Rejection, Pt 2. Is Honesty The Best Policy?

So like I said in the last post, “That’s a whole other blog topic right there.”

Well here it is ladies and gents….

Rejection, part dos.  Sometimes we actually do the rejecting instead of getting rejected which can be almost as hard. Emphasis on almost. It’s not quite up to par with the disparate feeling of being rejected - in my book, at least.

So my question is, when rejecting someone, or to sugar coat it: when telling someone you don’t have strong enough feelings to continue a relationship ----Wait is that nicer? I don’t even know.

Whatever.

When kicking someone out of your romantic life (ha!), is honesty the best policy? How many of us have the actual balls to say, “Hey I just don’t feel enough chemistry with you?”

I’m going to admit, I am the worst rejecter in the history of the universe. And I think a lot of people can relate. It’s so much easier to just kind of stop answering the person’s phone calls and texts and let it fade out….or tell them some bullsh** answer like, “I’m not ready to be in a relationship.” Or “I just need some time for me right now.”

The truth is if it was the right person, you would work it out because if you truly felt a connection with them nothing would stop you from pursuing that relationship, even if you weren’t ready. Because, face it, who is ever ready?

Or maybe what I just wrote is the formula for the reason why so many people have destructive relationships – jumping in when they aren’t ready.

=)

All I want to know is – is it better to just tell the truth?

Should I have told Mr. Bad Kisser that his breath tasted like moldy cheese and that good kissing does not under any circumstances involve playing hide and seek with my tonsils? Gag me with a spoon. Or would it have been appropriate to tell a man that I felt huge around them because they were shorter than me when I wore heels and risk being called shallow?

I don’t know about that last one, but I think that if I had been more honest in the past about my reasons for backing off, I would have spared a lot of hurt feelings.

Maybe it is okay to tell someone that you just don’t feel that spark you are looking for…or that you just don’t feel the chemistry with them. Maybe it’s okay to tell someone you don’t feel that physical attraction…and risk being shallow.

Or maybe we should keep lying to save each other’s egos.

What do you think?

Rejection, Pt 2. Is Honesty The Best Policy?

Rejection: Who is less afraid?

Rejection. It sucks. Quite frankly it is probably one of the main reasons many people choose to be alone. It's easier than having to ask someone out and have them say NO and make you feel like a loser.

It’s also easier than having to hear, "It's not you, it's me." WHEN YOU KNOW ITS YOU.  Shut up and just give me the real reason.  

Would we really even want the real reason? Would we want to hear, “I just don’t see you in my future.” Or, “You have really bad breath and I just can’t stand it anymore.” Or here’s a good one, “Just FYI….size does matter.” Ha ha ha. Can you imagine if people told each other the complete truth? That’s a whole other blog topic right there….(and here is the entry, click this link!)

Everyone has fears when it comes to interpersonal relationships and the entanglements that come with being in them. It seems that the fear of rejection is major among both men and women.

But are men less afraid of rejection than women? 

 

I know sometimes I like to point the finger at men – okay let’s face it, not sometimes…a lot of times. But I’m just trying to UNDERSTAND. In my subjective opinion, it seems that men deal with rejection better. They may feel the same as women but it seems like they are a bit more persistent at getting “back up on the horse,” as they say, and trying again. I’ve met some pretty persistent men and sometimes the persistence worked and sometimes it didn’t quite go the way they wanted it to. But hey, at least they tried?

So I see this persistence in the face of rejection and I KNOW there is no way I would ask a guy out ten times and have him say no. After I got one “No” I would be walking away with my tail between my legs feeling like crap. When I’ve been or felt rejected I’ve always questioned my self-worth and I think many women can attest to this. However, I don’t usually hear men expressing these feelings. 

However, I have heard the following:
“Oh that girls probably a lesbian” (Laughter laughter laughter)
“Eh….she was kind of slutty”
“Oh I wasn’t really into her anyway I was just playing around.”
“She’s not really my type anyway, she’s too much of a party girl [or insert another negative description here].” 

Is this some kind of defense mechanism?

And what do I hear from women?
“Is there something wrong with me?”
“I’m gonna be alone forever?”
“Am I Ugly?”
“Why was I not good enough for him?”

Is this why men generally do the asking out?  Because women can’t handle it? 

Or maybe this is why men and women deal with break ups differently? 

Both men and women I’d like to hear from you about your experiences dealing with rejection…Have you doubted your self-worth because someone rejected you?

A final thought for those who have let others affect their self-worth (myself included!):
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Thank you Eleanor Roosevelt =)

Rejection: Who is less afraid?

Consideration: A female trait?

con·sid·er·ation - noun \kən-ˌsi-də-ˈrā-shən\

4: thoughtful and sympathetic regard

So picture this…you make plans with a person you are romantically interested in and you are extremely excited. You have moved around your busy schedule in order to make time for this person so it is obviously significant. The thought of spending time with this person gives you that butterfly feeling in your stomach and even the monotonous tasks of everyday life seem more bearable. The day arrives and you greet it with so much anticipation your head is about to explode. About two hours before you are supposed to meet you get a call – no – A TEXT MESSAGE – saying… “Hey, sorry I’m going to have to cancel something came up.”

