Love Doesn't Mean What It Use To (part the 2nd)

The final example comes from my somewhat recent past. Hopefully you could tell from my previous post none of the previously mentioned relationships were ones in which I could say I was in love. With this one it is safe to say I was/am. Thus was I exposed to not only the female fallacy but the male as well. If the female mistake is to create a fantasy and try stuff their man into it until the cry uncle the male is to try and fit that shape as best as possible. Let me explain. It all started well and everyone was honest with each other, except for a few things which I should have either talked about before moving further in or stopped right then.

If you are not a jealous person then you should not be in relationship with someone who is. Do not take their word for it, find out for yourself. This one conflict is the stem of all the problems I tried to overcome and failed. From the beginning I made the mistake of telling her that she was the only one I was dating. This was interpreted to mean "You are the only one I want to date." I'm a smart person, I realized the mistake early on but I did nothing to correct it. Instead I was bullheaded and thought she should come around to my understanding since I never said what she thought to begin with. You can see where this is going. Within the first 3 months (standard dating threshold) I spent time with five other women. In my life that does not mean a date and definitely not sex, but just going out having fun. Of those five there was only one date, one make out session, and a kiss. My final decision, afterwards, was to become serious with she I had met first. Now I told her about every single one but the catch is she thought we had been exclusive the whole time and she never really forgave me, mainly because I had not volunteered the information.

A little thing about me. I will tell almost anybody anything about me as long as they ask. How does that work? Do on to others as they would onto you. I don't want to hear about your life unless I ask so don't expect me to change to fit your world. It's that kind of stubbornness I should have stuck to and everything would have ended better. So where is the problem? If she knew about those five then I should be free and clear. Nope, the reaction I got was anger, wanting to do violence, acceptance, and an overall since of jealousy. One of them I didn't care about but I lost 2 friends because even their mention made her mad and bitter words to be projected at me. Wait! There's the trap. I lost two friends because I cared more for keeping her happy then keeping US happy and that is the male fallacy.

Thus began a pattern of meeting females for purposes of friendship and not telling my gf about them. Hindsight tells me that looks like I'm cheating on her. It doesn't matter what the truth is, especially for someone who does not trust anyone. There's plenty of blame to go around and most of it involving me not listening to reason behind these posts. Love means being yourself and getting loved in return. There are no sacrifices expected nor expectations to be maintained. If someone has a tendency to talk to other people, like I do, then you you except it or find out why.

Talking about sacrifices here is a BIG example. When you move 500 miles to be with someone then you try to make a life and not tell your other one every week how much you gave up for leaving home to be with them. I received constant reminders about this, and I do understand she gave up a lot, but I already moved away from home and gave up everything several times. One could argue that this was more a problem for us then the above but it's not something I can understand. What I didn't tell her was I was wiling to move but only once she had accepted it didn't matter where because as long as we were together we would be happy. Why didn't I tell her that from the beginning? That would be a cheap lesson now wouldn't it? Instead all I ever heard was how much happier and better her life had been when she was living at home. At least here I stuck to my beliefs.

Where else did I fail? It's not fair to blame others and I hate doing it. SO lets talk about me. In the end love for me is something undefinable. It is given without condition or expectations with infinite forgiveness. The word I use to best portray this is unconditional love. That's where I fell on my face and everything went from bad to dead. For some reason I don't understand I started to believe that there should be complete and utter trust (true) but that trust should include that your lover understand you and trust you because of that understanding. That is bullshit. It is impossible to understand a person enough to trust them. Love is taking a leap of faith that although you do not know this person beyond a shadow of a doubt you will love them and not expect it in return. Me in my infinite stupidity decide to test this in a way I had already been warned she would do to me.

We had broken up. After almost two years together I decided to try my test for a third time. The test was to take some old emails and modify them just enough to give suspicions but never outright say anything wrong. The first two times I did this nothing happened but all of a sudden she decides to check my purposely left open laptop and find the emails. Did the shit hit the fan! Note readers that I have never cheated on any girlfriend who was exclusive with. These emails did imply a tight relationship with other girls then was usual. The truth is the conversations I had with them was the same I had with several other guys, but because they were women that meant I was cheating to her. Where the male fallacy stepped in was that I did not immediately confess but instead thought that since she loved me she would forgive me and I could tell her then. Of course I had not considered the female fallacy of fantasy.

