December 2008
December 18th, 2008 by steph | shades of perspective
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this distance in your realization in the the way you’ve been, no one can be so cold and be without skin, but it’s been hundreds of years and there is no care
i don’t know where my propensity for attracting all things awkward in my life comes from, but it’s there. and as someone who attracts awkward and uncomfortable things, i have come to expect them in all cases. like, i am a weird on the phone talker. i would rather text. i am UNBELIVEBLY awkward hanging out with someone for the first time, romantic or platonic. i don’t know what it is, but i FIXATE on the utmost possibility of awkward in any situation and assume that it is what i will be involved in.
i suppose that is the reason i attract all things awkward. i am fixated on them, assuming they will happen, and thus attract them.
i guess being a communication scholar has given me the disposition of someone studying the patterns and behaviors of people. so much, in fact, that i view all interactions (my own included) as awkward because it is like i am seeing them in slow motion, applying communication and psychology theories to real life interactions at all times. (#academicgeek)
but thankfully, universe, you have shown me the light. it seems as though lately, since i’ve moved to the wild wild west, i have unconsciously, and probably with some weird form of protestation, actually been attracting amazing, genuine, kind awesome people into my life. and i am FINALLY opening my eyes to what a world beyond awkward looks like.
and as our unconscious minds are usually seventeen steps ahead of our conscious selves, i guess six months after experiencing these relationships i am consciously ready to give up the underlying social anxiety that comes with living in an “all awkward all the time” world.
at first i thought it was the type of people i was meeting in san francisco. this magical little town is comprised of 90% non natives with like minds, that are attracted to a place where innovation, support, open mindedness and success are cornerstones of living. and i had not previously lived in a place where such a large percentage of the population “got it.” so i chalked it up to the universe guiding me to the exact right place for me.
and that is by no means false or any less important now that i ALSO realize that i have outgrown being awkward at all times. but i now know that it is not just san francisco. cause lately, and oddly, i have found that i am opening myself up to much more genuine and non-awkward relationships with people that do not live in san francisco.
i’ve always had this weird habit of connecting with boys that live in other cities. and i could see how that was possibly a way of putting up a wall on letting things be easy, natural, genuine and not awkward. i made it so that whenever i saw these people from other cities the awkwardness would be sooo monumental that when i ‘plowed’ through it i felt excited and alive and rejuvenated. and that excitement transferred to my feelings for that person (holy shit. sometimes when i apply theories to my own life shit becomes so clear). whoa, not quite over the fact that i just typed that rational understanding of something i have never been able to really pinpoint. deep breath.
but lately, it seems as though i am having these honest, real, amazing connections with people in my city and others, without ever having to plow through any awkwardness. and it is so unbelievably…. nice. that is the only way to put it. nice. it is a calm connection. there is no earth shattering excitement transfer. i guess feel like i am opening myself up to people with a less guarded disposition. and creating amazing connections without awkwardness.
is it possible that i have outgrown my “all things awkward” lifestyle?
jane austin, where have you gone? is it anyone’s fault, that we escape into our own defense… you don’t know what it’s like… to be american.
December 15th, 2008 by steph | shades of perspective
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separate love from addiction, they’re not the same, i know i see desperation pulling my strings…hey eliza, is this what you want? sometimes you compromise to get the things you need…
so, maybe i’m from the olden days. or have some weird outdated and skewed vision of men and relationships. but i have this weird skepticism of men and love. i mean, that they want it. believe in it. care about it. but i have NO idea WHY i feel this way. my dad is the most sensitive romantic love believer ever. it must go back, again, to the ex. who flat out doesn’t believe in love (ha). who broke up with me. who thought emotions, having and expressing, were signs of weakness. (ps. he wasn’t all bad. i have just, thankfully, wholly realized how not very relationship compatible we were).
so, in my brian, emotions=girliness=weakness=not good. and thus my unique obsession for guys that believe. and in this oh so funny way that the universe works… it seems as though i am presently SURROUNDED by those men that believe. i have been talking multiple guy friends through breakups recently. how it will all work out. how they will love again. how she wasn’t the love. how being single is not so bad. in fact, it is good. and healthy. and how i know what it is like to have heartache but it will go away. all of these things. and it is, honestly, confusing, and uplifting, and schema shattering.
i was talking to a group of guys this past week and one of them said, “i have never broken up with a girl. i have always been broken up with.” and i was shocked. because 4 of the 5 guys at the table had the exact same experience. and then i got to thinking. i can count 8 guys in my life that have been broken up with over the last year/6 months. and they were all heartbroken. and when i expand the time frame i begin to think about alllllll the good guys i know that have been broken up with.
