Finding magic

I might have mentioned earlier how I see magic as the ways in which we channel our will to bring about change in the surrounding world. And I’ve been wondering lately whether we can use it to bring love into our lives. That one big true magical love everyone is talking about. I recently read a lovely article on finding and using magic in our everyday lives and I now believe it is not about grabbing that love by the balls, but about inviting it in and not drawing deadlines, about making room for it and being able to fully embrace it when it comes along.

We might not realize it, but we all are magical beings. We perform rituals every day, we use spells and potions to get closer to the objects of our desires. We just don’t do it consciously. Living a magical life is about living consciously. That thing others call living in the now. But as magical creatures we don’t have to let go of all of our desires, but to acknowledge they are all means to greater ends. That what we actually seek are not the material things, but rather abstract concept that make us happy. When we want clothes or perfumes we actually seek beauty and appreciation. When we want cars and money we want status and the thrill of open possibilities. When we want somebody we want company or love or support etc. And when we seek these things we perform rituals that are either of our own making or behaviors we have been socialized into. Every time me take a bath we perform a beauty ritual, or a cleansing one, or a social acceptance rite if that’s our only motivation. When we go to work we perform a daily ritual of ensuring security and prosperity. And so on and so forth. The trick is to actually acknowledge the real reasons behind what we do. They actually reveal our true values. Lying is not about not having principles, for example, it’s about seeking acceptance or even peace of mind. "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks", Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley once wrote.

Once we are conscious of the higher motivations behind our desires and actions, we can transform them into more efficient rituals. It doesn’t take a witch to cure our deepest wounds or give us the highest high (although sometimes we do meet one in disguise who turns our lives around). We can use our own rites to make each day more meaningful, to enhance the magic in simple moments. Turning our beauty endeavors into self-love rituals, each meal into thoughts of gratitude towards all the Earth’s miracles that have landed on our plate, every reading into a trip to foreign lands and a chance to make new friends. Because once we start seeing the small things in a magical way, we’ll unconsciously add quality to our lives. We’ll want the fresh and tasty veggies and we won’t let others tell us what beauty means. We’ll be able to enjoy a good conversation and move on from people who only spread bad energies, or maybe we’ll make their day and that great feeling will come back to us threefold.

The great things we want for ourselves will be easier to see. I used to think I was spoiled by fate because I usually got what I wanted in life. The big things. Like a good education and finding a job, or like getting a guy. But the truth is I wanted some of these things so much I could see them. And visualization is one of the best ways to attract the things we want. The first step is enjoying what we have and through that realizing what we want. The second one is getting the best of that. And things don’t just come because we want them, sometimes is takes a lot of hard work. But keeping in mind the real reasons we do that work usually helps a lot. Talking about it, thinking of the best ways to get it and being patient helps a lot. Not putting deadlines or time frames on things keeps fear of failure and desperation on the side. Being able to wish for something but not feel pressured is what makes the difference between “things” and motivations.

So when we seek love we must understand it doesn’t just grow on trees. If we want it for the right reasons, if we really want love and not just company, not just social acceptance, not just a cure for loneliness, then we get one step closer to it. And we might meet love, but can we tell? Do we know anymore what it feels like, after being stomped over time and time again? We can, once we regain our innocence. Once we understand all those reasons for trusting others and even for allowing ourselves to get hurt. Once we let it all go as lesser attempts to get what we want and we believe that every time we give it a try we get better at it. And once we find it, we finally get a partner in magic. Now all the rituals will be in two. Rituals of spiritual nurturing, rituals of pleasure, rituals of security.

Humans are magical creatures because they can use their will to make the world a better place for themselves and others and they can do it consciously. I didn’t want to sound like a guru, but spending time in top of snowy mountains has really given me fuel for thought and magic is my new favorite word.

Decisions, Decisions… ‘Shopping’ For a Partner

Ladies, have you ever gone out shopping, entered the first store and found a really nice dress that looks fabulous on you but didn’t know whether to really buy it or not? You knew that there were still so many shops that you could look through and maybe get the chance to find something better, but if you didn’t, then maybe by the time you’d return to the initial store, the dress you had laid your eyes on would be gone. So you stare at it for a while, try it on, look into the mirror and consider a decision. You have a limited amount of money, so you’ll most probably buy only one special article of clothing that day. You really like the dress but you’re sure there must be something better out there, so you change back into your own clothes, put the pretty thing back on its hanger and return it to the shop.

This actually happened to me recently. First shop, nice dress, limited budget, many more other shops I hadn’t seen. So, I too had left the dress there and started wandering around the mall with my best friend, almost sure we’d find something better. A couple of hours and one sore back later, we still hadn’t found anything. We went back to that first shop and were lucky to still find the dress there. Already knowing we didn’t discover anything prettier in that big mall, upon making the decision to buy it, I still found myself in horrible hesitation, thinking… What if there’s something better out there? I eventually got the dress and immediately stopped stressing about it. Thank God a woman doesn’t have to own only one dress, but we get to have a wardrobe that we fill with the things we like. We open it, choose what we feel like wearing, with the freedom that we can always change our mind and neither our clothes nor our wardrobe would judge.

Upon getting home, with a contented feeling of “mission accomplished”, the question still stuck to my thoughts… was there something better out there? It sounded so familiar, and then it came to me. Was looking for a partner similar to trying to find a great dress? We go around meeting men, some we like, some we don’t. We consider whether those whom we’re interested in would make good partners (life partners) and sometimes we even “try them on” to see if they fit, thus engaging in relationships. If we decide they’re not really the thing for us, we return them to the world and move on, trying to find something that suits us better. Some people look for an article of male that would last a lifetime and carefully inspect what they’re trying on for size. Others are sufficiently satisfied with finding something cheap and good-to-go thus occasionally trying on more ‘outfits’ at the same time. But if we do find that one amazing match, a guy that seems perfect for us, that once ‘tried on’ fits like nothing had before, do we take him or not? Once again, the mind-blowing question arises: what if there’s something better out there?

Clothes are simpler because you can get something you like anyway, then find a better piece and purchase it as well. They’re all neatly gathered in a wardrobe and you can switch through them as you please, without any feeling of guilt, matching them to suit you best at any given occasion. With men, there is no real possibility of ‘getting one’ and then just stashing him in the wardrobe with all the others you have collected and are hoarding. It’s not like you’re free to pick whichever you like from your “stash” whenever you feel like it and free to change your mind at any given time since all the specimens in the “man-wardrobe” are yours anyway and don’t mind being tossed around like that. Here’s reality: there is no such thing as the “man-wardrobe” described above.

In this male-scenario, there is no way for us to be able to ‘visit all the shops’ or try on all the specimens that seem cute to us. To make an accurate comparison, if in the dress-scenario we were pressured by a limited budget, in this case, we have a limited amount of time to actually settle down. And until somebody invents a miracle shot to stop ageing, this parameter will still be there to nag us. Asking yourself if there’s something better out there could be a trap. Yes, there might be. Will you find him? Will he find you? Would you give up the guy that stood out from all the others you dated until then, out of sheer desperate curiosity and/or stubborn perfectionism? And if not, how inclined are we towards frustration? Surely nobody is 100% perfect, so when your chosen male will spill out a bit of his imperfection, won’t frustration chew on the back of your brain, making you wonder whether you could have found somebody better? Are we forever condemned to “what ifs”?