In the end I completely lost what I had and now I have a new conviction to be me no matter what. There will be a person out there who understands the old meaning of love and not expect me to satisfy some new meaning created by modern media and hollywood. Well, at least I hope that is true.
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Love Doesn't Mean What It Use To (part the 1st)

Today the meaning of love has been twisted to the point where it simply doesn't have any close to the same meaning. If we take a look at Webster it gives us:

love (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (2): attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

Wow, that's a far cry from what I was raised to believe. What ever happened to the love that transcends all obstacles or love that conquers all to reunite two people? We don't even have love at first sight any more. Why is it that love is taken so carelessly in today's day and age? One insight that might explain it has been to tie it to the rise in technology. The basic premise is we have advanced so far with communication that although it is mush easier to be in touch with more people but the quality of that contact has degraded by telephones, radio, TV, and the internet. We see and hear more people but for a lot less time. This has some truth to it but seems to give only a partial answer. Still another reason has been the rise of great cities and has almost the same answer as before. Living in cities we come in contact and befriend hundreds of people instead maybe like back in the day.

In the end both these reason and all the others seem to be blaming the problem on something else, as most people do. The reason that has occurred to me is something more basic. People are no longer provided good examples on how to grow up. Parents are neglecting their responsibility of telling stories to their children about the prince who rescues the princes from the dragon. We've become to hung up on the characters in the story because it is chauvinistic to believe the princes needs help from the prince in the first place. It's damn DRAGON everybody, of course she needs help. Change the story to the princes is waging an decade old battle with the dragon and the prince comes as re-enforcements, but keep telling your children these stories.

Why is is so important to provide these moral stories to our children? Because otherwise they grow up believing that they know better. Men think the lying, cheating, possession thoughts that occurred to them in puberty are how the rest of the world operates. Women grow up thinking all they have to do is meet mister wrong and their motherly affection will turn these Oedipus children into proper husbands. The fantasy is nothing but that. In the past ten years I have had five women tell me they love me while I have loved two myself. One of those I have loved did not return the love and married someone else. This in no way diminished my love for her. Why?!? you may ask yourself. The answer is easy.

Love for me is something that can not be lost. It does not degrade and can not be betrayed. My first love knew of my affection, stayed my friend, was very polite about telling me was getting married and even invited me to the reception. In the end it was enough for me to know that she was happy and that is what love means. You are willing to sacrifice everything even if in the end there will be no return. This concept is beyond the conception of the modern human. They are simply incapable of believing in self sacrifice, much less following through.

Take the five women who have told me they loved me. The first one stopped being with me because I did not have the same level of affection for her as she did for me. Bullshit. The second would not be with me because she believed her boyfriend loved her, even though she did not love him. The whole time she was saying she loved me but would not drop her abusive boyfriend unless I agreed to be with only her. Bullshit. The third is barely worth mentioning except she believed in love at first site. The problem being I do not. She is the only one who came the closest in my mind to understanding love. The problem is she seemed a bit unstable, but that is probably my reaction to how strong she pursued me.

The fourth was my first girlfriend and the first clue I had to the fantasy. We dated for six months in what had been some of the happiest times of my life. How did everything change? Slowly she started doing things to try and change me. Bringing me to meet her parents, but instead of just saying hello she would tell me what she liked about them and didn't like. The same started about her friends and mine. Then she started bringing up living together, for the next five to ten years. We had not even talked about marriage or children yet. I'll be the first to admit I could have been afraid to commit but the signs were there when we broke up. Over night she hated me and told me she had to stop herself from burning down my place and killing my cat. I am not making this up.

This post will be continued...
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The Bother of Webcomics

I do this other blog called Digital Strips. It has long since migrated to it's own server, domain, and different blogger from it's own momentum. This momentum however reached a crescendo about 6 months ago when I accepted a project in Melbourne Australia. Wow, did that blog lose a lot. It was amazing at how many readers and even the staff were lost by my inability to keep the site running as smoothly as before.

