It's time to focus

Breaking up with a person is similar to trying to have an orgasm with a person. It's rare that you both come to the same place at the same time, and one person is left feeling extremely unfulfilled.

My breakup was a long time coming I guess. The two breakups prior to this one should have been a big enough warning. But for some reason, I think the breaking up and getting back together was necessary. There was a reason we were together and the reason has now been fulfilled. The reason? That's harder to tell. Part of me believes that my bf wouldn't have made the plunge into academia if it weren't for my example or my praise of his choices. And according to him, my love helped him through some tough times. I'm always glad to be of service :-)

Eventually shit hit the fan for a few reasons - him not being sure I'm the one, and me being too young to really tell heads from tails and wanting to focus on my career.

I felt bad about it at first, but after talking to my mother and getting a reality check, I feel loads better.

A.) Don't invest emotionally in a man when you know you're not ready to settle down. Keep them as friends.

B.) There are way more important things in the world than a relationship at 23 (e.g. building a satisfying career, learning from various experiences, doing your part to help others, etc.)

C.) I'm selfish, demanding, and I get bored easily. There is a low possibility that any man could stay in a long-term relationship with me unless...

D.) I meet him at work. Once I have my professional life, I will cherish my free-time that much more. Moreover, whoever you meet on the job will know your ins and outs from a professional side and decide to love you despite your short-comings and will relate to you very differently than someone who gets to know you personally. If that makes sense.. And instead of arguing over stupid stuff, since neither of you have much time, the relationship will be that much more rewarding.

Well that's my mother's assessment of me and she hasn't been wrong yet.. so my plan of action is to stay single for a while and go back to being me. I feel like I was able to be some of me in this last relationship, but not all of me. The complete me would have gotten dumped a long time ago due to neglect and callousness...

But hey, I'm learning right? ;-)

Its nice to think that there is someone out there who can deal with me, but that I haven't met him yet because he's going to be much further along in his career and thus much better at handling my behavior because his ego is less invested.. That is fundamentally lacking in a lot of guys in their 20s, so I guess I'll have to wait until I'm actually doing something with my life as opposed to now where I'm just studying all the time and running into men who just aren't ready. But then again, neither am I!

Cravings

You ever have a sandwich or [insert food] and it was really good. Then you ate it like everyday for a really long time. But of course you got sick of it and took a break. Then at some point you started craving said sandwich or [insert food] again. Yeah its like a relationship. The kind of thing that sustains two people over the long term I guess is being so used to each other that even when they tire of being in each others presence, they just get this craving every now and again..

P.S. this really was about sandwiches.. I'm craving the noon time sandwiches at my journal club class.. even though they're the same damn sandwiches every week and I was sick of them last week! mmmm... can't wait!

Grinning from ear to ear.. for now

So short story - I broke up w/ the bf last Friday b/c I thought he handled an important situation really poorly. Felt like shit the whole weekend even though I was in Santa Barbara with wonderful friends. Felt like I needed to talk to him today to "fix" the situation and was quite surprised about what came out of it.. turns out, I was right.. but not for the reason's I originally thought.

I originally thought that the bf was trying to let the relationship go b/c he was really insecure about himself and his place in the world and was projecting his fears on me. Turns out while he was projecting his fears onto me, it wasn't out of insecurity as much as out of paternalism.

I'm actually surprised that he was so honest with me. He started out by saying that he had this horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach with the thought of not being able to talk to me ever again (I told him on Friday that we could not be friends, b/c I don't stay friends with exes) According to him, he originally agreed to breaking up b/c he felt that I would break up with him down the line anyway since we wouldn't get to see each other much this summer. And he's seen long distance relationships break down so much that he just figured it would be better to end it now. And maybe the best thing would be to let me be free to find "Mr. Hot Shot." He also mentioned that he is afraid that he is my first love. And that to him first loves are never genuine and it takes a few tries before you figure out what love is and my love for him may be based on factors that don't relate directly to him.

For the first time though I had a very adult conversation in a relationship and we decided not to break up with the caveat that its going to be a rough summer given the demands on his time. As I told him though, most women get mad at men when they choose something over them because to the woman it says that the man doesn't care for her at all. But since my bf has made it clear what he thinks, feels, and envisions, I don't have to worry about him doing something because he doesn't care. And I'm a trooper, I don't need him to decide what's right or wrong for me, whether I genuinely love him, or whether I'll leave him for a "hot shot." I have my own decisions to make in life, as does he, and we can't predict the future. But we've had an awesome time together so far, so why give that up?

Taking a step back

Its no news that I'm trigger happy, but I think my decisions this time around are less based on fear, and more based on reality and maturity.

