Despertar

other people's relationships

I'll be twenty-four in a week. I started this journal right before I turned twenty-three. Its title (Spanish, "to awaken") and tagline (to be read with the inflection befitting a revelatory exclamation) were a nod to my new philosophy, which consisted of three prongs:

1. There is something to be learned from every experience
2. The person you become tomorrow will look back on the person you are today with gentle condescension
3. True maturity is being able to smile back at the you of tomorrow without feeling like a total fool

In other words, "Ohhhhhhhh," spelled out, meant, "I get it now--I didn't know anything then, and even though I think I do now, later I'll realize I didn't, still."

That philosophy still holds. It helps, thinking of myself as a work in progress. It makes me feel like less of an idiot from day to day.

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Here are some things I am better at today than I was when I started this journal:

1. Outlining the arguments for different standards of custody conversion
2. Pulling a pre-exam all-nighter without relying on energy drinks
3. Sleeping through the night in an empty apartment
4. Administering fellatio
5. Cooking Belgian waffles, scrambled eggs and roasted garlic toast
6. Faking a convincing orgasm
6a. Willing myself to have a real orgasm
7. Navigating minor conflict with close friends without marginalizing my own needs

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Here are some things I am not better at today than I was a year ago:

1.Parallel parking
2. Maintaining a healthy perspective on little fluctuations in my weight
3. Remaining detached from and nonjudgmental of other people's relationships
3a. Acknowledging the irony of my judging other people's relationships

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Meaning, there is no chance in hell I could ever stand up to Justin about anything meaningful using only my feelings as the basis for my position, and yet, I spent several weeks of the past few months mightily frustrated at Aaron's Rasool, and at Aaron, for not taking the obvious step of excising one point of their then-triangle, because having her there was hurting Aaron's feelings. How could anyone ever willingly enter an "open relationship," I railed, and then, How could anyone ever actually hope to enforce the terms of something so inherently flawed, and yet, and YET, if we are being honest with ourselves, Shannon, didn't you offer open relationships to both Marcus and Justin as concessions to their "not being ready" to love you as much as you loved (love) them? Wasn't Aaron doing exactly what you would have done, minus the sheen of self-effacing hypocrisy? Wasn't Rasool doing exactly what men you've loved would have done, and didn't you love them anyway?

Meaning, am I just projecting when I read about Tara's M., how he doesn't want to initiate a commitment to something as life-altering as marriage "under duress," and imagine that's the sort of labyrinthine logic that's going to crush me, someday, when I've got a relationship that satisfies me perfectly but for its lack of implied permanence? I find it impossible to read a single M.-centric Strand without wondering how I'll ever maneuver through a world where a seemingly remarkable man twice as old as any guy I've ever dealt with romantically still falls back on that familiar weaselly sucker punch, when I am literally relying on my hope that the Justins of life grow out of their uncertainty someday soon. When, really, Shannon, how many times do you have to hear, from your mother and Dr. Phil and every other living soul, that people never change, that they are who they are, and you don't have edit privileges?

Meaning, there is nothing more patently ridiculous than how nuts Jenn's Wil drives me, considering I identify more closely with him than with anyone else, or anyone else's anyone else, on the site or elsewhere. Sure, I can say, on principle, that suicide threats as emotional blackmail, or whatever you want to call them, are beyond the depths to which I'd stoop, but how do we know that, really, considering the gauntlet of batshit tests I put Marcus through? And no, I'll never tell, just suffice it to say after that I'd be a hypocrite not to allow everyone else I know one crazy relationship full of shameful, lunatic secrets.

Aaron's Katy almost gave me a hernia. Aaron's Jackie is shying ever closer to doing the same.

Christina's Austin, I don't have the words. I just don't.

Ditto Leia's Han, who, for all his ill-advised bravado, would have tied me in knots the same way.

Tereza's Tomas.

Kagome's Inuyasha.

Caroline's Rod.

Gretchen's Donnie.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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As promised:

1. Turn off the sound on your computer. Turn on music you enjoy from some other source. Look at a clock and note the time. Then follow this link, http://www.freetetris.org, and play as many games of Tetris as it takes you to break 250,000 points. Look at a clock and note the time again.

How many minutes did it take you to break 250,000 points?

2. Think back on the two most major romantic relationships of your life. List the single worst offense you committed in each relationship, whether your partner knew about them or not.

How would the outcome have been different if you had committed each offense in the opposite relationship?

3. Imagine your mother, your boss and your significant other are staging an invasion of all your private spaces: your bedroom, closet, workspace, car and anywhere else you keep personal belongings. Before the invasion, you are given a paper bag and told you may fill it with anything you don't want discovered during the invasion. Everything else will be discovered and thoroughly examined by all three invaders, who may then interrogate you about any items of interest. As to the contents of the paper bag, you are given a choice: You must either destroy them permanently or hand them over to an objective stranger for safekeeping, with the knowledge that he will deliver them to your children when they turn twenty-five.

What do you put in the paper bag, and which fate do you choose for its contents?

4. Due to a strange affliction, you are left unable to correspond in writing. You can still read the correspondences of others, but you are able to respond only one way: through music. Your friends, family members, coworkers and casual acquaintances are all aware of this affliction, and soon you develop a system: Any sentiment or information you would ordinarily express in writing, you express instead by choosing a representative piece of music. There are two catches. First, the music you choose may never have words. Second, you are limited to ten seconds of music per correspondence. Your resume, Christmas newsletter, blog entries and all emails must each be represented by wordless sound clips of ten seconds or less.

Your best friend emails to ask about the current state of your sex life. With what ten-second clip of what piece of music do you respond to her inquiry?

5. You commit a heinous crime, and the judge, who evidently has otherworldly abilities, sentences you to one of two punishments: Either you must spend the rest of your life with absolutely no privacy (meaning the worst possible person will be watching every time you trip, have sex, poop, pick your nose, eat off the floor and dance in front of the mirror), or you must spend the rest of your life robbing your closest friends and acquaintances of their privacy (meaning at hourly intervals, you will be transported to various bathrooms, bedrooms and closets to watch other people do the same private things). Whichever punishment you choose, you cannot explain yourself to anyone else involved, and you are subject to the repercussions of either privacy invasion every time.

Which two of your current relationships will suffer most from whichever punishment you choose?

6. While wandering around lost in the woods, you come upon an evil sex genie. Rather than granting you any wishes, he introduces you to the most grotesquely ugly, foul-smelling, repulsive person you've ever seen. The genie tells you that, for the next year, your sex life with the partner or partners of your choosing will be mirrored by the sex life you maintain with this disgusting stranger. In other words, anything you do to or with the stranger will be done to or with you, later, by your partner of choice, but nothing more.

Over the year that ensues, what do you miss most about your old sex life?

My six questions. The answers to any of them could make me look at a person differently, for sure, but only one could yield a really "wrong" answer. I could really probably earnestly lose feelings for someone who flubbed it. Maybe.