Do You Love to Hate, or Do You Hate to Love?

Maybe this is why I'm single.

Maybe this is why I don't have very many long term relationships under my belt.

Maybe this is why I've never been married. 

Maybe this is why I'm not bitter, why I don't have a laundry list of "must-have" qualities in someone.

Maybe this is why I can still see the good in people, why I can take someone at face value.

Or maybe I'm just completely, one hundred percent right, and the rest of the world is wrong.

Whatever the reason, I just really, truly think that relationships should not be this difficult. 

Period. If you're working too hard to be happy, you're not with the right person. Your lobster would never require this much effort. And I think you should be able to be with your lobster.

Day One of my 30 Day Blog Challenge: Thoughts on Your Current Relationship, or of Your Current Single Status.

Nobody should be putting so much work into their relationship that it doesn't bring them any happiness. I know so many people who work harder on their relationship than they do on anything else; they put in so much effort, it's exhausting even to watch from the outside. They are constantly fighting an uphill battle, trying to force things, trying to find middle ground or compromise, just struggling to get it together with the person they're with. 

Why? Why are you doing that?! What is the payoff for putting in such a dramatic effort on a relationship that probably just isn't the right one for you? What kind of sadist are you? What is it about this person that makes you think you have to make it happen. that you have to force it to be successful?

Am I the only one in the world who would rather be single and wait for the right guy, than be in a forced, unhappy relationship just to be sure I always have someone around?

I know relationships take work; don't get my message twisted. I know that all relationships (and friendships, and family relationships for that matter) take compromise. And sincere effort. And selflessness. I get it. That's not what I'm arguing. I do know, accept, and understand that it's not always sunshine and butterflies in a relationship, and that there are moments and times that are hard. And that for the right person, you'll fight hard through those tougher moments and come out better on the other side. That happens in the duration of life with someone. 

I'm talking, though, about the people who are ALWAYS fighting to make it happen. I'm sorry, but if your relationship is more work than fun, more bad times than good, more stress than satisfaction...you are not in the right relationship. Just let it go and move on; you're annoying everyone else on Earth who already sees this going down the shitter.

At what point, when you're looking at your partner thinking of ways to destroy them so you can be happy, do you stop and think that perhaps you could do everyone (the two of you included) by just ending it? When does one arrive to the conclusion that a relationship should bring you at least some slight spark of joy, and that you haven't felt joy in so long you forget what it's like? I mean, people do get to that point, right? So why does it take so long? Why does it take so much fighting and energy? I just don't get it. It's like, before you can end you miserable, destructive anything-but-a-healthy-relationship, why do you have to destroy yourself from the inside first?

Hang on, we'll break up once we've both lost all hope for anything successful in the future.

It appears that it may just be me, but I would rather be single than date someone who hates me. I'm not sure at what point any of us were convinced (or who it was that convinced us) that a relationship need not bring joy or genuine happiness, but that as long as someone is waiting for us when we get home, that'll be good enough.

Good enough is absolutely not good enough!

Good enough should never be good enough. Not with a meal, not with an apartment or a place to live, not with a vacation, and certainly not with a relationship! Why do people think that's okay? Why do you think you have to settle? Why can't you let go of what's good enough in pursuit of something incredible?

You can.

I can.

In fact, I have.

Gone are my days of settling for something good enough, when I know there are men out there who do actually know how to make a woman swoon; how to really make someone tick. That's who I'm after. I feel like that's what we all should be after.

If you're with someone who doesn't make your heart beat faster, or who doesn't make your breath catch when they touch you, then what are you wasting your time for? If your partner can't understand you, appreciate and value you, or give you one hundred percent of themselves, then why are you wasting your energy? I remember one time my mom said to me, a relationship is not 50/50, a good one is 100/100. And that's so true. Do you give yourself a hundred percent to someone who gives you back the same hundred percent? If not, you're wasting your time. If not, you're selling yourself short. You're cheating yourself out of greatness with someone who will.

Relationships are hard.
They take work and energy and time and commitment.
They take communication. They take openness and honesty. They certainly take effort.
But, if a relationship feels like work and doesn't leave you happy at the end of the day, you're not in the right one.

Keep it moving.

50 Shades of Kinky Fuckery

So, I just got home from a movie; a handful of my girlfriends and I went to see 50 Shades of Grey. And it was pretty good. I think we all enjoyed it - and not just because it was 20% sex scenes (that didn't hurt, of course). The books were certainly written at an easy reading level, and there were a few too many descriptions of Anastasia's vagina, but they were a quick, fun, easy read - and we were all enticed to see the film adaptation.

