In A Relationship

Alright, time for the post on being in a relationship. This one, I'm kind of cheating. I found something online, and the first ten points I'm posting word for word. Here's the link. I'm adding a few in of my own at the end. The last post was actually fairly difficult to write, because I don't particularly enjoy the thought of being single. It just seems horrid. I'd much rather have the following things.

1. You feel accomplished. Being in a good healthy relationship is like getting accepted into an Ivy League school. You feel really special and secure, and you’re also promised a job {marriage} when you graduate.

2. You learn so much about yourself. Every unattractive quality you never knew you had will surface and you’ll begin to understand yourself in a whole new way. This will allow you to make some necessary changes. Stable relationships are like crash courses in getting to know yourself. By the end of it, you’ll hopefully be a better version of yourself.

3. You can go to a bar or a house party and take solace in knowing that you have someone who loves you. The pressure is off. You look around and see people dressed to the nines in hopes that they can spend the next eight hours with someone who doesn’t completely repulse them. You wore Uggs and have ketchup on your face because you already have someone who promises to love you forever and ever. You put away the sequined single girl dress a long time ago.

4. Make up sex. It’s powerful and it’s vulnerable and it’s angry and it’s tender. It’s a cacophony of emotions and you can’t seem to get their body close enough to yours. Is there any way they can be more inside of you? Is there any way you can feel more connected?

5. You can dip your feet in the Compromise pool and wiggle your toes in the Selfless waterfall. Learning to put someone’s needs before your own is a valuable life skill that can usually only be achieved by entering a relationship and/or having children. Instead of being a rigid control freak, you’ll have to adapt a little bit and be open to different things. This is a good thing! Being a control freak gets you nowhere besides having a potentially lucrative career and an all access pass to the Tracy Flick Alienation Hour. It’s beneficial sometimes to eat Italian when you’re craving Mexican food. It’s good for your soul to know that you can’t always get what you want. And if you love the person, you really shouldn’t give a shit about eating spaghetti and meatballs when you were ravenous for a burrito.

6. You get the opportunity to become really good at sex. The people you have casual sex with don’t care if you’re a bad kisser or give terrible oral. They have no investment in the relationship so they just send you off to the next person. When you’re having sex with the same person, however, you get individual intense attention. You have the time to figure out what works and what doesn’t, which will definitely help make you a better lay. If you’re with someone indefinitely, you should have no qualms with telling them things like, “Kiss like this. I like it when you do it like this and I don’t like it when you do it like that.” Constructive feedback is the best gift a lover could give you!

7. You can relate to your friends who have been in relationships. There’s no longer this awkward divide between you two. You get it! All those times they bitched to you about a poorly worded text message makes sense! You’re sorry to ever have thought they were just being a crazy bitch!

8. You can know what it feels like to love someone unconditionally. To really know that you would do anything for someone is a great feeling. You want to make them happy. You love to see them smile. You just believe them in so much. It’s great. It’s what we were built to do.

9. You can achieve the kind of happiness that only a lover can give you. You’ll be satisfied doing things that used to make you feel lonely. Spending all day in bed is a new adventure. Going to Kinko’s with your significant other to fax something can be a blast! OMG babe, we love Kinko’s!

10. You can change your status to “In A Relationship” on Facebook, which is 60% of the reason why you got into the relationship to begin with. Acquaintances who lurk you can see it and know that you’re living a healthy well-adjusted life. You’re not one of those forgotten ones.____________

11. Being in a relationship is great because you have that promise of having a good night kiss each night before you lie down. You have that promise that someone will be next to you throughout the night. Having someone to wake up to after a horrible nightmare is one of the most comforting things one will ever know. Each morning you are guaranteed to wake up to that beautiful face you have come to love and kiss those lips each morning.

12. There is a less likely chance you're going to get sexually transmitted diseases. I know those things are pretty common, but they're especially common in people who sleep with...well, everyone. If you're actually settled down in a relationship, more than likely you are not with someone that is sleeping with everyone. If you're a person like me that doesn't really have flings, and stays with one person for long periods of time, you're better off. The less people you sleep with, the less likely you're going to get an STD.

13. Not only do you have the opportunity of getting better at sex, but you're actually having it! No more 3 month dry spells. More than likely, you're getting laid at least a few times a week if you are in a healthy, stable relationship.

14. Suddenly, holidays don't seem to bad. When Thanksgiving and Christmas come around, being alone is horrid. You just wish there was someone you could cuddle up on the couch with drinking hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies. When you are in a relationship, these are the things you do. Plus, Valentines Day is so much better when you're not single.

15. As you get older, your friends have their lives and you have yours. Sometimes, you just don't feel like you can't talk to them about things or maybe their just not listening. When you're in a relationship, there's always someone to talk to. The best part is that in some ways, they know you better than you know yourself.Your significant other picks up on the exact face you make when you're upset but don't want to admit to it. They pull the things out of you that need to be talked about because they hate seeing you sad.

16. Stories are so much better when you have a constant person. When you're switching boyfriends like shoes, it's not acceptable to tell the stories of the crazy times you had with your ex. Being in a stable relationship, you create many of those stories and they remember them just as you do. They are told to your friends and family throughout the years and they hold so much more meaning being with one person that 20 different people.

Being in a relationship is really amazing. People who are single bitch about how they want to be someone and a lot of people who have been in a relationship say they wish they could be single for awhile again. Personally, I'm not one for being single. I like sharing my life with someone. I like being there to make someone happy. I like the adventures and conversations that never get old. 

This

looks a lot better than this

If you're not in a relationship and this blog post just bummed you out, check out the pros of being Single.