Today I decided that next time I talk to the bf that I'll ask him if we could take a step back in the relationship. I don't want to break up per se, but the last 2 weekends have kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I'm not investing my time wisely.

This past weekend the bf came down and we went out with some med school people. It was lots of fun and well I guess I thought I felt closer to him than before. But he came down Friday and I can't remember which day he said it (either friday or saturday) that he was going to leave sometime saturday. At first I was ok with it b/c I had group meetings on Sunday starting at 9 AM and I didn't want to leave him waiting around until I got back. But Saturday roles around, we hang out most of the day and then he abruptly starts packing his stuff and is like "whelp I'm gonna go" and I just start crying. I know that I've been especially sensitive to some relationship issues; damn near most women have "abandonment" issues stemming from childhood. But more than that he does this so frequently. When he comes to visit me he takes off at the blink of an eye, and as far as I'm concerned its unprovoked. But when I go and visit him he doesn't kick me out or hint at me leaving. Quite the contrary he offers to have me stay longer.. which got me in trouble the last time.

At first site of my tears I don't think he quite understood what was going on and he had a nervous laughter. But then when he realized I didn't have something in my eye he asked what was wrong and I eventually just told him that his abrupt leaving bothered me. The reason he gave for leaving was that his dad was out of town and his mom was going to be home alone. Which, at the time, for whatever reason made me even feel guilty for keeping him any longer.

In any case, he tried and failed to make me feel better about anything and I wished him well on his trip back.

The weekend before this last weekend I went up to visit him and was going to leave sometime Sunday but he convinced me to stay until Monday morning. I A.) didn't study as much as I should have for a test I had that week and B.) Ended up being ridiculously late for a class for which I had a group presentation.

So today, as I watched lectures and my eyes glazed over I started to doubt a lot of stuff. Firstly, who the hell cares if his dad is out of town? I'm sure this isn't the first time and I'm sure his mom would have been fine with or without him in the same zip code. Secondly, was that really the reason he took off? He left sometime before 10, it only takes about an hour and a half for him to make it back home, yet he didnt call to check up on me or anything.. makes me wonder if he was just rushing home to go out w/ some friends.. I can neither confirm or deny this since I think its silly to grill a bf about such things.. if they lie to you, you'll eventually figure it out. He also hasn't called for a few days, which the "nice me" would chalk up to being freaked out by emotionality, but the "more realistic me" feels put on notice that the relationship is not at a point where I can openly express feelings beyond happy or angry.

Moreover, because I went and visited him the weekend before (which again he tried to convince me to do and I stupidly said yes) I had to study in 3 days for a test I should have spent 3 weeks studying for. I thought I failed it. Thank goodness I didn't but was all of that worth it? No.

So in conclusion, while I love my bf very much, I need a break for my own sanity sake. I would think after a year I wouldn't have to put a sensor on feelings of sadness or extreme emotions.. but apparently thats the case... and if this is the case then, well, it shouldn't be something I spend to much time with...

I'm afraid to have the conversation because I don't want to break up as much as just step back.. but any type of rejection may trigger someone to blow things out of proportion and ask for a full on break up.. but hey, I need to take care of myself...

:-/

The Wrong Reasons to Dump a Person

There are a few quotes that come to mind when I read the title:

"If you have someone with a good soul and they care about you, you should hold onto them like the grip of death. You know what happens to women who dump good men? They end up with endless subscriptions to Match.com and Eharmony gripping happy pills."

"If you look back on the time when you first met, first started to get to know each other, and still smile, there is a reason to continue loving."

I'm bad at remembering details, so those quotes weren't verbatim, but they convey a basic point. Summed up well in a Pussy Cat Dolls song, "No body's gonna love me better, I'mastickwitchu forever."

LOL. Ok I'll stop w/ the bad song lyrics, random quotes, and strange title and get to the point.

I recently caught up with a friend I hadn't talked to in quite a while. As is what happens with girlfriends, we got on the topic of relationships. She told me about her current situation, I told her about mine. One thing about my situation made her concerned. I expressed to her my concern about my bf's path to his destination. He wants to run his own business, he wants to give back to his country and all that jazz, but he never seems to have a solid plan as to how he's going to accomplish these things. Or better, he has a plan, but he doesn't think it all the way through which causes him to scrap plans time and time again. For example, giving back to his country. My bf for a while wanted to join the Marines. Well that was a fun 6 months of arguing back and forth about the value of doing such a thing, especially at a time of WAR; and not just any war, a badly run war. Finally his dad talked him out of it using practicality - If you want to be around to do the things you want to do in life, joining the Marines may not be your best option. My bf never wanted a career out of the military, just some experience doing something "difficult." But for some reason it took him 6 months to realize the extremity of joining the Marines. But he still wants to give back so he's joining the Army National Guard. The one reason why I don't argue with him over this is that he is going through the officer program, which takes 2 years, and he's going into the engineering sector. So as one of his friends told him, he'll probably help build a fence in on the US-Mexico border. I don't know where the war is going, but hopefully in 2 years they won't be misusing the National Guard as much as they are now.