There has been a ton of hype surrounding this movie, and a ton of criticism as well. Specifically, I've read several articles about the ways that this movie's portrayal of the dominant/submissive relationship glorifies domestic abuse. There is no shortage of people writing blogs in protest of the film, because of all the different ways Christian Grey is abusive, controlling, and manipulative, and all of the different ways he is violent toward Anastasia.

Umm. Nope.

As someone who has been abused, I can speak from personal experience that in no way does this movie glorify, support, or encourage domestic violence or abuse in romantic relationships. Because a desire to dominate someone in the bedroom does not a violent abuser make.

The plot line to 50 Shades of Grey - in case you were born last week and haven't already heard - is that of a dominant/submissive relationship in a young couple. She's a virgin, he's a head case, he wants to dominate her, they eventually fall in love and the story goes another route. Your basic Disney romance, with some nudity and bondage scenes. But of course, no one can just watch a movie, enjoy it, and go about their day. We all have to analyze it, critique it, and tear it to shreds about all of the underlying meaning and all of the wrong messages it sent to the young women out there.

#BARF.

First of all, there is a huge, HUGE difference between a dominant/submissive relationship and an abusive one. Key differences? Trust, love, and respect.

In dominant/submissive relationships, there are boundaries. There are safe words. There are rules and hard limits. Also, there is love. There's respect for your partner and a desire to give each other pleasure. The relationship is not about control or torture, or wanting to cause pain to the person you love; it's about causing pleasure. And maybe it isn't what you're into in the bedroom, but that doesn't make it evil or bad or wrong; that doesn't mean it isn't erotic or passionate. And it certainly does not make it abuse.

In an abusive relationship, on the other hand, there tends to be a lack of trust. And certainly a lack of respect for your partner. There are no boundaries, no safe words, and no rules. With abuse, there is not love and respect and a fair partnership. Abusive relationships are not about pleasure, they're about control. Abusers are manipulators who need to be in control, who need to be in charge and making decisions. Abusers don't respect the people they're abusing. Abusers don't care about your hard limits, your desires, or really about you at all. Not. The. Same.

In watching the fictional relationship unfold on the movie screen, it was clearly very much about two people who cared for each other, expressing their feelings and desires, satisfying each other sexually and, eventually, emotionally as well. In living a real life domestic violence scenario, there is no healthy expression of feeling and desire. Sure there's sex. It'd be unrealistic to think there wasn't. But there isn't healthy, romantic, passionate sex. It's obligatory sex. It's sex because you have to, because it's expected of you; it's sex with the lights off because you've been told repeatedly how unattractive you are and how awful it is to look at you. Sex in an abusive relationship lacks passion, lacks romance. You do it when you're asked, you don't enjoy it. You don't even have orgasms, so you're certainly not exploding with pleasure while blindfolded and handcuffed to the headboard. Sex with someone who abuses you often ends in a fight because you did it wrong, or because you said the wrong thing, or because you tried to say no. Sex with an abuser is quite the opposite of a dominant/submissive sexual relationship.

Repeat after me: Sex with someone who loves and treasures you and respects your boundaries, is nothing like sex with someone who controls and manipulates you, who criticizes your every move and belittles your existence.

50 Shades of Grey was a book-turned-movie that has gotten a lot of play (see what I did there?) because of the erotic language and juicy sex scenes, and because it gives light to a form of sexual relationship that people in general may not consider the norm. Repeatedly throughout the script, even the main character asks why her love interest doesn't have sex "like normal people." However, just because it's not the norm, doesn't mean it's ugly or abusive. Some women (and some men, really) aren't into anal sex, but some are - that doesn't make it gross or ugly, it just makes it a personal preference. Sex - what you like, what you don't, what turns you on - is all personal preference.

As long as you're with someone who respects you, respects your limits and boundaries, and understands that sex should make you feel safe and satisfied, it's not wrong, no matter what it looks like. You can be into the kinky fuckery with someone who loves you, cherishes you, and protects you. Or you can have vanilla, quiet, "normal" sex with someone who controls you, forces himself on you, and puts you in danger more often than not. It's not bad because it's kinky, nor is it good because it's vanilla.

It's not black and white.

It's grey.

What it really comes down to is, it's not about the type of sex you're having, but rather the type of person you're having sex with. Nothing else is relevant, so don't let other people influence what feels good (or bad) to you.

Even if that means you ask someone to blindfold you and smack your ass with a riding crop.

