Van Douchebag wrote:Dude, lemme put it this way... you're young and single. That's a good thing.
*snip*
Here's some advice - try to stay outta relationships as much as possible. It'll take you years till you can figure it out right. I'll be nineteen in 3 weeks, and I'm still clueless on how to make relationships work.
Hey, I'm over twice as old as you young whippersnappers and it isn't any clearer to me than to you. There's someone on the Wapsi forum whose signature is "between women and God, I'm having a fit!" You can change "women" to "relationships" for a more inclusive version, since it's evident that the difficulty is mutual.
I personally never understood the seemingly petty jealousies that so animated the lives of school girls (and some well into their 20s). My only recourse was to ignore them, since I couldn't do anything about their reactions to what someone else did or didn't do. It was too complicated for a simple male mind.
It helps to have some idea of what you're going for in a relationship. A men's group I belonged to for a while had the concept that there were two kinds of relationship -- short-term recreational, and long-term committed. At least for guys, the principal relationship type is recreational -- that's just the way young men are wired. But there comes a time when the committed relationship is what he seeks. Neither kind is good or bad, but both parties must be
clear that this is the kind of relationship they're in (or entering). Communication is key. I found that when dating if I could convey what I was up to, and learn what she was in it for, the relationship went along better. If we were at cross purposes, then it was much better to learn about it early on and avoid the big crash later. A key point is that the short-term recreational relationship probably can't be turned into a long-term committed one without complete up-front and
honest buy-in from both parties. That's pretty rare, alas.
But you can't give up on relationships. Practice, practice, practice. If you discern a pattern you don't like, change something. There are people and
organizations that can help in freeing you up from hidden patterns and unconcealing the loving and loveable you.
Whew! Enough pontificating!
Ajax
