Hey darling, let's do striptease...!!!
I was dating someone a little while ago and I realized I have changed. I was no longer the little girl who falls for cuddles and sweet talk. All that is nice, but that’s kind of the icing of the cake. The cake is the person you are with. (N.B. I am not saying any of this is related to the person, I’m just saying these were thoughts I was having about relationships in general….dating someone always brings up thoughts.)
Many things dawned on me in those few weeks I was dating this guy. For one it became obvious that I cannot be in a relationship with someone I do not want as they are. What I mean is that sometimes we date people we like, or even love, but we want something inside of them to shift so that they become more this, that or the other. I remember being with my ex and him saying I really shouldn’t be like that, or should be like this and it was horrific (I’m sure I told him the same…). To be in a relationship with someone whom you can’t fully embrace as they are, whom you hope will change…it’s not right. You are not their coach, you are their lover.
We are all on journeys. We may meet someone who is in one place and wants to be in another and we can for sure be their support and appreciate their journey (which springs from/is created because of their values and beliefs), but our place is as the lover. We love them. As they are. We aren’t sitting hoping they will become someone else, or if they don’t reach their desired destination, we will fuck off. Then we aren’t loving them: we are loving an image created by our imagination. And I don’t know about you, but as a friend, or lover, I know I will be someone’s support through the rough times and their greatest applauder during the cool times…and that’s an honor!!! It’s an honor that someone let’s you share their journey! And be around someone whom you really truly respect, from the bottom of your heart because of the place they come from; because of their heart; their desire to live according to certain values.
Sometimes we meet a person and we love them 100%, but we may realize that they don’t love themselves and they have habits that wouldn’t be good for us. It’s tricky – we love them in this instance, but we still want them to change, or we know the relationship won’t serve us. I wouldn’t say that’s conditional love. You love them unconditionally, but you wouldn’t love them in a relationship unconditionally (correction: you would love THEM, not the relationship). Again, I wouldn’t enter into it. It would take all my strength not to do it if they desired to be with me, but I wouldn’t. I would wait and if I see they are ready, then I would do it. Because if we enter into something we know isn’t right…it may ruin our relationship with someone altogehter, even if we will love them forever.
This is not to say that we don’t all come together a litle bit like a square peg in a round hole…we all have our differences that we have to work on to create an amazing life together. We all have habits that need to merge, desires that we want fulfilled, ways we understand love…all that takes a bit of work; loving work. (OK darling, so you want to live on Mars, and I on Pluto…now if we meet on Earth…then we go to Pluto and Mars for vacation, yes???) We will have to sort out our relationship a little bit (or rather: create an amazing relationship together), but not our love for one another – that should be there from day one till the end.
Secondly, it became obvious to me that there is a huge difference between someone who thinks it’s nice to be around me and someone who loves me. There’s a difference between enjoying someone’s company and truly being struck by someone’s personality to the extent where you want to be as close to them as is humanly possible; where you value their time, you value their thoughts, their body, their well-being and will support them through thick and thin. And it takes time to find out what you think about someone; to truly get to know them.
So many times I have fallen for people without knowing them, which means I have fallen for one tenth of their personality. Now…now I can’t do that. I can get the butterflies and what have you, I can date them and cuddle them and so on…but I can’t enter into a relationship with someone unless I know I love them and they love me. I want to know them in all their naked glory, underneath all their layers of protection, cool attitude, what have you. I want to know their heart.
A relationship isn’t an easy thing. It’s a great, wonderful, amazing journey with the right person, but it’s someone you will share every aspect of your life with. Someone who is next to you when you stand at the top of one mountain and when you fall down another mountain…someone you can trust will love you through thick and thin. Someone you can trust values you and the relationship as much as they value every other important aspect of life. (I always say a relationship is like a business venture: you love it, it will be an incredible journey, but there will be challenges along the way that need to be resolved with creativity, curiosity, laughter, determination, LOVE, playfulness, a sense of adventure and joy!)
Falling in love is fun, exciting, exhilarating, titilating…it’s nice to experience it with someone you truly love…