I know we must be responsible for the decisions that we make, try to stick to them as much as possible and change them only when really necessary. But every time we make one decision, our minds already construct alternate realities in which the decision has not been made, not to trick us into doubting, but more for a comparison we learn a lot from, sometimes even behind our conscious minds. We must learn not to doubt everything that’s in our way. Even though we have been taught that these days one must be strong, calculated and in perfect control of his or her life, ever so often we must take a leap of faith and there is nothing else in the world that can take us forward in those moments.

My mother keeps telling me every now and then that ”everything is meant to be done at the right time”, something that is perfectly justified if we consider the way our motivation and tastes evolve throughout different life-stages. There are things we can only appreciate and fully enjoy at one specific life stage and if that passes, even if we do try to catch up, we’ll never get as much out of the experience as we would if it had been made at the right time. It is normal to hesitate a little when facing a decision that must be made, but we can’t live our lives in hesitation and doubt, no matter how rationally justified the underlying thoughts may sound.

Time doesn’t wait for us to make up our minds and when it comes to relationships, rational thought can’t cover or establish order to everything. Every once in a while, we have to decide to take a leap of faith.

Satisfying Needs. Do we expect too much from “The One”?

Every person is the sum of his or her needs. Every action has the purpose of fulfilling partially or entirely one or more of our needs. We need food, so we eat. We need rest, so we sleep. Simple, right? We need to feed our sexual instinct so, we either masturbate, hunt down a one-night-stand or search for a relationship. A relationship, of course, would feed more than just that one need. We expect it to also fulfill the need of stability, security, protection, affection, fitting a social standard, entertainment, support and the list can probably go on. Are we going overboard by expecting so much from one person?

I was out the other night with my former high-school desk-mate, one of my top quality male friends, in an attempt to dissect human kind using words for scalpels and beer as a mascot. It was a great, fun night in which, among other issues, we ended up discussing needs. We both agreed that for an individual, each person in his/her life will fulfill a certain need. Protection and care from the mother figure, security and stability from the father figure. The need for intellectual stimulation should be cared for by our educational system but, in reality, we usually quench it by having one or two people with whom we can discuss more scientific matters. Everybody has a person who fits straight in their need to unwind, a person with whom they can talk to about the more pointless things in life and feel good about it. There’s a special person or group of people who will take care of the need for “girl/guy talk”, one or two who we know are able to entertain us no matter the circumstance and those are the people we call when we want to see or participate in a good show, or just simply drive boredom away. There’s also the Mentor-figure who will cover the need of higher aspirations, the need to look up to somebody, and when these people we set on high pedestals lean our way and give us a kind word or hand, they fulfill our need to be admired by those whom we admire. The sexual need has been briefly mentioned in the first paragraph. Since there are so many people who, together, manage to satisfy a whole lot of an individual’s needs, why is it that when in a relationship, we expect our partner to satisfy them ALL?

Each and every one of us, as an individual, gets to play many roles at once: one role for every stage we get to be in, and we star in numerous stages at once, because every stage is simply another person’s perception and projection of the world around him or her. We play a different role for every person who knows us not because we necessarily chose to wear a mask for each of them, but because, through their own individuality and subjectivity, every person will see us differently. We, ourselves, can be a mother/father figure for our children, a Mentor for our students, an entertainer for our friends at parties, an enchantress or a stud for our sexual partner, a muse for young, infatuated artists. We are all these things and many, many more towards a lot of people and, thus, a lot of perceptions. When we expect everything from our relationship partner, we can probably assume that, in most cases, he or she will expect the same in return. So, can we be all of those positive roles for only one person?

I saw many relationships fall apart because one of the partners was expecting too much. But what is “too much”, really? We all have standards and usually two people with similar standards will mix, people with different levels of standards will repel, no matter how gorgeous looking they are, how smart or dumb. I often hear people say that “it’s all about compromising”… personally, I believe that if you find the right one, you won’t have to bother with “compromise”, because the process of building a relationship won’t have to be constructed on the feeling of “giving up” part of who you are so that the other person will do something to your liking, but rather you’d feel you both gain something with every brick you’re setting.

It’s easier to build up a fantasy of the perfect partner who is able to fulfill our every need, always make us smile or laugh, be amazing in bed, spontaneous, never have us get bored, be entertaining, smart, with a good, well-paid job, talented, strong, determined yet kind and sensitive, ETC. It’s probably a lot harder to try to be more down-to-earth and wonder how sane it is to attribute all those good traits to a singular human being. I can’t comment too much on that since I’m still stuck with my image of that perfect guy and the feeling that he’s real, but it’s a good discussion subject. Wouldn’t it be easier for us to get past the barrier of our childish fantasies and just realistically figure out what we want from a partner? If our needs can be satisfied by numerous people, then why can’t we have our ‘better halves’ in charge of fulfilling just a few relationship-related needs (and by that I don’t mean the whole list) while allowing lots of the other needs to be covered by our friends, colleagues or other people out there? Why do we need the need to have all our needs satisfied by one single person?

In 1943, Abraham Maslow, one of the biggest psychologists, has published the pyramid of needs in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”. Clicking the image will make it larger, so you can read the text properly.

The pyramid is formed of five levels. Going from bottom to top, you cannot move on to the next level of needs until you have fulfilled the one before. We must understand that it is up to one person alone to seek out the fulfillment of all of those needs, and that one person is each and every one of us, for ourselves. We must seek out into the world surrounding us, into the people out there and into the world within ourselves. How fair or realistic is it to expect one person alone to cover our whole pyramid (at least the first three or four levels for sure)? That’s for each of us to decide.

So, whether you’re already in a relationship, looking for one or maybe not even interested in getting involved anytime soon, tell us… What do you want in a potential partner? How would you describe your ideal mate?

1 Month Anniversary

“Mischievous Sweethearts” is celebrating one month of existence! We would like to thank all of our readers for being awesome, keeping up with our work, commenting or writing their own guest posts and letting others know of our blog. Since, at the present moment, we don’t yet have any other means of advertising, what you guys did was amazing and now, 1 month after our first post, we are proud to have 376 unique visits and 1067 total views. Thank you all and may we have more great times together and together with those who still are to discover us. Cheers!

1000!

We have just reached 1000 views, two days before our blog will celebrate one month of existence. Here at Mischievous Sweethearts we thank all of you who have read, enjoyed, commented, sent guest posts, told others of our work and even those who are about to do all those mentioned above.

Cheers!

Single and fabulous

Once I used to believe I was addicted to love. A lovaholic. A relationship person, somebody who could not function well without being attached from the hip to somebody else. I’ve been in serial relationships most of my dating life and all that time I was never single for more than three months. And now it’s been more than two years. And I’m just now starting to realize why it is so. It’s not because all guys are jerks and there’s nobody out there or I just haven’t met him. And it’s not because there’s something wrong with me or I’m not ready to go back to being in a relationship. The one great reason I’m still single is because I chose so.

