Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Anyone who compares herself with an Ibsen heroine, whether or not she -wants- to be one, needs to stop gazing at her navel, look at the woman in the mirror, and figure out how to grow up.
I admit to being out-of-touch with grad-student angst, but I didn't know that people were rejecting the bourgeois anymore. Would you stop if someone told you it was delightfully retro?
The three of you are at an age to mistake ideology for passion and get into the most intricate tangles. Opera is easier, and the music is better.
when somebody tells you who they are the first time, believe them.
Outside of this letter's Ibsen-referencing, self-congratulatory, quasi-operatic fussiness (which I actually found just as entertaining as a bad community theater production), this admission raises a red flag.
You are down and aloof towards your partner for more than three days?? And this is a regular thing?? And you expect anything besides a fight by the end of the week?? News flash, any bad mood lasting longer than 24 hours is a signal that something is not right with you, and is due to no fault of your partner. Your boyfriend's expecting his girlfriend's sour mood to pass after a reasonable amount of time can in no way be construed as expecting everything to be perfect. And, as I learned from a very wise person a long time ago, only unintelligent people get bored; thus, your boredom with your relationship with laid-back dude is your problem, not his.
Don't forget either that you're the privileged member of the love triangle, the one with the option to choose. This means that there are two others in the equation who are by definition in a perilous position. They both have feelings too, which you've clearly been stomping all over while only recognizing your own.
Like Cary said, you've offered no more information on how you really are beyond the job interview bromides of "highly intelligent" and "intensely practical," so it sounds like you have some real self-examination to do.
What you've shown won't cut it, either. "Ohh my, why do we do this to ourselves??" does NOT equal soul-searching. It's a cop-out through which you try to blame your weak character on the human condition. The correct question should be "Why don't I, dedicated humanitarian, ever consider the feelings of those closest to me?" Or in Neil Young's more pointed version, "Why do I keep fucking up?"
There's nothing wrong with being 25 and clueless and wishy-washy. That's normal. But the only people who really progress past this stage are the ones who take responsibility for their own shortcomings and stop blaming them on others.
Take care of yourself first. It's hard to be alone sometimes but that's what you need to do.
"checking the Burning Man site, I'd have to call "attended Burning Man" a big red flag. From the site:...." Look, just ignore the pompous windbaggery on the BM site.
Burning Man is a huge art party in the desert. If you're a nitwit when you go, you'll still be a nitwit afterwards. If you meet and talk to enough interesting people, you might learn something. Remember: Big Party. Fun to be had, people to meet, stuff to see. Long grueling drive, potentially difficult camping experience. Dust.
BTW, no one under 28 or so should bother going to grad school.
Also - LW, all 3 of you will be better off without each other. Find some humility-inducing work and get over yourselves.
They're nihilists.
It sounds like you struggle and struggle and sweat and push to try to make these relationships fit a mold - what you think they're supposed to be. And when they don't fit, you look for another mold to cram them into, or avoid the men completely. How about just letting them be what they're meant to be? Relationships do change, and sometimes they need to end, for awhile at least. If you don't feel any drive to be with a guy, you're not doing either of you any favors by hanging on.
Don't think in terms of "supposed to be" - in terms of who people are, what "intelligent people" are supposed to be like, what things are supposed to be like between people who had a good time one summer - things change. Think about the way they ARE.
LW, you aren't mature or selfless enough yet for love, bluntly put. You express more concern (and glee) about the drama you are causing than you do caring for either of the guys you're juggling. If you want to live a bad 20-something dramedy, go write one. But you might want to realize that love is a two-way street in which you should care more for those you love than you do playing them off each other or generating false drama.
LW,
Whether you meant to or not, you spelled out very clearly that you were not happy where you were, nor did the relationship have any potential. Change is really hard for all of us, but you can't look back in relationships. You must accept the reality of them and move forward. Trust in yourself that when you were unhappy, you really were unhappy. It was time for that to end.
As for your other love interest, it may or may not work out. It's unfortunate that it takes so long to come to the ultimate conclusion about a relationship, but the fact is that it takes time to face what are ultimately facts about another person or to realize that some behaviors are patterns that we are incompatible with.
So as agonizing as the whole process can be, there is no way around it. The pain is the reason we cling to each other as humans, the reason the music industry is so vital.
It's a cliche, but try to always be true to yourself and not stay where you are constantly fighting an undercurrent of some sort, and hopefully you will arrive at a good place or at least in the process learn the truths about love and about yourself that we are all really seeking through others.
I give you this advice as I give it to myself, too.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
