sparkleneelysparkle: i dated a dude on and off for three years. on and off in the sense that we would have massive fights, not speak to each other for a month and then i would essentially move into his house for two months at a time and subsist on a diet of making out, wine, ambien, vegan rueben sandwiches, japanese cinema and obscure electronica albums from peru. it wasn’t always like that…the first year was amazing and blissful and there were no fights. until a year after spending sunday afternoons eating katsu curry in little tokyo i suddenly asked him why he only ever introduced me as “meghan”…why not “my girlfriend meghan”? it really hadnt occurred to me until 12 months in that it was an issue but the bells should have gone off much sooner. because that question? is what started the fight that wound up lasting for something like 2 and a half years. he claimed some bullshit about not liking labels and being “tied down”…the usual drill. this wasn’t the first time i heard this. all the men i dated up until that point had made the same claim at one time or another…sometimes straight out of the gate (“im not looking for anything serious” “then why are you making me breakfast?”). i developed a complex. i started to believe (and still struggle with) the idea that no one has ever been proud or happy to say “HEY! thats my girlfriend!” because i am such a rotten, gnarly mess of a human being. it makes you feel real crappy about the kind of person you are. especially when they only finally acknowledge that you once had something when they throw down a loaded “EX” in front of that aforementioned dreadful LABEL. there has been a spike in the usual internet murmurs with regard to this phenomenon…this “need for freedom”….this “dislike of labels” and i truly believe that this is a serious, serious problem. men and women who seek out relationships are looked down upon or distrusted by the cynical and the jaded so we throw up our “i dont want anything serious!” defenses and then play a nightmarish game of chicken until it either falls apart or one of us gives in….perhaps because everyone is so fearful of rejection that this response become kneejerk…we’re so fragile and wounded that we’re afraid to admit we care…or maybe the world around us has told us not to be “clingy” or that boys don’t like it when you cry or that REAL men don’t want girlfriends…they just want to fuck fuck fuck until they get tired and eventually give up. yay!! i just think its terrible the way people have become so guarded and scared of emotion. to the point where people are afraid to share life experiences with other people for fear of seeming “weak” or some other nonsense. feeling connected to other people and loving them and caring about them makes us unique and special and fucking PEOPLE. and playing games with other peoples emotions to make yourself feel cool or a character in a fucking brett easton ellis novel makes you a total fucking shit box. No, everyone really should read this. I completely agree, Meghan. That last paragraph? Me just going, “Yes. Yup. Totally.” to each sentence. AMEN times a million to this.