So he's got that goal planned out finally, leaving the whole running his own business goal to be accomplished. The problem with the business goal is that here too, he does not have a solid plan, just a destination. One week he wants to go to business school, the next week its law school, the next its, "Screw grad school! I can do it on my own." For whatever reason, his indecision makes me nervous. Especially since I love having plans. Sure I scrap them every now and again, but having a solid plan on how I'm going to get somewhere puts me at ease.

My friend picked up on this and gave me the following advice: "Do you want an old beat up Victorian that you can remodel or do you want a new modern home? The right package is out there, you don't have to work on a guy and hope it'll all work out in the end. You especially don't want to spend all of your 20's on one guy and regret it. You're at a school with a lot of options, you should date around."

I appreciated my friend's advice. She is older than me and has more experience in the dating world.. so for a day or two I thought about her advice. And I've ultimately decided that, for me at least, it doesn't make much sense.

We all have our faults. I may be going to med school but I'm not the "warmest" person of them all. I can be condescending and/or negative. I don't know a lot of things about life and in many respects I'm still really naive. I can be really judgemental or narrow minded. I can't cook, and I get sick a lot. There are probably a lot of things about me that someone would have to see as a trade-off. E.g. I wanted a stay at home mom who cooks brilliantly but instead I got a workaholic doctor who can't boil water.

The point being that, my bf isn't perfect and neither am I. And for the most part, I don't believe there are perfect packages out there that contain EVERYTHING you want. Maybe I could find a guy with such a great plan he started running his own business at 25 instead of 35. But maybe that guy wouldn't love me as much or wouldn't put up with my dog, or wouldn't be genuine or generous, or wouldn't have a backbone, or wouldn't want to make me happy.. The list goes on. To me, it seems that to gain some things, you may have to lose something else.

So I've concluded that, instead of doubting my bf so much, I should just be supportive for the most part and point out weaknesses in a plan, not to get him to scrap them, but to get him to think hard about how he wants to achieve a goal. And if we ultimately end up together great, and if not, there is something to be said about just living for the moment and enjoying what you have today.

And back to the title of the post, I can't dump someone because they are not my perfect vision. My bf's got 90% of what I want and to dump him now in hopes of finding 95%, or 100% just seems retarded since most men probably are at 25% i.e. "well, he's male." I've heard too many stories of women dumping or being dumped by guys only to spend most of their time looking for that same type of guy again. No thanks. People break up all the time for one reason or another, but I'd rather it be an extremely legitimate one - e.g. he doesn't want to marry me - rather than a minor one.

Also, if we grow old together, maybe we'll both reach the 100% level for each other.

Why Nice Guys Finish Last

While I love my boyfriend, I am starting to realize a lot of things about relationships that I never understood before since I was never in one long enough to call it "real." While it took a hell of a lot of patience and manuevering (i.e. manipulation.. sorta) to get my boyfriend into a relationship, now that we've been together for a combined 8 months, he's practically putty in my hands. Yesterday he so succinctly verbalized it, "If thats what my girl wants, thats what my girl gets." It was cute, but I later thought, hm.. I'm bored. I started realizing that this comfortable/bored feeling may be the cause of people cheating. No, no, I don't want to cheat on him. The thought of having someone else touch me isn't appealing, but I can see a possible reason for why others cheat. Also, it reminded me of this article about passion in relationships. Since I was always starting and ending relationships pretty quickly, or just casually dating, the only side to relationships I knew was passion. The article was mostly speaking to women, but I think it applies to both sexes. As soon as someone in the relationship lets the other person know that they can have them in any way they please, the passion dies. Sad times, now I'm one of those idiots wishing the spark could last forever, even though I know such things don't have that kind of shelf life. But it does speak to the old saying, "Nice guys (girls)finish last." I don't know why early love is built on the tension of not knowing how someone feels, but it IS. And once you know how that person feels, for a while its great. But then after a while for people like me who are always looking for a challenge, a new challenge must be found - either by breaking up or getting a new hobby outside of the relationship thats challenging.. I think med school fits the bill :-/

