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

[jaramin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand your use of "unfair", fairness has to do with justice and the distribution of goods, rights, liberties, opportunities, possibilities, etc. The situation would be unfair because there is an obvious inequity in the way the two feel. But the action of telling the truth about your feelings, even if it leads to breaking up, or breaking up itself, isn't unfair as it's not the cause of the inequity of feelings.

That said, I agree that most people repress or cheat. It may be that in certain situations, repressing could be defendable and even a better choice than being pro-actively honest. Cheating on the other hand seems to be always wrong as much as I try to think of an exception.

The discourse that I've had (still having) a run in with has to do with if caring for someone's feelings has equal value to telling the truth. I'm siding for truth so far, but being implicated in such a situation makes you look very closely at both sides to say the least, and what is simple from afar gets really complex up close.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

What I think is unfair is that the couple breaking up would be giving up the possibilities of their relationship, while they both loved each others. I do not believe much in the "love until you die", rather than there are growing closer and growing apart, and such are the tides of life. So breaking up because love is waning is fair, but when it's still strong?

Having long been a victim of it, I have a really hard time believing repressing could ever be a better choice, particularly than outright honesty. It might sting, it might even hurt, but it can't be worse than the slow grinding death of repression.

But I've made it very clear that the best way to hurt my feelings is to lie to me.