Whenever my grandmother asks me if I have a boyfriend or a concerned auntie wants to know when I’m getting married I keep wondering why is it that people expect us to pair up all the time. Is being single like being homeless or unemployed? Is there still such a great social stigma associated to it? We all know that some decades ago for a woman it was more tragic to be single than unemployed. Actually, it was the possibility to work outside the home and support ourselves, own property and decide upon our own bodies that created this ever growing pool of singles nowadays. And so we should ask ourselves, are more and more people single because there are less options on the dating market or just because they can and choose to do so? I would rather agree with the latter. You see, we can now choose to spend our lives experiencing multiple relationships or none at all, instead of being in an oppressive marriage we never wanted in the first place. We can choose to get out of a dysfunctional relationship instead of enduring it all just for the sake of not being labeled with the oh so scary sticker of old maid.

I enjoy being single for both the perks of said independence and for being able to avoid the pitfalls of relationships. The independence doesn’t just mean “you can do what you want”. You can actually do as you please in a healthy relationship as well, because I trust in a good partnership you will want the things that are right for you and your partner. It’s more about escaping that constant scrutiny. You’ve read about it a thousand times in women’s magazines, it’s awesome to be single because you can wear granny panties and you don’t always have to look great and smell nice, nobody will notice that extra couple of kilos on your hips after the holidays and your hair doesn’t always have to be shiny. Yes, they say they love you just the way you are. But we notice stuff. We notice the cavity in that tooth and the dirty fingernail and the pimple on the nose. And we know men notice far more things and expect far more effort to be put into our looks. Yes, we all love to be pretty every time we go out the door, but sometimes, at home, we just want to sit around in our pajamas with our hair stuck to our head, eating cheesy puffs and watching bad TV. And you can do that when you’re in a relationship too. But not whenever you please. These are just examples, but the bottom line here is that the constant scrutiny of a partner we want to spend every breathing minute with is quite heavy on our shoulders. And singles have it easy that way.

And then, we don’t get to worry about all those things people who are dating do. Like what he’s thinking of every second, is he having doubts about us, is he checking out that girl, is he cheating on me, is he really over his last girlfriend, why did they break up anyway, is there something wrong with him I haven’t noticed yet, where is this going and why won’t he talk about it, are his parents going to like me, is my father going to break his legs, how many children are we going to have, should we move in together, will we ever earn enough to buy a house and build a family… That kind of stuff. We don’t think about it all at once. But over one year, most of these questions are bound to pop out in our heads. And some of the things we worry about might happen on the way, bringing about a lot of pain and a need to reconsider our whole existence.

My biggest concerns as a single person are what to have for lunch and whether to build a career in this or that direction. I sometimes think I would have no time for a relationship, between my work and education, my family and my friends I hardly get to read and the pile of books and magazines waiting for me is getting larger by the day. But the thing is I don’t feel the need to or want one. I believe this is an awesome time to enjoy myself and know all the things that make me happy. To push myself and see where I draw the lines and to grow in whichever direction I want without having to adapt my future plans to future plans I’ve made in my head with somebody else. I don’t look at it as time between relationships when I get to become a better person for somebody to love me more when I finally meet him. It’s a transition time between school years and junior level jobs and the days when I’ll actually be working at securing a bright future for myself. Maybe I’ll meet someone, maybe I won’t, maybe I’ll have children, maybe I won’t. What I can tell you right now is that I feel fabulous about being single and I can’t even put in words all the great things about it. And for anybody to change that, they’d have to be at least as pretty damn awesome as I am.

Internet profiling of potential partners?

I took a break from working at home today and thought I should change the atmosphere a little by going down to a pub I haven’t visited in a while. They have good music, good tea and a wireless connection, enough to motivate me to take my laptop out into the world. Enough for me to figure my machine lacks the software to hook up to the wireless network… and to get it I need to download it off the internet, so you can see my dilemma right now.

Looking around at the people sitting at other tables, I see two types of couples: human plus human and human plus laptop. In the very room I have set up my working spot, there’s only one table occupied by a chatting couple and three other tables, mine included, each with one person and one laptop. How dependent have we become of the internet and why do we allow it to own such a great deal of importance in our social lives? Good old fashioned letters have been replaced by e-mails or messenger programs, books have been replaced by pdf files and our whole identities fit into a Facebook profile. We upload good looking pictures of ourselves, we search for like-minded people through the web, we flirt through on or offline messages. I agree that the internet speeds up communication and earns us a great deal of time, but when have we become so time deprived as to give up the ‘personal touch’?

Most of my friends (I can only think of two who don’t fit the description) are hooked to online social networking. If they fall for a guy they know close to nothing about, before even considering going out with the person for a talk that they can learn more from, they log onto Facebook and start stalking their potential date-to-be. They see if he has any relationship status out there, any pictures involving other women, any shirtless pictures for body-evaluation, common acquaintances or wall posts one can relate to. After doing that and sticking many labels, they evaluate whether the guy is a “good catch” or not. How relevant is internet stalking to a potential relationship, and is it really time-efficient or rather a complete waste of time? Why do we choose to do this first rather than request a date?

First of all, every person setting up a profile is actually designing a more or less accurate mask to hide behind, a more or less relevant image behind which they feel safe to communicate. Relying so much on what a profile has to show us is settling for just a tiny part of the big picture. Obviously, the profiles will have information on education and hobbies, but they won’t tell you how that person is handling their college or job, they don’t have a “defect" section for one to list all their bad habits, all in all, they can’t really sketch an image accurate enough for “potential-partner evaluation”. But instead of most people acknowledging this, they keep on stalking and drawing conclusions that might find themselves far from the truth.

We can understand why people build up these profiles, since they are safe images to hide behind, and if done right can seem completely flawless, but why are others drawing conclusions based on internet profiles and not face-to-face profiling of the person? We want to be able to evaluate everything and even foresee how certain things will turn out. Fear of rejection and vulnerability is something we are all familiar with, and instead of risking to be turned down on a first date with somebody who seems interesting yet we don’t know enough about, we rather take a look on the internet, from the comfort of our own homes, safe to make whatever assumptions our mind might scorn up and safe to fill the gaps of information with our own desires. We think that this way we can prevent having unpleasant surprises or awkward moments of silence. We build up imaginary conversations in our heads with the person we imagine the profile would be. But once we come face to face with the one we have stalked online, things might turn out very different than expected. The immaculate guy we read has been studying at two universities might actually be a narrow-minded almost drop-out, struggling to count the great number of exams he still has to pass so as not to repeat the year once again, the talented artist could very well prove himself to be an arrogant asshole, the successful good looking lawyer might be an emotionally retarded guy, in a full time relationship with his job and with little or no interest at all in getting involved in anything else than that. Rigidly expecting a person to be what we imagine him or her from the little information the internet provides us is a straight way to disappointment.

We should always give real-life enough room to surprise us. Not all surprises will be pleasant, but even those that won’t be, will prove themselves good experiences to learn from. So, next time you find yourself staring with a brain-dead smile at somebody’s profile, think twice before gluing the labels and take the time to evaluate the lack of information for what it is: room for discovery, not blanks we must fill in and expect them to be as imagined. We mustn’t fear not knowing and not being able to predict everything about a person, but embrace the endless possibilities that are laid down before us. This way, when we do meet face to face with the guy or girl that has captured our interest, we will feel more inclined to let him or her unravel their identity, rather than ticking the checklist in our heads of what that person “is supposed to be”, according to us.