and i have tons of guy friends. all of which talk openly with me about their dating lives. and how they want to make the right next move and are looking for that perfect girl, and believe in the power of a relationship. but i never seem to hear these things and think that i will ever, umm, have one of those guys. it is like they are two separate things in my brain. the majority of guys in my life wanting and believing in relationships, and how guys act in relationships. so, i guess i am finally starting to really let go off this outdated idea in my brain that in a relationship the guy is going to be less emotional, less expressive, less open to love. and open myself to transferring the relationship experiences of my friends into my brain’s image of what a relationship should be.
there are guys out there that believe. in love. in relationships. in working for it. in making it happen. and i am friends with a million of them. now i just need to learn to believe that i deserve the same. and attract one of those types to be my boyfriend. ha.
and i don’t even expect much anymore. anyway, it’s not like i was waiting for you to come and make it all ok…
December 10th, 2008 by steph | shades of perspective
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take my hand, come with me, into this crystal scenery
so i’ve written before about letting people in. especially after hurting from a break up. or creating relational schemas from an old relationship, or whatever. but this weekend i was talking to a friend about actually starting to date someone after being single for so long. and she and i are in similar places, having been single for three or so years, and loving ourselves, our lives, and what we have created. and also not ever willing to settle.
and we have both dated around and met boys that we would like to date who didn’t feel the same way, or had boys want to date us that we didn’t reciprocate. but on the whole, we are strong, single women. looking for the right guy to let in.
and she asked me about something that i have actually thought about a lot, she said, “do you think people just get into relationships cause it is easy? i mean, how do you KNOW that this is the one you want to give up the search for.” and i said, “sheesh, i have no idea. i think the right guy will just make you not even think about being with anyone else. you won’t even think that you are giving up, or that there is possibly someone else.
and this is a thought i have had many times before. usually when i am very casually dating someone i get this freak out moment in my head that maybe this will be the guy. and i won’t be able to go out and try and meet cute boys, or i won’t be able to make-out with that repeat offender that i see every 9 months, and i won’t be able to peruse missed connections hoping to see one about a curly haired red head. and i wonder, is this guy worth the last THREE YEARS i spent growing and loving myself? is THIS the guy to give in for?
and then i wonder. if i am thinking that way, then am i settling? i mean, being single is a roller coaster. sometimes you can’t imagine ever giving up your freedom, or independence, or self love for someone else. and the sometimes you can’t stand the thought of sleeping alone in your bed one more night. and sometimes you give in to the drunken attention and invite someone into your bed that you know will not break the single streak just to fill that void. and sometimes you close yourself off to someone that may actually be good to break the streak with because you want make sure you are representing everything that three years has meant, and not settling.
so. how do you know that the person you are casually dating is the person you want to be exclusively dating. my first thought is that it should be a no brainer. you should just want to be with that person so much that the other questions are non issues. not to be a jerk cause we will get to me next, but what about those serial monogamers that go from one relationship to another. they don’t even ever THINK about all the things that one must ‘give up’ to be in a relationship. and to touch on us, the hold on to our single lifers, the ones that are always single, never in a relationship, we gotta give in and do it sometime.
so, where is the balance? how do we let someone in without not losing all the lessons learned and growth from being genuinely single and self sufficient for an extended period of time. without becoming someone that does not know how to be single, always going from relationship to relationship and risking our self worth be comprised of the attention we get from a significant other.
you would never have the time
i would love to change your mind
you were there
and it was good in the beginning
you were there
we were good in the beginning
December 5th, 2008 by steph | shades of perspective
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there is a black hole at the center of the universe, its gravity is strong and it’s pulling everybody back in, but we’re trying to escape it, trying to escape inevitability
recently i wrote about my fear of the emotional sneak attack. that moment where something from your relational past sneaks up on you when you least expect it and emotionally breaks you in half all over again. something that was difficult for you to process the first time. something that you think you have moved past. something from which, because of its intensity, you are proud and fulfilled to have moved on.
and that post was most certainly written about one situation in particular. and right on key, when i least expected it, i was sneak attacked by a completely and totally different emotional situation. (right on key because the previous writing/awareness of the fear of the specific situation before alleviated the possibility of the attack).
