Conditions

I read in a blog once that the key to a happy marriage is unconditional blow jobs. I laughed and it stuck with me. I think they have a point. A very good point. I think the key to a happy, sustainable relationship is unconditional everything.

I am moody and fickle. I have a terrible time with monogamy. I am simultaneously smothering and distant. I have to talk about everything. Except some things - some things I will not talk about at all. I can be completely mood driven. And then I can turn around and act only on logic. I am difficult to love.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that these traits meant that other people's happiness was more important than my own. That in the case that someone else would incur greater happiness if I gave up some of mine, that I had a duty to do that. Being that I was so difficult to be with. So difficult to love.

So that's what I did. I served. When my partner had affairs behind my back, I felt like I deserved it and we moved on. When people came to live in my house and took complete advantage, I let them. When my family gave me advice about decisions in my life, I made them. Even if I didn't agree with them. Even if I didn't want the life that came with them. Who was I to question that? These people loved me and I was so difficult to love. I should give these concessions. Their happiness trumped my happiness.

Then I snapped. I swore to a period of singlehood. I evicted my tenants. I told my family to keep their opinions to themselves. It was not a nice way to treat the people that loved me. I had a lot of guilt about it. But it was necessary. And then I just sat there for a while.

Take a sledgehammer to your life and destroy everything. Then sit in the wreckage. See who comes to sit with you and I will tell you who really loves you. See who comes to pick through the debris and take what they want and I will tell you the people that you can live without. See the people who do both, take a little and sit a little, and I will tell you the people who love you conditionally.

I am so lucky. I had many in the first category. They weren't the people I had been putting the most effort in with, but they were there. And they stayed. For a long time I have made a social hermit of myself. I only spend time with these people. I trust them.

Now I want to increase my social circle. I love people, I want to be involved in more things and I want to meet new people as well. But there's a lot of social conditions out there. I still have a hard time distinguishing between when I'm giving and when someone is taking from me. I need some lessons in social negotiations. And, more importantly, I need to recognize what my bottom line is. How far I can go comfortably, without feeling like I'm giving up pieces of me. Without feeling like I'm sacrificing my happiness for theirs. Because, no matter how pious that makes you feel, it's not sustainable. I also need to realize that sometimes the price is too high. Sometimes, I have to walk away. This is the part that's hardest for me. To walk away from someone who is willing to love me, even conditionally. Because, as I said, I am oh so difficult to love. Or am I?