people different from the other.
Coming back to my relationships, or relationship, considering my grand total is one, it was nothing like I imagined. But everything that I could have possibly wanted. There were nerve-wracking moments, pounding hearts, murderous rages, crazy dates and mad fun. And sex, lots and lots of it. With each other, with others, with each other AND others and whatnot. We tried monogamy, for six whole months, but it didn’t work. We were miserable and the relationship would probably not have lasted as long as it did if we’d decided to stick to the gospel. At the end of the six months, we could have called it quits, gone our separate ways and probably been happy. But we didn’t. Because he was still the only one I wanted to be with. And I was the only one he could be his arrogant, asshole self with. So we decided to stick it out.
Only this time, there were no rules about who we could sleep with or couldn’t. We both had our reasons. I wasn’t prepared to give up my childhood for the relationship and he wasn’t okay with having sex once in three months, which was how often we usually met. And so we stayed together, doing our own thing and living by our own rules, most of them so weird that our friends still don’t know whether we were ever actually together. Those were four of the best years of my life. Sure, there were fights, an alarmingly large number of them. But only because we’re both
stubborn as mules. I hated his arrogance, he hated my vagueness. I hated that he expected me to magically read his mind, he hated that I never answered any question straight. Adjusting to each other’s eccentricities took time. And patience. Something that neither of us had an abundance of. Imagine complicating an already difficult relationship by adding sex to the list of things to fight about. Something that both of us enjoyed immensely. Then why change the status quo? Why fix something that wasn’t broken? Simply so that our relationship could fit into a convenient label?
My friend M says that we spend 80 per cent of our time worrying about things that are 20 per cent important in out lives. And leave only 20 per cent for the truly important 80 per cent things. I think he might be right. Which is not to say that sex was only 20 per cent important in our relationship. But there were other things that were equally important. Things that needed our time to fix and mould, time that we would have probably spent bickering if we’d decided to continue with monogamy. So we spent the precious little time we had together exploring each others minds. And by the time we finally split up, I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. I knew what his looks meant, what was going on in his head and the exact moment when he switched off from a conversation. I had his heart early into the relationship, but by the end of
it, I had his mind. And that’s the most powerful aphrodisiac there is. V once told me that orgasms with me started in the head and then moved on to his body. That night, we had the most spectacular sex of our lives. His thoughts were all mine, and that was power so addictive that I couldn’t think of relinquishing it. I could share his body, but not his brain.
What I learnt from the relationship was that I’m a very possessive girl. Only, possessing the body means little to me. V made me the queen bee, and now I find it difficult to abdicate. I realised this a few days ago, while talking to Mr D. It would be all too easy to become a part of his harem, there’s enough sexual energy between us to light a village, but somehow, that’s just not good enough. His mind still hasn’t found The One. And even though it’s an incredibly selfish thought, I hope he doesn’t find her till I’ve fallen out of love with him.
For the first time in my life, I feel like someone’s dirty little secret. And it’s a hateful feeling. Karma really is a bitch, and it’s come back to bite me in the ass. And how.
More on that later. For now, this is it.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Would you rather be an emotional fool or a heartless bitch?
Somehow, I've never been able to decide what I'd rather be. There are days when I feel invincible, like nothing and no one can hurt me. Those days are fantastic. I write brilliantly, focus on the goal and make life work exactly the way I want it to. But most often than not, those days are followed by nights that are excruciatingly lonely and pitifully silent.
Other days, I'm a blithering mass of emotions. Like I have been this past week. And no, unfortunately, it's not just PMS.
A few days ago, I realised I was hopelessly in love with a person I shall henceforth refer to as Mr D. Simply because he's a friend and I never want to be at the receiving end of that part-pitiful and part-knowing smile that one gives to the friend that has gone and fallen in love with Mr Wrong.
So what do you do when you're in love with a person you can never reveal your feelings to? Do you bury your head in the sand and wish the feeling away? Or do you go on a rampage to try and find a replacement? I've tried both, and neither solution seems to be working. For almost a week now, I've been wondering what to do with this newly-acquired information. A part of me wishes I'd never realised how I really felt about Mr D, that we could have continued living in our parallel universes that come together only when friendship demands it. That's the part that has to grin and make jokes even when the heart feels like it's being ripped apart and fed to the shredders. Then there is the other part--the one that lights up when he calls, wills the BlackBerry to buzz during the day and dies a little every time I look at the phone in anticipation, only to find it's just another message from someone I couldn't care less about. Against my better judgement, I've given Mr D the terrifying power to hurt me in a way that I've only ever allowed one other person to. But the strange part is, despite the confusion and emotional chaos it's causing, I'm not sure I want this feeling to go away. Sure, my mind would much rather have me feeling nothing if I can't get myself to fall in love with the pre-approved Mr Right, but even if it cuts me up and threatens to choke me, the heart is happier for being in love with Mr D. That's the funny thing about love. Even when it makes you miserable, you don't want to fall out of it.
Which is what brings me to the original question--would I rather be heartless than have to deal with the inevitable heartache?
They say one is a lonely number. It isn't. The loneliest number is the one you get when you add one plus one but the answer's never quite two. Something like a marriage that neither partner feels like they belong to. I guess there are fates worse than knowing exactly who you're meant to be with and not being able to do anything about it.
Yes, I am now accepting donations to pay for therapy.
Other days, I'm a blithering mass of emotions. Like I have been this past week. And no, unfortunately, it's not just PMS.
A few days ago, I realised I was hopelessly in love with a person I shall henceforth refer to as Mr D. Simply because he's a friend and I never want to be at the receiving end of that part-pitiful and part-knowing smile that one gives to the friend that has gone and fallen in love with Mr Wrong.
So what do you do when you're in love with a person you can never reveal your feelings to? Do you bury your head in the sand and wish the feeling away? Or do you go on a rampage to try and find a replacement? I've tried both, and neither solution seems to be working. For almost a week now, I've been wondering what to do with this newly-acquired information. A part of me wishes I'd never realised how I really felt about Mr D, that we could have continued living in our parallel universes that come together only when friendship demands it. That's the part that has to grin and make jokes even when the heart feels like it's being ripped apart and fed to the shredders. Then there is the other part--the one that lights up when he calls, wills the BlackBerry to buzz during the day and dies a little every time I look at the phone in anticipation, only to find it's just another message from someone I couldn't care less about. Against my better judgement, I've given Mr D the terrifying power to hurt me in a way that I've only ever allowed one other person to. But the strange part is, despite the confusion and emotional chaos it's causing, I'm not sure I want this feeling to go away. Sure, my mind would much rather have me feeling nothing if I can't get myself to fall in love with the pre-approved Mr Right, but even if it cuts me up and threatens to choke me, the heart is happier for being in love with Mr D. That's the funny thing about love. Even when it makes you miserable, you don't want to fall out of it.
Which is what brings me to the original question--would I rather be heartless than have to deal with the inevitable heartache?
They say one is a lonely number. It isn't. The loneliest number is the one you get when you add one plus one but the answer's never quite two. Something like a marriage that neither partner feels like they belong to. I guess there are fates worse than knowing exactly who you're meant to be with and not being able to do anything about it.
Yes, I am now accepting donations to pay for therapy.
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