I started to internally freak out after I realized that this relationship has become comfortable. "Does that mean this is the end?" "Is he not the right guy?" Then I remembered a passage I read in "The Female Brain." I skimmed through my bookcase, found the book, and reread the chapter. It almost verbatim quoted my current thoughst - words that I had read before but never understood their meaning or what they felt like. The chapter explains that a young woman had gone to the psychiatrist (who wrote the book) after a year into her relationship with a guy named "Rob." When they first met the woman couldn't stand to be apart from him. She cherished every minute they spent together, hearing his voice, being next to him, everything for the first five months. But then after a year, she didn't feel that spark anymore. She liked seeing Rob, but her heart didn't flutter the way it used to. (Hm, ok, sounds like my situation) She too was probably getting comfortable and a bit bored. Thats when she went to the psychiatrist looking for answers. Why didn't her relationship feel the same way it did during those first 5 months? Well apparently what happens is, in the initial "falling in love" phase, there are huge surges of dopamine when you interact w/ the person you are attracted to. Dopamine works on your "reward" centers and you're on cloud 9. After some time, which varies from person to person, dopamine levels start to fall off, and women get an increase in oxcytocin, and men receive increases in vasopressin. Respectively, these chemicals are in charge of pair bonding for each sex. So the couple moves from the fast and furious stage to the long-term commitment phase. The psychiatrist explains that this is evolutionarily to the advantage of the couple, since it would be hard to raise kids if you were obsessed with each other. So the bonding stage is supposed to prepare you to stay committed to each other, but at the same time attend to other things in your life, such as raising kids. Ok, this makes sense. The story went on, and Rob had forgotten to call his girlfriend one day and she FLIPPED OUT. Ok, I don't know why once would make a person flip out. (Actually I start to get nervous if I don't hear back from my bf by a certain time when I feel he should call.. ok I guess I'm not above this behavior either.) The girlfriend ended up explaining how freaked out she got to Rob and shortly after they realized how much them meant to each other and got engaged. Um ok, the story could be made up, but the point is that its what happens to a lot of couples. You go from fast and furious to cruise control.

I'm not used to cruise control though, but since I am mature on some levels, I understand that it doesn't mean the love is gone. Another thing that makes way more sense to me now is what I've heard older adults say time and time again, "Love is not enough." The feeling of being in love with someone isn't going to sustain a relationship, b/c eventually those feelings aren't present 24/7 and they kind of fade to the background. If there aren't other things that draw you to a person such as mutual respect, mutual admiration, mutual appreciation, well then, you're probably just going to break up. I understand this now.

I started thinking more about why I feel so "bored." And I realized that A - the dopamine surges have dampened the "spark" and that's natural, and B - I'm so stressed with med school right now, my libido is practically gone. Its the equivalent of a man not being able to get it up.. really, its sad. I read in the same book that cortisol blocks oxytocin receptors in women so stress reduces libido.

So in conclusion, the relationship has hit cruise control, which is all too new for me. Being stressed + lack of dopamine = an unexcite-able and boring chick. None of these things are my boyfriend's fault. Plus, I'm reminded of all the stuff he's done that he didn't have to do but did because he is who he is. It's almost instinct for him to be a good person. Not to mention the fact that he freely offered to watch my dog (a dog he H-A-T-E-S) for the 3 weeks I'll be on vacation without me having to bring it up or ask. Maybe these are things that boyfriends are just supposed to do anyway but seeing how lazy I am in the realtionship, I appreciate it anyway. So I just need to get through finals and finally get my mojo back :-/

Pulling at straws here!

You know, its weird. For a good 3+ years a particular interest of mine was relationships. Mostly romantic relationships - the psychology of it all, but in general interpersonal relationships of different sorts. And for the time that my blog has been up here, that's what I've mostly talked about - meeting people, casual dating and its turmoil and the fun parts.

But now that I'm in a stable relationship, I've got nothin. I mean I could post about the random times I go to bars and the funny stories. Like the time I went to bar review and this one student said, "Meeting a girl that's in medical school is like finding out about an IPO. You don't want to make too much noise, because then everyone else will be all over it, but it gets you really excited. You put on the moves, make that investment, and in ten years, BAM! You've hit the jackpot." I thought his comments were funny in and of itself but then I learned what an IPO was and then it was REALLY funny.

But even that stuff I don't have the motivation to publish. And since all I'm doing is studying all the time or doing something else pretty boring, I'm left with.. well, not much. I could keep talking about my relationship ad naseum but I can't stand girls who do that. I could talk about what I learn in med school, but then you guys would just fall asleep at the keyboard.

So in the end, I haven't figured out what I'll write about anymore. But you've been warned, it may not be as interesting as the stuff from a while back. And if you never liked the stuff from a while back, glad to know I'll be disappointing you in the future as well :)