We wonder how stereotypes have lived on through so many years, even though individuality has been so largely promoted and each one of us manages to prove themselves unique in one way or another? Well, we have all contributed to this factor by settling for the little information that has been shoved in our faces instead of journeying deeper into the people around us. And that is one journey you can’t only accomplish online, or through what common acquaintances might have to say, since the subjectivity of others might not feed our own values. You gotta get yourself away from the computer, out of your home, meet the one you’re interested in, go out for a walk in the park or a beer in your local pub and talk, listen and observe the other’s non-verbal signals. Words are such a small part of communication, and the internet can’t provide for body language and genuine eye contact.

As I’m now preparing to leave with my machine-date, I look around in the same room. One couple at one table, 3 tables with loners such as myself at this time and yet another table with an interesting party of three: the girl, the guy and the laptop.

Guest Post Reminder

Since the end of the month is just days away, here's a reminder:


Mischievous Sweethearts will be hosting one monthly Guest post, so if you feel you have a story to share, which has taught you a thing or two about men/women, relationships or the world around you, send us an email with your writings at mischievous.sweethearts@gmail.com with the subject “Guest Post”, followed by the title of your work. Daisy and I will read it and choose who the next Mischievous Sweetheart will be. Guest posts will be published on the 1^st of every upcoming month.

Wanting

Ever so often we hear ourselves say “Ohh I want that!” No matter how average or high the degree of wanting is, there is always something out there we want, and must have, be it knowledge, cake, clothes, relationships or just plain, healthy sex. Sometimes we get so caught up in the yearning, that our perception narrows down to the object of our desire and leaves other things outside, to the mercy of randomness, and when we finally get what we longed for, it just sparks up that it’s not the thing for us… and we start wanting something else. Do we really want and need the stuff that catches our eyes so intensely, or are we addicted to the notion of always wanting something to keep us going?

The perception we have about feeding our desire changes over time. Remember high-school and early twenties? The sky was the limit! You were free to want anything and, more so, free to get it. Experimenting relationships, sex, going out, various pubs or clubs, more relationships, closed ones, open ones, multiple ones, anything you’d come up with because there’s no pressure involved, no biological clock, poor notion of consequences and, also, you have the enormous advantage of feeling these years will last forever. Moving beyond your mid twenties, wanting stuff takes a turn to its more practical side: career, stable relationship, finances, living quarters and affording good food and a healthy life-style. The relationship-area is also struck by these, since one would start thinking twice before entering a fling that leads nowhere and suddenly, doing things just for the sheer fun of having them done coughs up a new parameter: “time efficiency”. I know many women around or over their mid-twenties who have been surprised by their family-and-baby-timer, a clock that starts ticking louder and louder. Craving begins, perception narrows down to those two issues and “time efficiency” gains in importance. From their calculations, one has to procreate around 30 (biologically, that’s a good idea), but for that you’d have to be married with the guy for a couple of years and before deciding to marry him, you should probably date him for a couple of more years, so that leaves us with an average age of 26 to start a serious relationship.

The older we get, the more we feel there is a time pressure affecting our desires and choices, leaving us less freedom in wanting something as we did before. I see this happening a lot in women and it being very related to their biological clock. Men have it easy. I have never seen a guy stress about not having a family and kids yet. A guy who takes care of himself can be hot even at an older age. Think Sean Connery, or Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs! I have a very close friend, he’s around 20 years older than me, looks amazing for his age, talented, smart, single and doesn’t have the slightest care in the world when it comes to family or kids. He’s chill, does his career, spends his free time having fun and enjoys it that way.

As we are getting older, do we have to adapt “what we want” according to “what we can get”? Cause if that’s the case, as time goes by, there is less and less to be found on the market. If we are picky and can’t settle for anything less than perfect, is it safe to assume that there are guys out there thinking the same, or are guys just looking for an easy fuck so that they can fill out their scoring list? And if we do end up finding Mr. Right, at the right time, how can we be sure that neither of us will give in to the temptation of passing the great occasion of finding someone better out there? Some people who have reached this point, choose to lower their standards because doing so will automatically broaden their options. I am very much against doing so, but many people have chosen this to quench their fear of being alone. My opinion is that no matter what the market looks like, we should not allow ourselves to give up hope in finding what’s right for us. Giving up means game over.

In another line of thought, haven’t you all noticed how the things we can’t have suddenly seem more appealing? Cake while on diets, men who don’t commit, certain clothes after having spent the last of your paycheck on cocktails? If you want a guy and lean into getting him in a relationship and he pushes you away, don’t you somehow feel compelled to go grab him just to prove to yourself that you can? Dumb as it sounds, that mechanism is in charge of the want-what-you-can’t-get syndrome. And then when you do get it, the thrill is over, point made, moving on!

This type of behavior sends us in a loop hole that might be familiar to some or most of you. Total freedom, dating anyone and everyone we see fit, no commitment, just spontaneous acts of joy and such… when all of a sudden, we realize that there’s too little stability in our lives and start wanting a stable relationship. Somehow we manage to get the more-or-less-stable person at our side and start a wonderful thing, when all of a sudden… it gets boring, predictable, too little adventure, not enough excitement SO we start dissecting our ‘perfect’ man to find one or two flaws to cling on and dump him for, so that we can go back to being free to experience whatever… and the loophole goes and and on. With every relationship we leave behind, we get a sense of having to find something better out there. “Never settle for anything worse than your ex”, they say. So when do we stop? How do we know it’s time to settle down and settle for what we have found, especially since, as time goes by, the stock keeps getting thinner and thinner?

We have to keep our eyes open for all that’s out there and keep our hopes up for all the rest that could be out there that our eyes don’t yet see or that our conscious minds can’t yet grasp. If our perception is working at full potential, our hope keeps us courageously moving forward and our dreams turns us immune to fear, we have all the reasons in the world to find happiness.

Mischievous Sweethearts will be hosting one monthly Guest post, so if you feel you have a story to share which has taught you a thing or two about men/women, relationships or the world around you, send us an email with your writings at mischievous.sweethearts@gmail.com with the subject “Guest Post”, followed by the title of your work. Daisy and I will read it and choose which will be the next Mischievous Sweetheart. Guest posts will be published on the 1^st of every upcoming month.

Karma and its army of demons

Some girl in a movies said that faith is for the weak, an excuse not to go grab whatever we want then and there. In that line of thought, I believe a lot of concepts like that actually help us deal with reality, give us a sense of order in a universe that is so much beyond our understanding that we need to oversimplify it. But what if there is certain equilibrium? A law of compensation that keeps things straight. A strange way of this cold impersonal universe of taking care of us. Karma is a rather comforting concept in a way. It gives us the peace of mind to leave pain behind knowing that we would be avenged. It helps us get off the door in the morning, knowing that whatever keeps the balance out there will make all things right in the end. But when it comes to relationships, I’ve noticed karma is a pretty scary word.

When they are in love, people want to be loved for who they are and not just because they love the other. So nobody gives it too much thought. But when things get ugly, some of us have that fear in the back of their heads that however they hurt their partner, it’s coming to bite them in the ass. That’s why we persevere in our mistakes in a way. Fear has never been a good partner.I saw this card on Post Secret which said “my wife left me because I wouldn’t admit I cheated on her. I never did”. 

