Monday night I went to have a drink with a friend at the pub. Both of us came from our day jobs which are in banks in Shoreditch, but we are both dating people in Clapham so the destination is generally this bar that always has seats a bit out of town and £15 bottles of wine. Wine nights always feel more honest. Before the first glass was half gone, we we are already getting to the grittier girl talk.
Her situation was about a somewhat recent sweetheart who has been getting texts from a girl. He showed her. She acted fine with it and he continues to be open about it. But there is the little green monster. Which I think most girls fear the most. The green eyed monster is jealousy and by definition is the emotion you have when you feel insecure that you are about to loss something of great value to you. In language today, envy and jealousy are nearly synonymous and both have a negative connotation as far as emotions go. Yet, the idea is that when you feel one- it is more of a fear of loosing rather than wish someone was without.
This wine fuelled honesty about relationships came together as we played devil’s advocate. But as much as you try to be empathetic/understanding there is nothing like the flip in your stomach you feel in those instances. It is not in all relationships but remembered this feeling from my boyfriend at 18, you feel almost dirty or ashamed for hating the person who is texting or calling. But the end conclusion of this was we don’t plan to stop texting our friends or guys so we can’t expect our lovers to. But really, why would you want your partner to only interact with you?
This whole bit then led to the conversation of are we really supposed to be with just one person for our whole lives? We evolve in our friend groups (miss you old friends) and our surroundings. Whys do we think that loving someone can’t evolve as well. I just really got hung up on this. Some guys friends joined soon after this kicked off and the conversation was astonishingly pretty unanimous. We all had the idea of love. The want for it, but all believed that we are able to love and belong to more than one person in life. The social norm of finding the one and getting married and that is it – is a bit dated (and not bad at all, just a different path). But this new train of thought on the idea of relationships being more of something you can do through life is sort of frowned upon. But why? This is an honest feeling. Why is it that we put such a high premium on the one and life when we can evolve or explore more? Why is this looked at like it is a lesser love? Just because your love with someone didn’t last forever doesn’t discredit it, or make it less. It makes it the perfect bit in a life of perfect little bits.
I don’t know. I think when you ask this question to people you get some interesting answers back. Although this was a girl talk topic, I think we have evolved alot from the “Does he like me” context.
I love this song by Banks. I listened to it alot this past week and it fits this whole thing so well. I think when you have the doubt that there is one person, you worry about hurting people more. Because you care about this person. I hurt when they hurt. I laugh when they do. And I’m scared because being with them now is the best, but I remember a quote I heard when I will younger, “It is easy to change a mind, it is hard to change a belief. One lives in the mind and the other in the heart.” As much as one sounds like a good idea, you know what you believe and the door is not as far as you think. Sweet, sweet Banks.
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