(sorry in advance for the presence of the relational schemas developed from my ex in recent posts, but i’m processing dammit ; )
i guess i’ll explain the relevant schema and then the recent sneak attack and then. i dunno. maybe just telling someone(s) will just help me release it.
my ex was private. and had a laundry list of crazy ex girlfriends. (i know what you’re thinking, i may be crazy, but i’m normal crazy. i just analyze my own shit a lot). and these crazy ex girlfriends would use every bit of information they could to manipulate and use him. also, his parents were very smart psychologists always probing into his personal life. therefore, he was very very private. even when he needn’t be. and towards the end of our relationship thefacebook became a very popular past time of post college grads. and an even more popular past time of my second job out of college desk sitting position self. and then came myspace. and he refused to be a part of this web 2.0 phenomenon. all while relentlessly making fun of me for my involvement with such interwebness. which was fine. and i had the occasional photo of us posted, and said i was in a relationship in my profiles, but i was never that girl that had a gazillion photos of me and my boyfriend up and blah blah (probably because he would never allow it, and i did respect his privacy).
so we dated very seriously for a few years, and (shortly before our breakup) he caved and created his own little space on the net. and i was excited to welcome him to that addicting world of social media. and i saw that his profile said single. and i asked him about it. and he said that he didn’t specifically choose that, and that it must have been the default. and i said, “oh, well then change it silly.” and that was enough neediness (after years of dating) to send him the opposite direction and refuse to change the relationship status because he, “was in fact single, because he was not married.” and then i added him as a friend (duh) and he refused to accept it. saying that it was personal. and that i was part of his everyday life enough. that he didn’t need me snooping into his life (assuming that i would strategically write all over his comments and photos to mark my territory, even though i didn’t keep so much as a hair brush at his house after two years in fear that he would think i was marking my territory). needless to say that was pretty close to the beginning of the end. we broke up a few months later. and then a few months after that, not able to let go of the connection, became best friends again. so i tried again. sent that myspace friend request assuming that he understood that we were broken up and his life was his life and if i did find anything out on is page that was romantically personal that he knew that it was, consequently, my issue to work through. refused. again.
and there we were. best friends again. but he stood strong on not letting me into that part of his life. well, obviously, i unconsciously developed a few relational schemas as a result of this steel wall he put up. and most of those i have worked through. 1) understanding that i am NOT the needy and crazy girl he often unconsciously treated me as, 2) that i do not need someone in my life that does not understand that i don’t snoop on people i care about because i assume that out of mutual liking for one another we are open with each other (read: would not be ashamed of being my friend on facebook, and would like when i commented because it was not strategic, just friendship), 3) that some people have a skewed sense of self importance and believe that other’s live breathe and die to know their personal business when this is not the case in reality (read: sometimes, no matter what i do, some people are going to ascribe meanings to my actions that have nothing to do with what i did or my intent), and 4) (the one i was sure that almost 3 years later i had processed and released) that anyone worth caring about in my life will understand me, or try to, and openly care about me in return, and if they do not then it is not someone i need in my life (read: i am NOT inadequate to be in their life).
so, 3 years later he is now on facebook. i know this because i am friends with his best friend, his little brother, his sister, his brother in law
(and so forth) and when they added him as a friend it showed in my feed. and since we talk regularly, and most certainly consider one another friends (not best friends since we moved to opposite coasts), i added him as a friend. the personal message reading, “welcome to the dark side.” and then i call him to see how his thanksgiving was. and he’s tired and hungover and being overly mean to me in the wake of his crankiness. and i say, “oh! hey! i’m your facebook friend now! accept me :)” (i added the smiley cause i was smiling and light hearted while speaking to him). and he says, “no way, rub (his nickname for me).” and i say, “what? why not silly?” and de ja vu, i apparently became clinically crazy thinking this time i would get a different result from the same behavior. 3 years later. thousands of miles away. a million positive life and emotional changes (on my part) and he still thinks that being my friend on the internet is different and
more dangerous than in real life. i had lunch with his mom this week while in detroit. that is how much we are still in each other’s lives. we talk regularly, once every week or two, and i believe still genuinely care about one another. and here i am RATIONALIZING MY POSITION IN HIS LIFE TO TRY AND EXPLAIN MY FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY for not being able to be his freaking facebook friend. i was affected for a good portion of the day after our conversation. it was a sneak attack. something of which, especially in the web2.0geekloveworld of SF, i had rid myself. the fear that someone does not understand the purpose and function of social media sites and thus projects those misunderstandings onto my actions, making me look and feel stupid.
