Monday, January 31

"there's nothing better than affairs of the heart, to make you feel so good then tear you apart"

i went to a concert and then to another concert last Thursday. neither of them were Barenaked Ladies despite the title of this blog.

ain't no blizzard gonna slow me down.

staggering thru snowbanks and the underground scene with my friends is a pretty regular ritual. as we filed out of Rockwood music hall, we decided the next logical step was to enjoy New York's finest mediocre overpriced pizza. about three bites in we started talking about a song i've been working on, which inevitably lead to a discussion about feelings as most of my lyrics are infested with them. about six bites in, the conversation turned to relationships, particularly that exquisitely painful grey area that sometimes ensues. feeling as close to my friend as i do, and feeling that the man under the microscope is a genuinely good guy, i had no choice but to default to the "boys are dumb" defense. if the glove doesn't fit, boys are dumb. makes about as much sense and johnny cockrane.

after all pizza was overpaid for and rightfully devoured, this lead to a higher level conversation, which lead to this blog. the "boys are dumb" defense simply doesn't. partly because we aren't in first grade, and the extension of that elementary mentality doesn't translate in your 20s.

to say all boys (who we will refer to as "men") are guarded and all girls (who we will refer to as "women") are relationship happy/prone/desperate is a lie. i know plenty of emotionally unavailable women and plenty of men who "need" to be dating someone at all times. if we are all born as blank slates, we cannot intrinsically fall into these buckets. there are fundamental differences between men and women, but there are also fundamental similarities that we share as people. these seemingly unbreakable patterns don't filter because of gender, but are a product of how we are socialized. if men are the hunters and women are the gatherers by nature, we're still all coming back to the same cave. and that hunter may not be happy without a gatherer to call his own, and maybe that gatherer could gather the shit out just about anything on her own. we inevitably break towards the "unavailable" or the "needy" side, but that isn't because of some driving internal force determined by gender. it's shaped by our experiences as people--our triumphs, heartbreaks, points of prides, regrets, mistakes, and lessons learned. the best you can do is recognize which side you break on and crawl your way to balance. if you can't, see a therapist.

it's not easy to claw back to the center. the balance very rarely comes naturally, and the only people i know who it does come naturally to aren't in their 20s. they've had to train themselves to get to this point. as someone who airs on the side of guarded, i proactively try to stay to open. when the issue is how guarded you are, it's not fair to make your partner in crime do all the work. vulnerability sucks, but it's a gateway to trust. we have to turn down the alannis morisette and dodge the fear that flies at us and learn to stand still instead of running away and stop agreeing with chuck klosterman that nobody will ever fulfill anybody because ColdPlay exists, even though he's right. people who feel the need to be in a relationship have to proactively try to remind themselves how full their lives are. they have to turn down the bryan adams and do yoga and be okay with sitting alone at the cafe with their thoughts and selfprioritize. either way, it's work to keep yourself in check. it's a mentality shift and sometimes even a lifestyle change, and knowing yourself is the first step. it's like weight loss or addiction recovery or admitting you like to watch the Jersey Shore. also, none of this is gender specific.

maybe boys aren't dumb. maybe kermit the frog had it right all along though gramatically incorrect: peoples is peoples.
-k.

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