Saturday, October 21, 2006

Negotiating Into Love

On my first day at work 4 years ago this girl sat down beside me and said, "Hey, Friend" and that was it, we became best friends. When we got laid off our friendship slowly started to deteriorate to the point that we hadn't communicated in over a year and a half. I've been thinking about her a lot recently and decided to give her a call.

When we first met she had been dating a guy for about 2 years. He was (and it sounds like he still is) a totally useless human being. He as no ambition or drive and many of his habits are things I have great difficulty putting up with. In the first four months of our friendship she broke up with him at least 3 times. During one of their break ups she started dating a childhood friend of hers. He was polite, attentive, friendly, he knew what he wanted in life and he was going after it. To my shock/horror she informed me that she is back with Mr. Useless and they are talking marriage. She said he's the only guy she's ever loved.

The concept of love has caused me great confusion. I think where my issue with love lies is in the, suggested, total lack of control involved. How or why do people just "fall in love"? I've read the different articles and writings on how people don't actually fall in love, but into a state of lust or passion and wish to give those feelings a greater value by claiming they're in love. Supposedly, those early feelings allow the relationship to develop to the point where a deeper sense of connection (i.e. love) may flourish (*cough* bullshit *cough*). People are lazy, it's easy to say "I had no choice" or "It just happened". "He makes me feel the way no one else had" (gag me please) feelings come and go (I feel tired right now, I am sure after a good night's rest that feeling will be gone). I hate when someone says "I just knew" or "He's The One". WHY? If you can't articulate an answer, I'm pretty sure it's because none exists. What happens if in 5 years you meet someone and feel a greater connection or you realize you were wrong and this new guy is obviously The One (which is another concept I'm not impressed with).

Therefore, the new approach I propose is to negotiate into love. If your at that point in your life where you feel it's time to get married and start a family, when you meet someone instead of waiting for that feeling or sense of something outside of the ordinary you follow these suggested steps. First, you both pull out a pen and paper or the old laptop and you start a list of things are essential and what would be additional assets. Next, exchange lists and start negotiations (deal-breakers should be dealt with first). If no satisfactory agreement can be reached you say good day and move on. If everything is approved set the date and give yourself a pat on the back. If this method proves unsuccessful, I would suggest an arranged marriage (which being honest is my preferred method). Yes, I'm being stupid, but is my method any more preposterous than basing what should be a life-long commit on a feeling?

(If you can’t tell, I’m tired and in a pissy mood over the illogical decisions females make)

3 comments:

kristin said...

1. I kind of agree with you... insofar as we want to make life rational, should not love be rational also? problem is life is rarely rational. life is rarely linear. there's always so much going on, that we will do almost anything, create any crazy old story to make sense of it all. A friend of mine said on a video commentary of his second film that a lot of times it's good enough to just think you've made sense of it all, even if those around you know you haven't got a clue. That's why people, women & men, get swept up into this mentality of The One or I don't know why but I just love him, or He's the only one I've ever loved or all of the other things you've mentioned.

2. just remember that while you're not the only one who holds these values (integrity, drive, ambition, and a person of vision) as prized in a man, that is not the only kind of man women look for. there are women who want the exact opposite, for whatever reason.

3. I'm fairly convinced that the majority of people don't think too deeply about their motives in many aspects of life... which accounts for a lot of the messy nonsense in our society.

Sj said...

Ms Jon Seda,

Forgive me for taking a tangent on this, but Tibor has talked to me about the first part of your post a few times. That, a friendship at work, for some reason doesn't seem to last beyond the bond of working together. It can I know, but it is so easy to see the person at work, more often then friends and family at times that a bond is formed. And when you or they leave the work it takes is so unusual.. just a thought

Suzy said...

"I hate when someone says "I just knew" or "He's The One". WHY? If you can't articulate an answer, I'm pretty sure it's because none exists. What happens if in 5 years you meet someone and feel a greater connection or you realize you were wrong and this new guy is obviously The One (which is another concept I'm not impressed with)."
------------So I started responding to this post and somehow I got carried away and I wrote so much that I figured that I would just POST. So for more discussion : http://www.suzyhong.blogspot.com/