so here i am. BLOGGING about it. to people that get it. possibly it is rationalizing, but i believe it is more an act of reaching out to a community that understands me and asking for support and assurance that this is not me. i am not inadequate.
i thought i saw somebody drowning in the crystal waters of lake michigan
i threw in a life preserver, but preservation is always only temporary
see i can offer you my hand, but i can’t save you from inevitability
December 3rd, 2008 by steph | shades of perspective
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baby it just gets so hard, when you live in the USSR, and people they just make believe that heaven is far from their hearts
back to nice guys.
i don’t have any clue where my propensity for being with or liking jerks has come from. however, i know that it is not from my father. that being said. i find myself in this weird space between between being attracted to jerks and actually going for the nice guy. i no longer allow myself to dive head first into a pool of jerkdom, however, it seems as though i cannot let the nice guy in.
i am skeptical of the nice guys. skeptical of their genuineness. after this holiday season, i think i can accurately say it comes from my stubborn and independent grandma dub. as i have mentioned before, ms. h.c. dub does not like to feel as if she is owned. she responds to compliments with jokes (“oh, you’re just saying that cause it’s true,” one of her most commonly used), gives way more than she receives, and actively and verbally expresses her dislike for taking favors from others. she is a polak to the the core. strong, independent, capable and will not let anyone tell her differently. i take after grandma dub alright.
but somewhere intertwined with the inheritance of independence i have picked up a fear to believe that people are genuinely nice. that people may genuinely think that i am nice. and therefore, until now, i have had no need for good guys in my dating life.
don’t get me wrong. i WANT the good guys in my life. but i can never seem to let my guard down enough to accept that they are being nice, or good, or genuine because they want to. but instead, to get me in a position of less power. yes. i know. this is one of my most “i should get therapy for this” relational schemas. but remember, i’m stubborn. and i believe that awareness gets me a long way.
therefore, i attract and am attracted to relational partners that are not, um, nice. don’t get me wrong. they are not (usually) mean. but not overtly nice, and kind, and gentle. and i usually don’t like to talk specifically about my ex (and im 99.9% percent sure he doesn’t give a shit about this blog anyway so here i go…) but my relationship with him solidified that it’s not normal for boys to be overtly nice and kind and gentle. for whatever reason the dynamics of our relationship dictated me being more attractive, and appealing when i remained independent and unfazed by any and all nice things, never ever expecting them, and keeping my guard up when surprised by them.
but i have acknowledged that this is not healthy. and recently have even had conversations with a girlfriend about how refreshing it is for her to be dating someone that is nice, and gentle, and LIKES her. and tells her. and compliments her. and ALSO allows her to be her.
and then, while in the midwest, i had a weekend filled with a nice boy (again, i try to avoid at all costs talking about one person in particular in my writing, especially if they read… but i’m making exceptions today, hoping he will understand). and it was like having an out of body experience. he said nice things. compliments. was kind and caring. and i felt it was genuine. and i know it was. but i just couldn’t fully embrace the things he said. i know that he meant them, which is more than i can usually believe, and i wanted to allow myself to feel the way one is supposed to feel when they are with a nice fun cute caring boy/girl that they have a lot in common with, but i couldn’t feel. maybe it is because of my affliction for having a connection with boys that live far away, and the accompanying resolution to not go there anymore. maybe i’m jaded. maybe i’m stubborn. maybe i’m broken. i’m not sure.
but this boy. he said things that i hear in movies and dream of having said to me. nothing over the top. the normal things that nice, cute normal boys say to girls they like. it’s pathetic, but after dating
the not nice guys it is these NORMAL, not over the top, things that i dream of having said to me. and here i was, this weekend, hearing them. and feeling calm and thankful and enjoying my time with this boy. but it was like i had this screen door protecting me. like i would let the nice things come in with the breeze but the door was locked so ultimately he could not come inside. (mind you, he lives far far away so, in this case, the screen door’s purpose was served).
it just got me thinking. i am a hopeless hopeless romantic. but i think deep down, i don’t think that all the things that come with romance will ever be mine. like i don’t deserve, or need them. and it seems as though my psyche is ok with that. i just don’t expect them to happen to me. (therefore, in the way the universe works, they will never actually come to me).
so what now. well, first. thank you. nice boy. you know who you are. and you have unknowingly opened me up a little more. helped me walk closer to the screen door. and provided me with a few of those off the cuff but honest movie lines that i will replay in my mind for a long time to come. second, umm… i’m not sure of what comes next…
and even though we’re free from the evil communist party, my mother she still makes believe that heaven is far from her heart