This kind of makes me think about two things I observed quite often and wrote about before. One is that when we start lying, it’s always about little things, so as not to make our partners worried or angry. We start with the most basic thing, saying we’re fine when we’re actually not (well, men know that when women say everything’s all right, there must be something fishy). Then we get to things like “going out with the girls/guys for coffee”, when you’re actually going dancing and drinking till morning. And we end up lying about working late when in fact we’re with somebody else. One of the worst case scenarios. Thing is a lie will always lead to another and no matter how many white lies we tell, eventually we’ll lie about something big. I see people after decades of marriage who resent each other in one way or another and they never say it. The other thing the card reminded me was that we mirror our behavior in our partner. Yes, there are genuinely jealous people. But some of the most violently jealous people I know are those who cheat. You lie and cheat so you expect your partner to lie and cheat. And sometimes being labeled the bad guy actually turns you into the bad guy. Instant karma. We don’t really need a force of the universe to bite us in the ass. We do a great job ourselves. Hurting other people will eventually hurt us. Because we’ll live in fear. Because we’ll lose trust. Because the weight of lying will be so heavy on our shoulders, we’re bound to drop it.

And what happens when we hurt bystanders? People involved in our relationships in a way or another, who suffer by association. Do we really have to think about each and single one of the people our relationship felonies affect? We make and lose friends, we get close or become strangers to families, we step on some toes whenever we are with somebody. Every relationship at the time, I believe. Somebody is bound to be unhappy with our choices, every time. We’ll win some and lose some and sometimes we’ll get away with it.

Ah, getting away with it! Nothing as scary as that. Can being a bitch in one relationship pay up in the next one? Does cheating now make you bound to be cheated on later? Somehow I’m sure it’s not how it works. The problem is that when we expect these things to happen, it’s like inviting them in. When we believe we are sinners and deserve the wrath of whatever is out there, we end up punishing ourselves. When we see ourselves as monsters, we are the ones that take a little bit of our beauty away each day. It’s maybe karma, it’s maybe conscience, it’s maybe fear.

I am actually a strong believer in the Wiccan Law of Threefold Return. The one that says that whatever benevolent or malevolent actions a person performs will return to that person with triple force, or with equal force on each of the three levels of body, mind and spirit. I also believe this whole belief system to be based on the power we all have to channel our will to transform what others call faith. So for now let’s just look at karma as a motivation we give selfish people to be altruistic and build our own laws of return. What is certain is that love and positive thoughts will always give good returns. Treasuring others' affection and trust can’t hurt and living as a free open fearless person beats the dark shadows of karma any day.

Eastern Europeans don’t speak romance

After having my mind blown by Bertolucci’s “Last tango in Paris”, my first thoughts went to my amazing Western lovers and to how movie-like our relationships have been. It sounds a bit farfetched to make generalizations based on such few cases. But maybe I can extend my sample by also considering my most favorite men, who are directors or writers or just some of their characters.

I’ve always found Eastern Europeans to be a bit on the dark side. They have this obscurity that somehow makes you feel like you could never penetrate to a level where they would lose the grip. There is something about them that is never satisfied. Like they could always get better, but they’re not even bothering to look. I do believe that all of this brings along a lot of frustration. Of the Eastern Europeans I got to know better in time, I find Serbians to be the most shady. I think they pair a nice imagination with some serious case of always feeling wronged. Hungarians are still a mystery to me, they do have a potential for romanticism, but maybe they’re too well programmed to roam free. Bulgarians are nice guys, but you can never be sure they’re not being sarcastic. I don’t think it’s a national trait, but maybe a case of Romanians being lost in translation. The latter speak a really weird kind of romance. Because they’ve always experienced it second-hand. That kind of traditional courtship inherited through the ages is almost gone. The one where you would dance with the girl on Sunday and then try to get her alone when she’s out working or whistling over her fence and then eventually stealing her in order to oblige her parents to give you their blessings. Romanians have borrowed bits and pieces from Italian or French and now American fashions of the times and forgot how to pursue women in their own way. The most obvious example is the toxic bachelor syndrome, where men figured after a certain age there is a flip in power and now they can sleep around and convince women it's all right for them to do so because they call it open relationships and everybody does them nowadays. However, I believe women much rather adopted platform high heels than fancy-named polygamy.

What I’ve always loved about the French, for example, is that openness to however sophisticated or absurd approaches to courtship. That ability to see women as means and not ends, to not think about whether tomorrow they may still belong to them. And that gives them a freedom that Easterners’ fear or ridicule would never allow them to experience. The freedom not to think twice before they speak and not to have to hide behind words. And the ability to be there and not somewhere else when they’re with a woman and treat her like she’s the only one left on Earth. When I talk about darkness I don’t refer to mystery. I refer to being impermeable to intimacy and in that sense the more you go East, the thicker the barrier gets.

Latinos are not big on intimacy either, but that fire that everyone talks about, it’s there all right. These guys know what they want and they take it. And they hold on to it. Not by always fearing it’s going away and bitching about it, like Eastern Europeans do. But by being a bit overly possessive and mostly by being insatiable lovers. They are maybe not the most fancy guys you can find, but I believe they know how to enjoy the really good stuff. The sun, the sand, the food, the wine and especially the women. Uncomplicated lovers, I believe they make it to our hearts easily because of that warmth they effuse. But what I like the most about them is that they can really fight. Not just stand there and look angry, not just offend you and walk away. They argue the way they love, spending a lot of energy and burning all of the tension then and there.

It’s a pretty sensible subject and I’m sure anyone could disagree with my experience. It’s always been a bit wrong to put people of a certain nationality in the same box based on traits we consider to be inherent to their ethnicity. But I believe some of the cultural heritage does express itself in our everyday lives, and why not in our relationships.

The First Move | Guest Post Announcement!

Often we are put face to face with the dilemma of the “first move” or with other people who view it as a dilemma. If we look into the past we see that, back then, the first move towards a relationship belonged to the duty of the man, from courtship to asking the lovely lady out on a date, the first kiss and so on. As time passed, some women started adapting and sharing this role of initialization. As a consequence, some men adapted as well and began expecting women to take the first step. So now, we have both men and women who are willing to initialize and, also, who expect the first move from the other. How is this all working out for us? If you’re a woman who expects the man to make the first move and you’re actually lucky enough to find a great guy that does so, all is peachy. But what if you don’t? Is there some sort of a competition as to who makes the first move? Has it become a symbol of power or domination to know what you want and to act accordingly, when all that should be everybody’s own duty towards themselves?

In this strange conflict of who offers the first date or which of the partners goes for the first kiss, there are a few underlying issues that must be discussed. Some people feel that if they initialize, they will be a straight target in case something goes wrong, leaving the partner every dumb right to say “But you started this, it’s your fault!” It’s certainly not what things should be like, but it happens extremely often. So because of not knowing what’ll happen next, people hesitate to create a beginning. Truth be told, you will never really know, and thinking too far ahead can be scary, but it is never an excuse to not try to make the best out of a given situation, and for that best to happen, things have got to start somewhere, at some point! The reverse-situation to this finds itself in the image of the one who wants to conquer for the sheer pleasure of conquering and only afterwards starts wondering what to do with their new found territory. These people will jump right in, make all first moves, offer great experiences and then pause for a bit and say “Excuse me, what was your name again?” Of course, not all those who do make the first move are like that, but we cannot ignore the lot for whom the first priority is to have the longest list of people they’ve been with. Other first-movers are simply determined human beings who, in their head, know exactly what they want and are not afraid to go for it. This would be a great thing if it didn’t prove itself to be so intimidating towards other people, especially if it’s a woman who has that sort of an attitude towards a man, and we all know how difficult it is for men to accept women who are more determined and have a more dominating personality than them.

