Love, glove, dove. Dove is good.
Love is like a dove. Or a big, fuzzy glove.
Love – both a curse and a blessing, but most oftentimes a curse. It strains friendships, it creates terrible situations for those to be completely selfish and throw out all human decency all in the name of love. It’s the source of this bane of my existence called Valentine’s Day and makes me uncomfortable, makes me hate chick flicks, and makes me feel bitter about my all-too-short history with the opposite sex. How did I get to such a jaded point so early in my adulthood?
Recently at work I was assigned to write a rather long feature about couples being married at the same company. Keep in mind, I had to stay after work to work on this because I am just about straddling two jobs. I seriously found myself googling “love” as I was so bitter by this point the only serious relationship I’m in right now is to my job [Why else would I still be sitting there at 8 o’clock at night?]. I finally stumble upon a chunk of love poems from some user-submitted website. Finally! – A starting point! How I hate the writer’s block. I scroll through this decently designed website and click on links to poems in which the titles don’t induce vomiting. I read about twenty-or-so-poems. Every, single, solitary poem has typos in it. Or grammatical errors. Or are just POORLY WRITTEN. Shakespeare would just die.
Love is for idiots.
“That’s it, I have finally figured out love. Love is for idiots,” I think, I close everything I’m working on as a front runner in the love life [okay, not sure what he is, but he is now, never has been, or never will be “just a friend” to me] convinces me I’ve already worked too long today and then I escape to go run 3 miles after working 12 hours straight. It was an interesting Tuesday. Then I keep thinking, with each pounding step and with each Static X or some other screaming, freedom loving rocker with a high tempo shooting through my ears, “Love is for uneducated imbeciles, love is for bored people and used as validation techniques to bear children or get married or come into a rather large inheritance and we’re all clueless to what we’re really doing, clouded by this judgment blur that comes up through the throat and throws logic out the window. Validation to be ignorant to reality. I swear to God I’m going to pay a man to go on a couple of dates with me and then agree with me that we’re better off as friends. None of this cheating, or lying, or using, or putting me down, or pregnant ex girlfriends… And I try to stick with the “nice” guys – I should have just started off with the ‘bad’ guys and saved myself a lot of time.” The entire process is an exhausting end to an already exhausting day.
And after a cooldown and stretching, I return to my car, and my blackberry, where this someone somewhere else in the world is thinking of me and encouraging me to run and can’t believe how many hours I put in at work for the results I’m not getting. Despite the fact that we talk once or twice almost every day, I hold back. A lot. Why?! This could be big! And then I feel guilt. Guilt that he’s rather optimistic about everything, and everything he says to me I devour in grains of salt, convince myself he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, and I don’t believe his [possibly? completely?] honest statements. It hits me I’m finally that woman in which nothing is enough. I can’t take his compliments, I tell him not to call long distance and then get mad when he doesn’t, I don’t know how to be so open in my learned helplessness and all of the shades of powerless I’ve felt in every, single solitary dealings with the opposite sex I’ve ever had, because I’ve always tried my hardest to be a good girlfriend, by swallowing my pride and allowing them to “be a man”, only to get walked all over and taken advantage of [I think I might be onto something here…].
Love is for idiots and makes us into idiots.
Everything I have ever known has taught me to use my head. What’s he do, what’s his education, what’s his background – all building blocks to a figure I’m envisioning, all while trying to get to know this person and completely accept who they are for who they are, and not trying to change a man. I’ve spent years avoiding the all-too-common forcing a man to watch movies he doesn’t want to, making them go on shopping trips they don’t want to – for what? To get talked to like a child, to get pushed around and put down, to be taken advantage of. To be tricked into trying harder because someone or someone they know doesn’t think I’m good enough, that I look good enough, or that my education is too much. And then it always turns to worse. Honest to God, if someone tells you they love you, why would they make snide comments or put their hands on you? Why would they lecture you like you’re an idiot over some religious differences and then be completely unrealistic about the same arguments in the coming months because they’re unable to live up to the facade they’re trying to display? How could someone do something to you under the influence and not remember the next day, and apologize only after they’ve seen the bruises? How am I good enough one weekend and then not good enough the next when basically nothing happens during the week? How am I applauded for who I am and eventually left for my opposite?
Love is for idiots and people are jerks.
Something happens and the ShennAbbeygans wants me to tell something mean to a boy who was not so nice to me. This line of communication would have been well-deserved, hilarious, and, kind of bitchy. “Just do it,” she says. “I’m kind of over the revenge thing,” I say. “He treated you like shit,” she says. “Lots of guys have treated me like shit,” I say without thinking. As soon as I say it, I feel awful. How have I allowed myself to tolerate such behavior? Am I that desperate that I do not speak my mind or value my own opinion enough to say it openly? How have I allowed this treatment over the past decade, why is the ball always in their court? That’s it. And I ended up saying it. It was pretty hilarious. I’m glad I finally did something to stand up for myself, even in this tiny matter.
Love is for idiots and makes people into jerks.
How do I end this cycle? Clearly there are things leftover from the previous decade that need to be let go. Completely.
Maybe he can change me.
