Example:
Your husband, who has been getting pudgy over the last 10 years, comes home with his arms full of organic produce, weights, and vitamin water. He informs you that he has decided he needs to 'get in shape' and stops midsentance to gaze at the television commercial touting some hair-regrowth superserum. As he scribbles the 800 number down frantically do you cooly ask him how the day went with his new female intern, or do you put away the groceries, laugh to yourself, and start plotting out new meal plans?
Your husband, who has been getting pudgy over the last 10 years, comes home with his arms full of organic produce, weights, and vitamin water. He informs you that he has decided he needs to 'get in shape' and stops midsentance to gaze at the television commercial touting some hair-regrowth superserum. As he scribbles the 800 number down frantically do you cooly ask him how the day went with his new female intern, or do you put away the groceries, laugh to yourself, and start plotting out new meal plans?
As a women, you will know it is all about his own self-image..how this new woman makes him look at himself in a different light. As a woman, you will most likely be irritated regardless of the logic value. But also as a woman, you will know this to be the way he feels, and hopefully forgive him. How can you not?
The above example has never happened to me, I am not married nor have I ever been. It's a gauge, a way for me to convey where my thoughts on the matter are leading. Love isn't key to a solid relationship, tolerance is. With acceptance coming a close second. Plus, it's all dependant on how long you've known the person and how you feel about them as well. That's what I've come up with so far, anyway.
My boyfriends have all been pretty different with one constant - they've all been somewhat of social outcasts. Whether they were shy, nerdy, or my favorite...intimidating to the outside world, to me they were and some still are; dear to me. Of course I wish that some of them would have been more lively, taken me out dancing or something, I dunno. But that is who they were, and I wasn't about to make them stop or start doing something that wasn't them.
I am not going to say I was the perfect girlfriend by any means, either. I have a horrific latin temper that made some laugh, some cry, and some get turned on. That being said, I think the worst relationship I could ever be in would be one where the man would ask or tell me to turn off the firey temper. Because you know what that would mean? That he didn't accept who I was, what I'd spent all my life becoming...just because he couldn't handle being smacked upside the head with a hotdog. This is not the same as being bothered by, say...reading hentai doujinshi. If a man I was seriously dating was bothered by it, and wanted me to stop, I'd disagree with him, even argue with him...but you know what? Hentai is something I enjoy, but it isn't ME. I wouldn't call it by any means a fundamental aspect of my personality, or the cornerstone of my sexuality. If it disturbed him, and he wanted it gone...it would be. Without the hentai, masturbation might get a bit dull. But without the fire...I don't know what I'd be like in bed. Maybe I'd do a raw squid impression.
Speaking of seafood, I have some pretty strange eating habits. Long story short, I broke my appetite years ago with anorexia nervosa followed by bulimia. Funny thing is, I love food. I love cooking it for my loved ones. It was the strangest feeling ever to be cooking lovely meals for my grandparents, who I was looking after for several years...and never eat anything. I got over that, thank God. No one helped me or anything, I honestly just got up one day, sick of weighing under 70 pounds, tired of being..well, tired, and started eating again. Eventually the bruises on my hips from the mattress went away, my cheeks lost their cadaverous looks, and I could walk around without feeling like the wind could smash me up against a wall. Food was good again, yay! Ate too much, doubled my weight. Oops, panicked and became bulimic. Then I went on a diet and got back to a safe 115 pounds. With all the pingponging of my digestive system, I'm surprised it didn't blow up.
Years after the big changes, I still struggled. Every boyfriend soon found me out in my struggling. I really wish I could thank them all for being there for me. You that encouraged, cajoled, even yelled at me when I slipped - it all showed your love and caring for me. You that bought my sometimes insane ingredients for my no-fat phases, that watched me measure lettuce and consume more jellybeans in a day than any human should; thank you. You that got up early to cook for me my very specific meals, that went back to the market at 3AM when tuna had .05 grams of fat per serving instead of 0, how I loved you for it. These things, matter. Those memories, last. When I think of my family and loved ones, it is all of you I think about. When I think about going back home, it is those of you that remain a part of my life that I will look for first. You know who you are.
So yea...love=tolerance. Take my faults, if you love me. Accept them, if you can. Don't force me to change, and don't be 'wounded' every time I get upset; don't guilt me into being someone I'm not. You won't like it anymore than I will, that's a promise. If I need to change for the better of us, then let the word "US" be predominant.
I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
- Frederick E. Perl
No comments:
Post a Comment