It’s quite tough to find a ‘perfect match’ in that sense, but it’s not a catastrophic issue. When you’re thinking about making the first move on a potential partner, and your head is filled with “what ifs”, you just have to stop and ask yourself “What have I got to lose?” If it’ll work out, then all’s well. If not, then maybe that’s not the man/woman for you and you mustn’t make a drama out of it. Persisting in a relationship with a person who isn’t right, yet who you desperately want to See as being right, will lead you nowhere, in which case, letting go and moving on isn’t accepting defeat, but rather winning the opportunity of finding something better.

I remember, quite a while ago, I had this argument with a guy after a spontaneous kiss. It was one of those extremely awkward talks that nobody enjoyed, since he thought that I kissed him and I was under the certain impression that he was the one who had kissed me. It obviously didn’t matter as much since what happened had already happened, but because we were both dominant people who, on certain levels, claimed we deserved that the other offered the kiss as to prove I’m not exactly sure what, we both stuck to our own versions of the event. Somehow, I think that both me and him, would’ve wanted to believe our own story about how it happened and that the other one was truly the one who had taken control. This is probably the paradox of all paragraphs I’ve written before in this post: when one is used to taking the first step for years and years of failed relationships, doesn’t one get tired and, for once, just expect another strong person who seems right to come along and do it for them?

It’s a very subjective world out there, I’d even say that there are as many overlapping worlds as there are people, because we all have a distinctive view of what’s going on around us. So if we find someone with whom we can share our world with, without it being a nuclear collision, we should consider ourselves lucky. And when the time comes for that first move, we should know better than to let it be dictated by fear, doubt or egomania and just follow what feels right, take responsibility for our actions, try to make the best of every situation and, in case it is not what we have expected, learn to let go.

Also, for all of our readers, I have an announcement to make! Mischievous Sweethearts will be hosting one monthly Guest post, so if you feel you have a story to share which has taught you a thing or two about men/women, relationships or the world around you, send us an email with your writings at mischievous.sweethearts@gmail.com with the subject “Guest Post”, followed by the title of your work. Daisy and I will read it and choose which will be the next Mischievous Sweetheart. Guest posts will be published on the 1^st of every upcoming month.

Words and actions. Do we really mean them?

I was going home one night with this great guy I had a ‘thing’ with. Now, you must know, a ‘thing’ is something you can’t define as a relationship yet can’t be defined as something else either. We were dating for about a month, but without going exclusive or ever having discussed the options of a relationship, when, as I was thinking all was going well into that direction, he told me he was planning to see other people as well. When you’re a Territorial (and we discussed that in a previous post concerning the “Four Types”), that is one of the things you never want to hear from a potential partner. So, I thought about working things out. After somewhat getting over my anger of having let myself into yet another dysfunctional shit like that, I accepted the fact that he was one of those few people I could talk to about pretty much anything, so at least what had remained of the friendship should have been saved. Back to the story, we had spent a decent evening in one of our local pubs, sheepishly talking through the unresolved tensions we had, telling each other how we couldn’t really afford to lose the friendship since it was one of those rare things you get to find in another person, everything seemed perfectly clear, starting with his relaxation of not being able to offer more, ending with my persistent rage on the whole situation manifested in perfect courtesy and acceptance; and now he was walking me home, as a friend. We reached the destination point, I kissed him on the cheek and, what a surprise (not!) he turned towards me and BAM! Kiss on the lips. Seriously, what the fuck was that all about? Hadn’t we talked things over? Weren’t things perfectly clear? So, after I went upstairs, gave my dog a proper amount of attention, I picked up the phone and called him. “Dude, what the fuck?”

There are many situations in which the “WTF” line fits so well that whatever else would be said could not manage to condense the whole surprise, anger, frustration, revolution and humor. This was one of those situations. “Don’t interpret my words” he said “but I love you, in my own way.” Now this, and anything else that ends in “my own way”, is a line that I am tired of hearing, be it in my own life or in the lives of my friends, who share with me. How can you not interpret something like that? If there were something anyone would like to say that would not be subject to interpretation, it would be nice and clear and surely not ending in words like “in my own way” or, another ‘personal favorite’, “you know what I mean”. No, I don’t know what you mean unless you tell it to me and no, I don’t know what “in your way” is unless you let me know. People ask not to have their words or actions interpreted but they fight against it with all elusive word-sets they find available. Why is that? Why is it so hard to speak your mind once you have something there that’s just nagging the shit out of you? Why does one assume that the other would scorn up a “right interpretation” (and, let’s face it, there is no right interpretation, all that we have is what our subjective little perverted minds feed us) when it would be so much easier to just set barriers aside and speak up? A friend of mine once said “It’s either a cat or a dog.” and I love those words so much! In so many ways, it’s either black or white, gray is just an illusion. You can’t go on saying “I care about you, BUT…” because once you put the “but” there, it’s clearly not the first term. It’s like me going around with my dog saying “Y’know, she’s not a cat, BUT…” it’s a dog. It’s clear even to the dumbest of people that my dog is a dog and nothing I say will make it a cross-over ostrich. So why take that to the next level and try to apply it to relationships? Why do we say things that we don’t mean and why do we then contradict ourselves in other words or other actions?

A couple of years ago I heard a smart joke from a colleague. He said that the mind is formed of 3 parts. One of the parts says “I gotta pee.” The second says “No, don’t pee yourself!”, while the third announces “Ohh…. Too late!” Can this be the case for some people concerning relationships? “I’d like a relationship”, “No, don’t have a relationship”, “Damn, I just got laid, I might as well light a cigarette now…”. I’m thinking it’s a matter of honesty towards your own self. If these three states of mind really exist, we have to stop after the second one has made its statement and ask ourselves “WHY?” Why do we want this? Why wouldn’t we want this? Why would it be good or bad for us? What change would it imply? We can’t just go around throwing misleading actions everywhere we see ‘fit’ just because we can’t control our impulses or can’t be clear of our own motivations, or else we’d become… well, just what the rest of the world is. I’ve seen this so much and, in the past year, I’ve heard of it so much from my closest female friends, that I’m actually starting to wonder, has it become a trend to go on experiencing everything without knowing what we want in life? It is said that once we ask ourselves something, or we are put in front of a decision, a subconscious part of us already knows what to choose and what the answer is. Why can’t we tap into that form of consciousness and harness the ability to stick to what it is we really want or feel? Why must we enter loopholes that eventually takes us to the initial place where we were at?

