I am almost 8 months into a successful relationship and I owe it all to relationship experts (at least for my half of it). I’m obsessed with reading self help books and think Cosmo knows everything about life. I am convinced that all men and women are the same (among themselves not each other) on some subconscious and intuitive level. Therefore, I let the people who study mass behaviours teach me about (in my case) what men really want, what they like, what they hate, and what they don’t care about. These feelings are common denominators for all men and women. Above the surface, they are almost invisible.
I got on this kick about 3 years ago when I read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” I was immediately obsessed. I started thinking about all the things that my mom did wrong and how it effected my dad and their relationship. From then on, I decided to not trust my intuition but, instead, modify my behaviour. No, by this I don’t mean that I forced myself to change so that I would be more appealing to men. I mean that I forced myself to respect all the compromises that I have an obligation to make in order to maintain a healthy relationship with another human being.

The biggest challenge in life is living (which, also, means dealing, understanding, working, arguing, etc.) with people who are all different from you. I’m sure that everyone realizes as an adult how different they are from their parents. Imagine how much more different you are from people to whom you have no relation. I truly believe that once you understand all of the qualities that make you unique, you will be more than willing to accept compromise and (do i dare say it?) change.

My current 8 month long relationship is one of my greatest lifestyle accomplishments. I am proud of this because I have never been in a healthy relationship. I, also, have never been in any relationship for more than a few months. I’m going to explain some of the biggest challenges that force me to compromise and the steps I take that allow me to love and be loved.

No, I’m not an expert. I’m a girl, like every other girl (subconsciously). I am still learning. I still freak out for all the wrong reasons. I am still paranoid every day that it might be our last. I create problems that don’t really exist which lead me to worry for no real reason. But as long as I keep learning and keep reminding myself of what I’ve already learned, it helps me moderate my emotional breakouts and panic attacks! Much like what I’ve learned about acne, there is no cure for emotional breakouts, but there is treatment.

I will dedicate the next few blogs as advice givers on what not to do/ expect in a relationship. I will keep updating every time I remember or learn something new.

These are my little secrets so make sure the boys don’t find out we know!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 7:05 am and is filed under About me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.