People and the internet at large have strong feelings about men and women who choose not to wear rings despite taking the proverbial plunge. The most common opinion is that married individuals who eschew the band are looking to cheat.
A couple years ago I became fascinated with the story of two friends who challenged themselves to date for 40 days. Cynics accused them of angling for a book deal or a way to showcase their elaborate word art and Target-esque video aesthetic. I looked at my then shitty relationship and thought, maybe I’d been overlooking love salvation in one of my own friends for the past 10 years. Timothy, the leading man in this experiment resembled a lot of the men I had dated, broken by a less-than-ideal relationship with his father, aloof, creative. And I found Jessica, the leading lady, to be entirely relatable embracing hopeless romanticism despite a string of failed relationships.
One of the trickiest things to deal with in relationships, especially early on, is the truth about feelings. Stereotypes suggest ladies should hold them in lest she spook Him. Man-types are thought to feign emotions in order to reach their destination (i.e., her pants). In a perfect world, people would just be honest with each other and accept that honesty as they work toward building a relationship together. But that doesn’t always happen and sometimes the honesty isn’t enough to stake claim over the moral high ground.
We live in a Post-The Game world and regardless of whether or not Strauss renounced his ridiculous tactics as “objectifying and horrifying” the world he exposed is still alive and well. There are pickup artist communities crawling all over the dank crevasses of the interwebs. And the notions fostered within those communities ooze out into the world, wreaking havoc and leaving broken people in their wake.
One thing I’ve learned from revitalizing this blog is that some relationship problems ring true from year to year. Couple to couple. Three years ago, I wrote this about my inability to give my boy of the month anything resembling space. In the years since I’ve become much better about this little quirk. Partly because I’ve finally been able to hold down a dude for longer than a year and a half. Partly because I took Big Sister Morgan’s sage advice. Partly, because after nearly 30 years getting set in my individualistic ways, I began to need my own breathing room. Partly because I'm lying to myself and to you.
All this chatter about Ashley Madison has led to some interesting/infuriating/ad nauseum discussions about relationships and cheating. The defenses of public-ish figures caught in the honey trap range from a very special Mark Driscoll Real-Marriage brand of victim blaming to Shaggy’s perfectly articulated “it wasn’t me.” My favorite, and the one I’ll address here is the age-old “It was just for funsies. I looked, but I didn’t touch.” Anecdotally and sorta newsly this lame ass excuse is presumed to have legs according to what I presume is skeevy men.
There comes a time in every young woman’s romantic journey when someone in her life thinks they know better than she does. He’s too this and not enough that for you. Your backgrounds are just too different. He seems like someone who may have a midlife crisis and leave you for his secretary 15 years from now so you should probably just call it now.
One of the few connections I made online dating that had any sort of promise at all was met almost immediately with the challenge of distance. Cosmic circumstances brought him out of my state and into another with no definite return date. It was unfortunate because he had the makings of great potential.