It's easy to understand if you accept that people always hide behind the simplest way of expressing themselves which has the least possibility of consequences. At first, they'll hide behind the mask of appearance, then behind that of simple gestures also known as flirting. They will hide behind misleading and mostly elusive words without promising anything. Some would even go as far as to hide beyond words that do promise whatever, be it the moon or the stars or even a lame date they never plan on having. Actions, of course, are the hardest to hide behind, because when you act upon something, you bring it into existence, there is no way of un-doing it. Saying that you were "drunk" or "not thinking" are lines that might have worked on a highschooler, but, facing the facts, once you have chosen to perform a certain action, the choice is there, no matter what bumpy road or western highway it has taken in your head. I remember having talked about this issue to a friend of mine, the discussion having the specific subject of cheating. There are no mistakes there, a guy can't tell his girlfriend "I was so drunk, I had no idea what I was doing, so I slept with that chick". As she very well pointed out, it's not like he accidently fell with his penis into her vagina, even to the foggiest of minds, there is a certain pattern that takes the thought into the field of choice and then into the world of action, making it real. There are no mistakes in any action, there are just mind patterns, dysfunctional or not, that lead to that point. And however fucked up they might seem, they are all real, reflecting real issues in the person performing them. If we were all sane, our actions would be fluid, natural happenings that never contradict thought or subconscious stream. Unfortunately, sanity is greatly overrated and, instead of us all undergoing therapy, we allow our own short comings and frustrations to seep into our lives and the lives of others, creating confusion or conflicting situations.

We should all perform an exercise and, for once, try to put our thoughts, impulses and actions on the same line. If we feel something, try to put it into words in ourselves. Once we have completed that, let us all find the actions that reflect what lies within and not something else. I love spontaneous events, but let those events be enriched with a deeper background that one can rely on. Selling false impressions or false hopes won’t give us anything to gain and won’t make us better. It’ll just give us an impression of how smart being retarded feels like right before hitting the next wall that’s out there, which is a wall we ourselves have built and have chosen to crash into.

Emotional Deadlines

I love to observe people around me and their behavior patterns. There are many things that I have learned through observation that have proven to be extremely accurate and very useful. Usually, even though you can create general rules based on it, it’s always fun to try to view the individual uniqueness in expressing that general rule. Sometimes it’s about one person, other times it’s about two or three and their interactions, yet when something so distinctive happens that you have a large group of people change their behavior, you’re thinking you must be onto something.

Emotional Deadlines aren’t as common as the average relationship issue, but one is going to go through something like that at least once in their lives. It could be finishing high-school, university, having to leave the country, or just have a several-year work program end. You can even get caught up in something like this if an old crush you never expressed your feelings towards suddenly has to move far away. Any major change in the lifestyle you were used to regarding people you have certain affinities towards, can create the symptoms of the ‘emotional deadline’.

There was this working program which included a whole lot of people. They had been working together as a team for quite a few years, sharing the good, sharing the bad. I like to picture people working like that as a lot of animals who have to be in the same cage for a few hours per day. After the accommodation has settled in, you can see them start to bond, to nuzzle into each other and occasionally try to establish a form of hierarchy through fighting, then act as if nothing had ever happened, and keep going on like that. So these people I knew had that ‘pack’ bond. Each of them was different in his or her own way, yet together, in the group, each seemed to have their own distinctive role.

Up to now, nothing is out of the ordinary, observation describes a normal human working group. But as the program’s deadline crept nearer, slow and gradual changes started occurring. By the time it was less than one year before the program ended and everybody would have to find another job and part from the X hours per day togetherness that they got so used to, a specific tension started building up, a tension that had stayed dormant for all those years. The little crushes and sympathies between group members, the tiny “likes” or innocent flirting, all fell under the domination of “what if”. “What if I’ll never get a chance to be with that person?” So, after X years in which these potential couples have done nothing to build something in that direction, they felt a compulsive attraction to do so now. But “now” is “too late” and so the struggle between doing it compulsively and not doing it because of other various reasons (e.g. having to move out of town after the program ends, being engaged or married, having various prejudice about certain aspects of the other, same reasons that probably prevented the idea of a relationship earlier) creates a constant interior tension, and while certain parts of the psyche focus on solving that tension, more primordial impulses find their way outside into the subject’s behavior.

And so, after spending time daily with this work group, I noticed that around one year before the deadline, boys and girls ‘paired up’ (not coupled up) and started giving each other the teasing-type of attention that kids usually display when they like one-another: poking, pushing, tickling, grabbing, lifting and carrying the other person around; I noticed that all these actions were done with more physical contact than truly necessary, with a clear purpose of releasing pent-up sexual tension. Of course, as the months progressed, it “spread like wildfire” and there were more and more people doing it. It started to seem like it was some type of disease to which me and a female friend of mine were naturally immune and we were the only ones outside of the box to be able to see clearly inside. What was driving these people into this irrational, noisy, flesh-hungry, childish behavior? Was the power of “what if” and the fear of maybe having missed something so strong that it could just overwrite rational thought and bring out impulses people can’t control and fail to be completely aware of? Are the frustrations of various social conventions that would be against a relationship with a colleague in such a battle with the strong, almost animal-like desire to be with that person, that they render the subject completely brain-dead towards analyzing their own actions? I think one of the problems that people entrapped by this inner tension face is the apparent impossibility of defining what they would want from their poke-tickle-partner. And since they can’t do that, they’ll just keep it into a “safe in-between area”. What happens, though, is that as time passes and the deadline is getting closer and closer, that “safe in-between area” is being granted more and more space. If one year before the deadline, the area was made out of pokes and spontaneous hugs, half a year before the deadline, the area already contained groping and feeling-up, I wouldn’t be surprised to see people flashing each other in public one week before the deadline.

I won’t go on about the further specific situations that were involved in this involuntary experiment. Truth be told, these people don’t have it easy either. Perhaps if they’d be able to get out of the box for even a short while, they’d facepalm and wonder what the hell was in their head behaving like that. Each person had their very own drama to get by, learning to let go is not an easy lesson and the coping mechanisms can amaze even the greatest skeptic. Seeing a phenomenon so intense spread to tens of people in an extremely short period of time was indeed fascinating. In science, this is known as “group toxicity” and you can find it in plentiful lab mice sharing the same box. If one or two start becoming aggressive, the others are bound to follow.

So what have we learned from all this? First of all, rational thought can be overwritten by basic instincts that have built up over years and years. Fear is also a catalyst for this reaction; the fear of losing something you never had/ fear of maybe not getting another chance to make things “right” even though people have failed to define what that “right” really means to them. Thus we get to definition, without defining to ourselves what it is that we want, we fall into our own conflict and end up creating that “safe” area which I have talked about earlier. The “safe” area is, in fact, anything but safe, because it is the gateway to compromises that can eventually go against who we are and what we stand for. The only real safety that can get us through in case we enter such a crisis is facing our own selves, putting abstract chaos into notions we can apply in the actual world we live in. It is our duty to know what we want, since no sane person would want somebody else to decide that for them.

Toxic crushes

This morning a friend of mine posted a song I couldn’t get out of my head. I’ve attached it below. Looking at the comments it got, I realized there’s lots of us out there. People who have their very own Jessie. That one person we cannot say no to, even though they don’t treat us well, are not good for us and when we think we’re off the hook, they just show up out of the blue or mesmerize us from the other end of the line.

One day I thought to myself I’m really over it, but while writing this post I realized I still get the chills and my knees would still melt if I saw him on the street. He could sell me any bullshit any day and maybe I wouldn’t even realize it. But how did I get here? The easiest way is to want it really bad for a very long time and never see it happening until it does. And then being denied the whole thing. Getting just bits and pieces and being driven crazy. However, I believe the mind games were not as effective as the incredible attraction. Because I knew all along he wasn’t good enough for me, but I could’ve spent days and days just looking at him. And doing other stuff. And every time he showed up, he would sweep me away. And every time he’d call, I’d drop the pajamas and walk out the door at 3 a.m. Nothing is as toxic as a desire we manufacture ourselves. It’s like drinking our brains out and waking up the next day feeling intoxicated. When we went out we were all like “yaaay! I’m getting smashed tonight”, but the next day it’s “what on Earth was I thinking?”. It’s the same with these irresistible crushes. We say to ourselves, “what’s a fun night gonna hurt?” but a few days later we do stare at the phone and think of how the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach (stab in and thrust up).

