To be or Not To Be
Watching one of my friends getting almost hsyterical over the fact that her boyfriend had to work on Saturday night ie. not being able to come to see her, really made me think how complicated one’s life could be when it comes to being in a relationship.
The thing that I dislike about being in a relationship is that you’ll start to care about someone else more than you do about yourself and you don’t even realise that you are doing it. Along with this, there are other things that are attached and somewhat connected to it - the feeling of wanting to depend on someone else, to see them all the time, hoping desperately for them to ring, always wanting to know where and how they are, etc etc.
I’m not being cynical about relationships because I’d been there myself and I had once been that hysterical girl who would cry over the phone because of some ridiculous case like the boyfriend putting the phone on silent and being completely unaware of me being slightly maniacal for miss-calling for the twelfth time and got no responses whatsoever.
When you get to this state, you might start asking yourself; Who the hell have I become to?
Tick as preferred:
a) an obsessive girlfriend
b) a green-eyed negative thinking monster
c) a crazy bag lady in twenty years time
d) all of the above
However, the most important question remains; Can you still be yourself when you are deeply, emotionally involved in a relationship?
No matter how hard you try to deny it, being in a relationship changes you, without you even realising it. It all depends on which one would you prefer; the old or the new you (the new obsessed, nearly-losing-her-mind you, more like).
When I’m not involved in a relationship, I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want and I don’t have to share it with anyone else. Then there is also that feeling of being independent, of not depending on anyone else. I don’t expect anyone to call me, nor do I have the obligation to call. No expectation about anything from anyone at all.
But does being in a relationship mean having expectations from your other half? Is it a lie when someone says, ‘I don’t expect anything from you - let’s just go with the flow”?
I personally think it is impossible not to have any certain expectations over your partners, even though when you meet them the first time you think they are all you have ever wanted from a person.
With this sort of delusional perception, we immediately think that’s how they really are and there can never be anything less than that. Until they stop being perfect and you get really confused and think, “Who is this person?”
Maybe being in a relationship is all about not wanting to be lonely. Or maybe it’s all about having someone else to talk to, and to care about and who would care about you.
Or maybe it’s because we simply crave that physical affection from other human beings.
In the meantime, I’m still spending my weekend with my devoted partner - the DVD player.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Hi, I was reading your old entries when I came across this post. Sadly most of my college friends are like this. They’d go crazy if their partners could not pick them up from work or spend time together because of other important things.
Sometimes I am itching to tell them that it is not the end of the world if their partners could not pick them up just once and remind them that there are more important things in the world than being sulky of small things, but hey, being a good friend and an intention of avoiding conflict, I usually shut up and pretend not to care……
April 19th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Are your friends all women? Because as women do, they have better imagination than men (haha) and that applies also when they are paranoid, so when their partners forgot to call, reply a text messages or forget an anniversary, there are probably at least five reasons that women can come up with that might cause them, whilst their partners might be simply just forgetful or busy
April 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Mostly women, but there were also men who wanted to be with their girlfriends 24/7 and no, not for the sex reason LOL so I don’t know really why they wanted to do that. For me, I need my time alone away from my boyfriend and all and I believe he needs the same thing