Introspection night!

[pphaneuf]

I like waking up some people. It's rare I get to do it, with my sleep patterns, but I enjoy it when it happens.

Had a good time at cpirate's Nitiversary yesterday. An odd even higher than usual number of moments where I noticed how my way of thinking is different than that of others.

The work week flew by incredibly quickly, but the friday was one of these marathon 16 hour days. Productivity severely tapers off toward the end, of course, particularly as I bounced ideas with cpirate and wlach, but managed to produce some good evilness. We went for a beer at Old Dublin after, which has rather loud, but sometimes deliciously odd music (for an irish pub). We left the place to the sound of Björk, which was awesome.

It's actually a cold night tonight. And I'll be alone in my bed, and I'm looking forward to it. I rarely miss having the bed for myself (the opposite is more common, yes!), but I do like it sometimes. Not that I haven't had it this week sometimes, but I don't know, tonight seems likes a stretch out in my bed kind of night. Or morning, as it may be, since I felt like doing groceries and driving around, and it is now ridiculously late (or amazingly early). Hmm, pierogies for dinner tomorrow!

Some thoughts I've simmered for a long time, and often find myself trying to explain in an inarticulate way, so I'll write them down and just point at this entry. :-)

How do people in exclusive relationships deal with being attracted to someone else, particularly when it's not just a physical kind of attraction, but that there really seems to be something? What's the agreement exactly in a "conventional relationship"? I understand that physical displays of affection would be off-limit and considered cheating, but what about the feelings? "I'm in love with this other guy, but I'm not cheating!", is that true? To me, the feelings would count at least as much, and I've let my exes get very close physically to some persons where there wasn't much attraction without flinching, and feeling cheated upon when seeing simple holding of hands where I felt this wasn't the case.

If you are with someone who expects you to love him/her exclusively, would you break up if you found yourself not doing so? Is it more fair and respectful to do so, as you would be effectively "cheating" by breaking what was more or less agreed upon? Or would that be unfair? Hmm, maybe it's unfair but respectful?

In my opinion, this is just a completely unreasonable request, and someone insisting on something so ludicrous as requiring me to have total control on my emotions (as opposed to acting or not upon them) would find themselves free to require this of someone else soon enough...

Comments

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

About caring for a friend to a more intimate degree, I found that "love" in general, whatever it's "type" (romantic, family, friends, etc), isn't something that's full-on or off, it's variable. And that the usual "types" are an extremely crude way of classifying them, that in reality it's so subtle that it's barely distinguishable at times.

And loving without having sex, of course. One of the persons I have feelings for has an exclusive relationship with someone else. I despise cheating, and I wouldn't willingly help someone cheat. I respect their relationship.

It is tempting, I won't deny that, but I am not an animal. I also find that being open and out to her about my feelings for her help a lot, like taking the lid off boiling water. There's the same amount of water boiling without the lid, but it's not about to explode (and this explosion is, I think, how many people get cheating).

But I'm lucky as hell, as my going "open and out" with her, many people would have just shyed away and avoided me after, but we are great friends.

Me, the sex bit doesn't bother me at all, but the idea of lying and cheating insults me at a deep level. I used to be all "hmm, what would I do if I was cheated on, don't know", but then I clarified my idea of what cheating was exactly, and I know exactly what I'd do now. Cheating on me would be an instant break-up.

Of all that you said, there's only one thing really that I find dubious. You want monogamy? I think that's the wrong way of looking at this. Monogamy is a mean, not an end. You want certain things, and then you determine that monogamy is how you best get them. When the explanation goes that way, such as those given by ganymeade and galialuna, I understand.

As I stated previously, I find people who "do it this way because it's how it's always been done" to be rather depressing...