Some people are lucky. They get over it pretty easy. It usually takes a few years. You rarely get to be with your toxic crush, or have a healthy relationship with them at least. So you’ll always have the “the one that got away” syndrome. The big difference being these people are bad for you. They either use you and abuse you or just ignore you, it’s no way you can get out of this without a bruise here and a scratch there. One of my friends had this crush on a guy she usually met at parties. They made out in the broom closet and so on, but she never asked for more, figuring the guy was such a free-spirited person. Even when she was in relationships, he would still hit on her and most times convince her to hook up at least for the night. Eventually he got a plain girlfriend and will be married soon. Someone’s Jessie may be someone else’s Prince Charming. My friend still wonders why she couldn’t be the one. Other people I know just got tired of waiting. Or got tired of being used. They had the balls to call it quits, no matter how badly they wanted to let go and no matter how strongly the other one insisted.

I noticed a few of the comments said “I’m married to/ going to marry my Jessie”. I find that really hard to believe. Someone who doesn’t like and respect you enough to give you more than a few dreams is rarely going to change and decide he’s suddenly ready to settle down and you’re the one he wants to do it with. I could never trust a person who stringed me along for years and I wouldn’t commit to someone who used to tell me he has nothing to offer me (but maybe to someone else he did?). We buy any dream they sell, but somehow we also know it’s a game and we’re willing to play it. We like to play along this make-believe that we could be the one who’s worthy of it all. When in fact we don’t deserve any of this. And choosing to do it to ourselves is utter stupidity. We don’t deserve the booty calls and the last-minute hook-ups, the feeling we’ve made ourselves optional and disposable and going along with it just so that we can lie to ourselves a little bit more.
So seriously, the Rolling Stones had this great chorus we may want to keep in mind, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need”. Things that are bad for us may look sooo attractive, but at the end of the day we need to let them go. When we choose to be used and abused it’s our cross to bear, but allowing somebody to do us wrong thinking they’ll eventually grow to appreciate us is not an option. Because we deserve the best we can get and hanging on to a toxic crush is not it. 

“I Love you!” “Oh.”

So, you’ve been going out for awhile, he’s kind and considerate and appears to always have his eyes on you, constantly seeking to make you more comfortable. He cares about your well-being, he’s an awesome kisser and things in bed tend to get beyond amazing. You appreciate him cause he’s smart and affectionate, has a great sense of humor, your friends like him, he likes your friends and as the days go by you feel this growing sensation, the tension becomes stronger until, either in a romantic setting, or in a loud pub, after having your self control raped by the last five glasses of wine and two beers, you blurt it out in an extravagant, lame or unfittingly surprising “I love you.”

Turning point! What now? Best case scenario, he gives you “the look” (the good kind), smiles brightly as if he had just struck gold, tightly wraps his arms around your body and, overwhelmed by the awesomeness of the moment, says “I love you too!”. Movie cliché, I know… but let’s admit that at some point we all dream of those clichés as if our lives depended on it and then act disappointed when something else happens. Worse (not worst, cause no matter how hard we try to imagine that, there will always be a worse possibility out there) case scenario, he throws you a confused look, with a matching smile and says “Oh.”, with an awkward moment of silence next in line. You see, the specific “Oh.” sound is the warning sign that a retarded moment is soon to follow. It also usually couples up really well with expressions such as “That’s a nice thing to say”, "Thanks!" or “Good for you”. What happens after this monument of humiliation is as limitless as imagination, from a slap to a kick in the balls, to a cold “F*ck you” or a polite “Well, I was honest”, then resuming the evening as if nothing had ever happened. It all depends on the way you say the initial turning point line and why you do it.

Is there a right way and wrong way to say “I love you”? I think there is. The right way should be foolproof and no matter what you get as an answer, you’re shielded against pain. The wrong way can start guilt trips or fits of rage if not met with the same enthusiasm. I’ll start with the less fortunate of possibilities, the root of which finds itself in the reason of saying those three words people love to misunderstand so much. The vast majority says “I love you” because they want to hear an “I love you” in return. Not anything else, not a dumb, drooling, prolonged “Awwww”, not an elusive “I also care” and certainly not “Well there’s a fine thing to say!”. “I love you” has become a request for similar feedback rather than the expression of a real feeling. You see this, especially in couples who say it a hundred times per day and somehow never seem tired of doing so. Those three words have turned into a need for validation. Insecure relationship partners use it as a ‘problem-solving’ solution for gaining short-lived moments of security in which they bask for awhile until their uncertainties kick in again, at which point they resume asking for the same validation as before, without realizing that this doesn’t solve anything, but rather strips those three words of the real meaning they should be having.

The right way of doing it, in my opinion, is for the sheer and obvious reason of expressing a sincere feeling, without expecting anything in return, because the whole purpose resumes itself to informing the other person of the way you perceive him or her. The moment you see “I love you” as an honest affirmation rather than an inquiry upon the other person’s feelings, nothing that will be said to you will be harmful because whatever the response is, you know that your goal has been achieved: the other person has been informed. From that point on, it’s their choice what to do with what they have heard. If they have a positive response, you take it from there to whatever level feels right. If not, you might have to reconsider them being “right” for you and simply move on, knowing that you didn’t lie about it, knowing that you didn’t put on hundreds of masks or played stupid high-school mind games. You’ll find yourself at peace, because we are always at peace once we do the right thing.

Another issue I have noticed is that in a relationship there’s some type of a dysfunctional race: who says “I love you” first? The tension just keeps building up and partners renounce great opportunities to speak up just because they don’t want to be the first to say it. It’s like whoever says it first looses the game. I really don’t get that. Is it the fear of scaring the other away? Is it the fear of not receiving the answer they had expected? Why is fear such a present entity in the love equation since fear, in itself is the silent nemesis of love? It doesn’t matter who says “I love you” first as long as it’s done for the right reason and it comes from a sincere impulse. Honesty is not a game, it’s something you either do or you don’t. Some men won’t take this first step cause they think it’s “gay”, some women won’t do it because they think it might render them completely vulnerable in the other’s view, some don’t do it because they think it’s a gateway to being taken advantage of. I have this great male best friend whom I can talk to about absolutely everything and at some point I told him that I loved the partner I had then. My friend raised an eyebrow, looked at me and said a short and accentuated “Fag”. Where have these misconceptions begun and why are they still there? Do people enjoy creating artificial mind-sets that end up hurting themselves and others? Wouldn’t it be easier to just take things as they are without creating entire universes out of off-the-hook interpretations?

The very last being I said “I love you” to, before posting this, was my dog, a short while ago today. I didn’t get frustrated because she didn’t answer a perfectly articulate “I love you too”, it didn’t piss me off that after she licked my nose she moved away and gave all of her attention to a yellow ball, and most certainly, I don’t get jealous when she goes around playing with other dogs. Love comes in all shapes and sizes, but it’s only when it’s honest and from the heart that it can truly move mountains.