Crazy Brain is a Crazy Bitch

"It's called a breakup because it's broken." I don't have any ex boyfriends out there who I am still pining for, who I wish I was still with, or who frequently cross my mind (or my path) for any reason. Each of my individual relationships ended for good reason, at a good time, when they were no longer benefiting my life or making me a better person. I have had relationships end because they were simply not satisfying any longer, because they were boring, because of cheating and lying, and because of abuse that I was no longer able to tolerate. I have also had relationships end simply because one of the two of us had lost interest or were not ready for an adult relationship. Across the board, though, each of my relationships was - and is - over for a reason, and I am not left with any regret or wonderment over the classic, what if.

None of the guys I have dated in the past are a staple in my life presently. And I feel that with most of my friends, that statement reigns true. Very few people I know (or have known) maintain relationships with ex boy or girlfriends. Because, it's called a breakup because it's broken. There is a reason you are no longer with this person, so why would you continue on some feeble effort to maintain some weird friendship after a romantic relationship did not succeed? For most of us, we don't. We wash our hands, we say goodbye, and we move forward as best we can, attempting to heal from the wounds in place well enough to be successful in the next relationship we find ourselves. And even in the instances where a friendship does remain possible, that friendship is only possible because you were able to get out before you got too far in; before you got to that point of no return. 

So, knowing what we know about how people generally feel about their exes, what is it that continues to make us jealous of those exes? Why are we jealous over a Facebook post or a Snapchat, and why are we nervous or uncomfortable running into someone's ex? Why do we care what they're saying or doing, what they're texting or emailing? Knowing that we are the one in the current relationship, the one making our partner's life better, why does it matter so much what their ex is doing?

Our logical brain tells us, it doesn't. It really doesn't matter. I could run into all of my ex boyfriends in one day, and it would be like any other day, albeit a bit more awkward. But seeing any one of them at a party or running into them somewhere does not change the fact that they are, in fact, an ex; a person from my past who no longer matters in my present. I could get an email from anyone I've ever broken up with today, and it would have literally zero to do with how deeply content I am with the man who woke up next to me this morning. Whether someone finds me on Facebook or reads my blog, has no relevance in my current relationship. And I assume the same is true for most of us. Our logical brain knows that we really don't care what is happening in the world of our ex boy or girlfriend, and that what matters lies in our current relationship.

Keeping our logic just out of reach, however, is our jealous and/or crazy brain, trying to convince us that is does matter. Crazy brain wants to know why you're friends with your ex on Facebook, or what they could possibly be sending you in a Snapchat - I mean, come on, we all know Snapchat was invented for the sole purpose of sexting without evidence! Crazy brain wants it to bother you, wants it to drive you mad, wants it to piss you off. And crazy brain tends to be stronger, faster, louder than logical brain. Which is ultimately why we sometimes do find ourselves caring about (and being jealous of) the ex. Because crazy brain easily takes control and takes over, and because we often don't even see it coming until it's too late: until we're fully jealous over nothing.

It can be hard to reign in our crazy brain, but our current relationships - and our lives in general, really - are so much better when we get a handle on it and live more in our logical brain. Am I suggesting that I am never jealous, never crazy, never upset about something I read on Facebook? Of course not. I'm human, and it happens. But when it does happen, I have a couple of choices to make. Do I choose to let crazy brain take over and ruin our day, making it hard to maintain any sane level or normalcy? Or do I choose to get it together and remind myself that everyone has a past, and that the past sometimes makes a slight appearance in the present?

Everyone has a past. And truthfully, we all carry baggage from the past into our future; maybe running into someone's ex, or having to meet them at an event, or seeing them on Facebook or Snapchat, is just another means of the baggage we chose to accept in our partner. When you start a relationship with someone, you do take on some of their past - maybe they are afraid of commitment, or maybe the idea of moving in with you is both exciting and simultaneously really frightening, or maybe they've been cheated on or pushed around. Whatever it may be, we all have baggage, we all have triggers, and the person who takes that on, accepts it. The same goes both ways - when I take on a new relationship, I am accepting that person for their past, present, and future, and that includes the messy parts.

The truth is, perfection does not exist. And if it did, it would be insanely boring. I can't imagine a perfect world, with a cookie cutter house and white picket fence, with a perfect boy waiting for me to present him with a perfect meal day in and day out. Perfection isn't real; messy is real. Messy is passionate and deep. Messy is what you fall in love with, the type of love that leaves you tangled in the sheets, wrapped up in each other's arms and legs, at the end of the day. So maybe you have to deal with someone's ex, and maybe they have to deal with yours, but that's just a little bit of mess that connects the two of you on a level you didn't realize you could ever have.

Just remember that at the end of the day, you're with someone who is in love with you; be in love with them back.

Don't let your crazy brain win.