At this point I've lost 12,000 of my 40,000 readers and winning them back has not been easy, especially sense I continue to work in the land down under and not have my two voice talents participating anymore. Despite it all the site seems to be a point where it could possible survive anything. Traffic is constant and we continue to get email from major comic institutes.

Ignoring that I comparing Digital Strips to the New Yorker I feel like I'm going through the same situation. There is almost 0 income from the site thanks to a very low click through common among news sites almost everything is paid out of my own pocket. How do you justify keeping something afloat for so long that does not appear to be able to survive without you? Aren't you suppose to be able to let your children go into the wide world and watch them flower?

In the end the whole experience has been an eye opener in the whole "do what you love as a hobby" idea. I've always followed it but sometimes you just have make a decision that could not only affect thousands of people in one small way but also continue to blow a hole in your pocket. I guess for now I'm going to wait until I get back home and see if I can't get everything back on track once my schedule makes since.
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I hate paper

I do a lot of reading, I mean I probably read 1000 pages every week whether it's a book or readin the news online. One of the things I read is web comics and one of its most prominent figures is Scott McCloud. I recognize what he does and applaud him but I also understand the cynicism expressed by Tycho about how web comics are not all about breaking the boundaries impossed by books in the physical world. Don't get me wrong, I think ideas like infinite canvas are great, but for me reading everything online is more of a lifestyle then an experience.

I can't stand to read anything in print. Having grown up in the information age it just deosn't make since to chop down some trees to read something only to throw it away. Why does everyone over 30 at work insist on handing me the agenda or product requirements in hard form. I'm just going to throw it away because it's not searchable or easily portable. The same applies to newspapers. Why the hell would I buy a subscription to have it delivered to my house wasting the gas of the car to deliver it and the tree to print it when I can turn on my computer which is always turned on.

All in all I don't see any reason to own anything in hard version unless you're the type of person who likes to look at stacks of. For me I like DVD's and books. Both of these I could easly keep on my computer but it's nice to look at them stacked on a bookshelf. Believe though that once they come up with disposable screens for books those huge stacks are going the way of the office memo. To sum it all up, I hate paper.
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Tool Parties

I don't get it. I've got this buddy who's girlfriend is not allowing him to have a bachelor party, period. The indignity of that would have upset me but that's why he's the one getting married. Alright, so instead of having said bachelor party the best man is throwing him a tool party. In the best man's defense he had to be bugged a LOT to do this but when did this tradition start happening? Someone told me that 2 out of 3 weddings have them now. I'm all one for equal rights for women but that doesn't mean we have to give up some of greatest traditions.

So that brings me to a question, at what point is this equality among the sexes battle going to go too far? Why does equality mean men must obey their partner's wishes while their party runs off to have a bachelorette party? Oh yeah, she's getting one and he's not, you see it now? The real meaning of equality entitles me to the same benefits and punishments as the opposite sex. That means when I step on you and take that position you've been working hard for don't be upset, I would have done it to a man as well. At least with you I smiled and apologized.
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Runaway Bride

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm just cynical or hate stupid people. Here is this woman who plans ahead of time to run away from her wedding. So she goes out jogging, leaves behind some clothes, cuts off some of her hair and then takes a bus all the way to Nevada. Then to top it all off she's watching the news and finds out that everyone in Duluth is looking for her and waht does she do? You think she would realize she's caused a big mess but no, she calls in and says she's been kidnapped by to guys. Finally we get her back here and she's hiding her face under a blanket and takes a few days to give an apology. Mind you she doesn't give the apology until it becomes apparent that the DA is goign to charge for reporting a false crime.

Here I am thinking what the hell is she still doing free. I would have locked her for a night and then charged her the cost of the search. What the hell do I care if she had cold feet? The minute she heard there was a search effort for her on the news she should have called. We're talking $60,000 dollars spent by the city of Duluth. It is this level of stupidity that should be weeded out by heavy fines and threat of jail time.
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Welcome

Welcome to my misc blog. I will be using this blog to post my random thoughts about anything and everything. There is no limit nor expectation for any posts and there is no telling how often posts may appear. Feel free to comment but be warned that I promise no response on my part.
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