Words from my father

"If a couple gets married," My father suddenly says, "and the woman likes the man more, it won't last long."

I blink.

"But if a couple gets married, and the man likes the woman more, then it will last forever."

I pause from my reading. I tuck a placeholder into my memory and look up at him. "Why?" I ask, not bothering to figure out what led to this rare slip of thought. He was watching TV and I was on the computer when he shit this wet thought out of nowhere. My mind starts racing, and I try to push the movement aside so that I may hear him clearer.

"Well. Okay. Let's say, I liked your mother--" sssssst, ouch --"...then I would be doing things for her, right? Maybe going out of my way, maybe something already in my way, but I'd be offering myself somehow. For her, to make her life a little easier, because I wanted to, or because I care for her." I nod.

"But in the situation where the woman likes the man, then she would be doing things for him all the time, and he--" (pats his own chest. Hmph) "--would be very comfortable and content. Right?"

I lift a brow. I nod.

"And should she ask him to do something, like 'baby, I had a long day, there's a lot of dishes in the sink, could you please do them for me?' Then what would the guy say? He would say, 'Psht, that's a woman's job. You do it.' And it would turn into a fight, and she would do them anyway, because it's either do them or argue until the sun comes up.

"The guy, if he liked the woman, would just try harder to maintain the relationship. And that, in the end, is what keeps the relationship strong. If the woman liked the guy, he would take her, take what she has, and leave when something better comes along."

I laugh. "Does 'something better' mean 'a woman who doesn't like him'?"

He flicks his head to the side. "If the woman liked the man more, he'd just lay back and be content with her until he finds someone that makes him want to try. And then he will leave her. That's just the way it goes."

I sneer. But I think I sneer because I see its truth. I hate hearing it. I hate having to acknowledge the validity of it.

"Look, when you find a boyfriend, just make sure that he likes you more, and make sure that you don't like him. It's not gonna work unless the guy really wants to make you happy. And that can only happen if he loves you more."

He explained what I already knew, but have thus far avoided when dealing with people I actually wanted to be with: "If a man comes up to you and wants to spend time with you, you have to give him a little and take it away. Say no once in a while. Keep him chasing after you. Keep him coming to you. If you drag him, he will break away and leave. If you always agree to spend time with him, then he'll know he doesn't have to try anymore. Soon he'll stop asking you to hang out unless he has nothing better to do."

I stare steadily at him. "Hm."

"If you keep offering to pay for this and pay for that, then soon you will be paying for everything. And him?" He raises his hands in the air, dusts them off. "He will save his money. And he will spend it all, ALL, on a woman who tells him no."

"Hm." I say again. I'm really thinking about this now. I open my mouth to respond, but he goes back to watching TV. His random and rare profound moment has passed. I turn to my keyboard, and just kind of stare at the screen for a while.

This is advice I've heard from all shapes, sizes, ages and sexes -- I even wrote a few frustrated blogs about it before -- but coming from my father, it was damn unsettling.

I don't want to take this often repeated "rule" to heart because I feel -- or hope -- that I could somehow outsmart this system. But as much as I'd like to chalk these experiences up to simple under-30-bitchassness, I look around and above and beyond me, and feel that I must reluctantly agree. Ugh.

I imagine myself married to the first person I truly felt in 'love' with (you know, the kind of love with bitter quotation marks around it, the aftermath of retrospect) -- and I grimace. I see a situation similar to my own parents, who no doubt cemented a whirlwind romance, and when the dust settled they found themselves trapped on two completely different planes. Without going into too much detail, I will just say that yes, it is plainly a situation where my mother loves him more than he loves her. And no, it was not a marriage that should have lasted this long. Needless to say, I was in the same boat.

I know that it is possible to find, with a clear head, someone who you can share a mutual kind of ^_^ with. but what is constantly thrown in front of me, as an early-twenty-something year old in an instant love-em-and-leave-em city, is that it is very rare a relationship can be successful without the woman holding the nuts in her hand. So to speak. If she lays down for him, then she gets runneth over.

My longest and "most successful" relationships have been in scenarios where I was either unwilling, or too afraid, to give much of me to my partner. And yes, whether it was because I didn't see a future with them, or was too jaded by my past to give them an inch, they sure as hell worked for that mile.

When I finally came around to touching my fears and working over them, I was stunned to see myself on the other side, losing those I wanted when I refused play the game. (Believe what you will, I'm just not good at it.)

I ask again: Why play with someone who you do want to be with? Even if all the evidence is there, saying that it's the right thing to do. Why should I accept it? It goes against my... er.. 'emotional logic.' (Ha!) I still insist on scoffing and saying, well maybe I don't WANT to be with someone who I have to play those kinds of games with!

But, is it truly inevitable? Must one learn how to play to stay?

Sigh. I think the moral of his, and all the other similar stories, was: A relationship is only as good as the amount of effort the man puts into it.

Could this be a universal truth of society? Or is it merely a generalization, reinforced by the majority of the world we live in?

Sure, it may be the woman who accepts the relationship (ie, the courting process), but perhaps it is the man who ultimately decides its future.

(And, if this were indeed the case, then perhaps the men of the world should not be so embittered toward the women who have learned to play the game well.)

You're so beautiful.

I've never been moved to tears so strongly by an election before. I fell to my knees in front of the screen and damn near shook when he was announced. Fuck it all, I'll say it: I cried for two hours straight that night. And still, today, I'm easily weepy.

"You will always remember exactly where you were the moment 9/11 happened." I can bet you a million anything that we will forever remember exactly what we were doing, who we were with, and how we were feeling when it was officially decided that he will be our 44th president.



For the first time in my life, I can say with complete honesty that I fiercely love the head of our country. That I am proud to be an American. That I want to be loyal to our president. I've learned more about politics this year than I've ever learned in my life. I want to be involved, I want to help. He can, he did. He will.

I have so much hope, I don't even know what to do with it! I've never felt it this hard before. Shit, I've never allowed myself to!!!

Growing up, I've always, always been told "No, we can't." It was a fact of life, we were simply never able to. We were always struggling. We never could. Sacrifices were made on the things most people took for granted, because we just couldn't afford them: Birthday parties. Allowance. School trips. All my proms. Regular check-ups. Health insurance. Graduation presents. The schools I wanted to try for.

I've always had to let go of hope, so that I could be happy with my reality. Up until now, I never let myself feel it. Up until now, I feared it...

And now, finally, it feels like I can let that go.

Now... Yes, I Can.

Dude. This is... like. Intensely overwhelming.

*Exhales*

Happy election day everybody. You have no idea how much this means to people.