People You May Know

[cosmolinguist]

Man. The problem with adding Minnesota friends to my Facebook is that then it goes around suggesting that I know people like...my first boyfriend.

I was such a terrible girlfriend for this poor guy. There was nothing wrong with him, but there was so obviously no reason for us to go out except that he hadn't had a girlfriend in four years and I'd never had a boyfriend. It lasted way too long. It's one of only two relationships I've been in that I've been the one to end, and it was scary and difficult but it was one of the first grown-up things I'd done (I soon found out he'd been about to ask me to marry him but that, and the horrible and clichéd way he was thinking of asking, both just reassured me that I'd done the right thing in breaking up with him).

I learned a lot from that relationship, but unfortunately none of it very flattering to this guy I was in it with: I learned to be careful of my tendency to do things to please other people, I learned that "can't complain" isn't the same as "actually happy", I learned how bad I was at being normal and that normalcy wasn't going to be satisfying for me.

He deserves better, but I'm sure he's found that in the intervening ten years.

It's funny though. I'm so used to being around people I haven't known that long, who don't share a lot of experiences with me, and here first thing I see on my morbidly-curious glance at his Facebook page is a picture of his mom, who I still immediately recognized, who started a trend of me being confidently able to say that my boyfriends' parents always seem to really like me, a fact borne out by me going with James to stay at his parents' next weekend.

Sometimes I do miss being around people who know what I was like more than handful of years ago, but why dwell on the stings of the past when the present is so delicious?

Comments

[quirkytizzy]

" I learned that "can't complain" isn't the same as "actually happy"

That. That thing exactly. Yes. I'm learning that now.

[cosmolinguist]

To be fair, I should say I started to learn it then; I can still be pretty terrible at this and still need to work on it.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

First of all, FRIKKIN LOVE THE TAG LINE.

Second of all, I like this entry a lot. This is a good entry.

How are you defining normal?

I've never had a boyfriend in my life. Amorous encounters, yes. Boyfriends, no. I hate the word. The WORD. But maybe I'm mellowing now. Maybe it's less of a hatred. I'm more curious than I was about the roles we assign each other, and the perimeter of those roles. But I always did like "lover" better. It's perhaps more scandalous, but perhaps more true.

But what do I know? So little.

The stings of the past... The deliciousness of the present. And even the sting can be delicious, if one is very, very present to it. At least (I tell myself) it's SOMETHING.

[cosmolinguist]

‎
FRIKKIN LOVE THE TAG LINE.

Thank you. :) I don't know that anyone's noticed it before, but I really like it, too.

How are you defining normal?

Socially acceptable, I guess. Things my parents would approve of. Straightforward courtship, church wedding, tidy decorative house, couple of kids, jobs that when people ask you "what do you do, then?" elicit a bored nod or a polite question rather than the furrowed brow of confusion and awkward follow-up.

The thing was, I could see the life ahead of me with this guy. We'd have a spacious house in the suburbs, a couple of kids he'd delight in showing movies that he liked and introducing them to "geeky" things. We'd have a dog. We'd take the kids to Twins games every summer. We'd consciously decide on the cute rituals of our coupledom. Our families would approve of each other. We had the same birthday.

It would all have been fine. It would have been nice. We'd have been kind to each other, and I think the kids would've been good people. But I'd have run screaming eventually. I think weird thoughts and I want weird things. I would've either never thought I was poly, or bi, or depressed, or anything difficult-to-describe, or I would've seen all those things as some kind of failure on my part. I wouldn't have been satisfied and I wouldn't have known why, and I'd have taken it out on myself.

Amorous encounters, yes. Boyfriends, no. I hate the word.

Philosophically, I'm right there with you. And I've had a few amorous encounters myself, but mostly I've had relationships. There was a point, a few years ago, when I had a lot of...things, potential things or mysterious things or things impossible to label, some of them with people who were explicitly unwilling to label relationships (and other aspects of their lives). And I get that, and I think it's cool, but my brain really doesn't cope well with it. I don't need everything to be either/or; I've had sex without love and love without sex and some of the most important relationships in my life seem not to fit any usual label, but I do like being a girlfriend and a wife, too. I like tthat I buy and send the birthday cards for Andrew's parents, and I like that James wants me to go with him to his sister's wedding. And those are roles for a partner, not a lover. Amorous encounters sound awesome, but Andrew can operate the online banking I always get locked out of, and James figured out how to work the heating in our new house long before I would've. 

I guess this is the extent to which I've retained my upbringing: I'm best at showing and recognizing love expressed in such practicalities. Everything else confuses me or unnerves me so much I have to make stupid jokes about it.‎ An amorous lover would find me most unsatisfying, I am sadly certain.‎

Sheesh, this got long!‎

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think I'd like a relationship. My friendships are usually very ardent and long-lasting. I think I would find a relationship satisfying and interesting. But... I'm lazy. And picky. And somehow it's just never been a priority. So even a kiss takes on the flavor of adventure, and a rare one at that.

[cosmolinguist]

That does sound nice in its own way. I like it when a kiss or something is momentous. I might seem to have an embarrassment of riches as far as affection is concerned, now, but I was such a late starter that I was starved for touch and affection for so long; I still think, from the right person, having a hand casually rest on my leg or a goodbye smooch is something to be savored.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think... I think it would be a lasting sweetness. May we all be so embarrassed by those riches!

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I like this entry too :)

I never really liked the boyfriend-girlfriend labels either. They sound infantile and restricting, somehow.

The first time I saw the word 'normalcy' I thought it was a typing error. There's always something new to steal from American English.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

That made me go and look up where you were from! What kind of English is yours? I wondered. And now I know.

[cosmolinguist]

The majority of my LJ readers now are in Britain, so I do usually use British vocabulary so the medium doesn't divert attention from the message, and I did consider that this time, but then thought "oh this one time I'll sneak it through... and then of course someone commented on it :)

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I can say "normality" when I have to, but it's never natural. (Some British or even northern-England English things I've taken to gleefully, some I use interchangeably with the American (or indeed my own regional) words, and some always make me feel like a phony; normality is in that latter category.) And I guess especially when I am talking about something from years before I ever thought I'd visit Britain, it's the American version of the word that seems most appropriate.

As for boyfriend/girlfriend, these too are words that seem sillier to me the more I think about them, but "partner" and "significant other" and "other half" (ugh! Also, even sillier if you're poly...) are at least as bad for my purposes so I see no incentive to change.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

That's so funny... I always thought of normality and normalcy as interchangeable. I never bothered to look up the etymologies or popular usage. The perils of reading...

[cosmolinguist]

I've only heard/seen it used there, or by USians. And many people (I was sure this included you! but maybe not?) have teased me or criticized me for using "normalcy," saying it's ugly and wrong and stupid and American and so on.