How I Went From Bitch to Push-Over to Peace Maker

I’m going to get pretty deep down and personal today, guys and gals, so watch out.

I’m going to start today by traveling back in time to my childhood. I was an only child with very few friends. Actually, I only had two. There was my next door neighbor, Dale: a private school kid a year under me. I was older, but he was always smarter. Then there was Elizabeth, whose family slaughtered pigs in the front yard and I would come inside to see the head in the kitchen sink. I believe these were two were my only friends because I was a mean, power-hungry little kid. I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to tell people what to do and when to do it. Dale took my shit because I was his next door neighbor and we were the only two kids close to our age in the neighborhood. Elizabeth took my shit because…well, I’m not entirely sure why, really, but she always did.  

I do remember once when a few kids closer to our age had actually moved onto our street. I didn’t know how to ride a bike, but they all did. So I made them ride their bikes around me while I twirled around with an umbrella, because I wanted to be the center of it all and I wanted the attention.

I guess that’s what it all came down to was the attention. I was a mean, power-hungry kid because I wanted the attention. I wanted people to listen to what I had to say because I didn’t feel I was listened to enough. I wanted people to do what I wanted them to do, because I wanted them to respect me and know who was in charge.

As I grew older, I realized that this was not a great way to make a lot of friends. Dale decided to move onto kinder people once he moved into my public school; In fact, he never spoke to me again once he transferred. Elizabeth, I ended up bailing out on once I realized she was crazier than me.

This sudden clarification of life hit me about 7^th grade. Then, I became a total pushover. Not quite the direction I had intended, but that was where it took me. I lost my balls because I wanted friends. Turns out, if you haven’t got any balls of your own, you just attract people who do. Those people will pull you by your tail and show you how those innocent victims you tortured so long felt.

This was when I met Audrey. She was a year or two younger than me, but that girl had balls. It was the summer after my 7^th grade year. I was constantly hanging out with Jenna and Audrey. Then it was just Audrey.

At this point in life, I had never had any guy show the slightest bit interest in me. Then, when I became a push-over and started hanging out with Audrey, I thought I had found the answer: Brian, Audrey’s older brother.

Turns out, he wasn’t the answer. He was just a teenage boy in desperate search for an easy lay. Guess what, guys and gals? He got it. You want to know why? No one ever told me “Don’t have sex or you’ll get pregnant and die.” Okay, so I may have heard the first part in that whole extremely awkward puberty video we had to watch in school, but no one actually sat down and talked to me about both the physical and emotionally consequences (So don’t forget to talk to your children about sex, parents! If you think it’s too early, it’s probably not.) That’s a whole terrible story and we won’t get into that, but I will say this. I had planned on saving sex until marriage, but in that past year of my life I had lost sight of so much I thought to be true that I think I had given up on myself, even.

Brian taught me a lovely lesson, though. Don’t get fucked over. He fucked me, found ways to avoid me, and never spoke to me again. For a girl that was planning on saving herself until marriage, this was a huge wake-up call. Life was getting real.

I learned a lot from that experience though. Once my eighth grade school year hit, I began to rebel. I didn't know exactly where I stood. I knew I wasn't in control, but I wasn't being taken advantage of my men or friends, either. I was incredibly lost that year, trying to find my place in the world. It wasn't until my freshman year when I found out where I stood.

 Never again did I let a man have that much control over me. I learned to spot a player from a mile away (ask anyone, I’ve got an eye for that). I know when a fella is being legit or just trying to get you for what is between your legs). He taught me to have some self-respect for myself and never let a man convince you to do anything you don’t want to.

After Brian, I changed. I wasn’t a push-over. I wasn’t an over-controlling bitch, either. I became extraordinarily smooth over the next year. I knew how to spot a fake and I knew how to play my own cards out. I got in a lot of shit over the next year, but no man ever messed with my heart. I’ve been broken up with twice over the last six years, both by men that I “dated” for less than a week. I never slept with them. I wouldn’t give them that leverage.

In fact, I went from psychotic bitch to complete pushover to peace maker. Turns out, the peace maker is a great medium. Everybody likes you. People can get pushy about wanting you on their side, but you just have to listen, keep your own opinions in, and do what you can do to get shit worked out.

Being the peace-maker is a lot like being the therapist of the group. I know this because I’ve done this many of times. When I was a freshman, I went to a New Years Party. It was me and five or so other people, two of whom were another couple. Well, we were walking to the apartment where we were going and the couple began fighting. By time we actually got inside the place and started with our celebrations, it had become a full fledged fight. Before I knew it, there was a bottle being smashed into the sink and glass in my arm. Naturally, the first thing you do is separate the fight. I sent the girl into one room and the guy into another. Weirdly enough, I wasn’t particularly close to either of these people, but everyone is a lot friendlier and open when they’re drunk. First, I went and talked to the guy and calmed his ass down with “I know very well how much she loves you” blah-blah bullshit. Whatever gets him to stop breaking bottles and gives me the full story. Naturally then I go to her, get the story from her. Tell her all the positives of his words to me and his worries that he was too afraid to share with her. Sometimes there needs to be a second talk with the fella, but it varies from situation to situation. This is all generally followed my “ Suddenly everyone gets all cuddle again and all is good in the world. The best part is, the peace maker is the one to thank.

This is a nice prequel for my soon to be blog post

COMING SOON: My Passion VS. My Day Job

(trust me, this post is a lot more necessary for it than you might believe. Originally this started out as "My Passion VS. My Day Job," then I got caught up in the back story.)