-------

Silence. 

Yup, I’ve been there – and I’ve felt like a big jack ass for getting excited and changing my schedule around to hang out with a person just to have them cancel on me. I think many of us have been there. But a weird trend I’m noticing is that this is happening to women a lot more than it does to men.

And it makes me think: Are women just more considerate than men in when it comes to romantic relationships?

And I know – things happen and they come up and blah blah. I’m not focusing on the idea of “bailing” on people or canceling a date because I know sometimes there are things in life one can’t control.

So many women I know have changed their busy schedules to accommodate their significant others while the men don’t give the same consideration. 

Many of us map out our life plans according to how it will affect the men in our lives. We take certain consideration for certain decisions because we wonder what will happen to our significant others. Or even the significant others we haven’t met yet. This may be due to the fact that we have that biological clock that reminds us of our limited time to get procreate, but that's a whole other issue I'm not going to get into. All I know is that in my career plans, I've taken time to really think about how this fits into my desire to get married and have children. And I think many women can relate to this.

This doesn’t just apply to women – of course, this applies to humans who have a ton of consideration for other people and don’t receive it back. It just so happens that most of the men I’ve encountered seem to be a little less willing to accommodate a woman in their lives. 

To be in a relationship, you have to consider each other, that's what it's all about. My advice to people on this is to not make changes in your life for someone who doesn't deserve it.

How do you know they don't deserve it? They don't give YOU consideration. It goes both ways.

To the men out there reading this – have you ever felt that you were extremely considerate of a woman and not received the same treatment?

I know we are all looking out for ourselves, but would it hurt to realize that an alternative to being alone would be to just let yourself accommodate a little bit for another person in your life?

Just a thought.

Consideration: A female trait?

To Love or Not to Love? Pt. 2: When Love Goes Wrong.

"He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."
- W.H. Auden

I have to admit, immediately after I posted my "love" inspired blog I started to feel very negative about the whole idea. I started thinking about the rising divorce rate and all of the unhappiness I've seen in relationships lately and I started to think, 'Okay why do I love love? Am I a MASOCHIST?!" Then I had a conversation with my dear friend from school Alexis and she brought up oxytocin and I said that I hated it (as if it was an actual physical thing I could touch) and I wanted to punch oxytocin in the face.

Haha. Okay, so I need to calm down and realize that my urge to punch an intangible neurotransmitter is not going to satisfy my frustration toward love. In my effort to do that I'm going to write about the love that doesn’t conclude with a happy ending.

We are all aware that sometimes love just isn't enough. Sometimes love ends....it fades, people lose interest, they don't see one another in their future, or infidelity exists. Unfortunately sometimes when love ends we feel like it is a waste of time to love at all.

Sometimes frankly, love sucks the royal weenie.

Males and females experience life differently so it's only rational that they experience and deal with break-ups differently. Of course, there are certain universal coping mechanisms we all employ to get through breakups, but how are they manifested between the two sexes?

The first thing that came to mind is that women definitely take break-ups harder than men do. I guess this is a generalization from my own experience and what I've seen from friends. Women tend to deal with it emotionally - crying, eating, spending time to vent with girlfriends and many bottles of wine,  sitting at home in sweats eating ice cream from the container (or better yet, getting a giant bag peanut butter M&M's while watching re-runs of Sex and The City!!!). On the contrary, it seems that the men I know have dealt with their breakups by not talking about it all, hitting the bar with friends and picking up "chicks," or pretending nothing happened and not expressing their emotions on the break-up.

This is even a concept that is shown in the media with breakups - You rarely ever see a man on TV shows or movies in his pjs cuddled up in bed with food eating his feelings, right? It’s always a woman doing that!

So I started searching and I found over 10 articles saying that men suffer more after breakups than women do. Say WHAT?

Research was done by sociologists at Wake Forest University and the University of Florida based on 1,600 responses from unmarried men and women between the ages of 18 to 23. They found that break-ups hurt men's self-esteem more than women's self-esteem because men don't talk to their friends as much as women do, which leads to a sense of isolation and more loneliness.

The researchers also found that while young men are more affected by the quality of a current relationship, young women are more emotionally affected by whether or not they are in a relationship (Read More).

So arguments for this? I mean men out there, do you feel like break-ups were hard for you but you had no one to talk about them to?
Why does it seem like so many men have no emotions when it comes to break-ups but some have ALL these emotions? I guess it goes the same with women.....

I think that – as I always say, it’s partially the way our society is and the way we are genetically constructed. Men are not encouraged cry to each other or talk about their feelings or emotions because if they do it’s crossing a boundary of “manliness” that must NOT BE CROSSED! And don’t deny it men, because I have seen it first-hand.

I just want men out there to know – hey you can talk about it. It’s OKAY to feel sometimes. And if you can’t talk to your guy friends, talk to a girl because they’ll understand. I hope.

So lend me your thoughts, who do you think break-ups are harder on, males or females?

To Love or Not to Love? Pt. 2: When Love Goes Wrong.

To Love or Not to Love: That is the Question?

 

Love is a many splendid thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.

All you need is Love?

If you don't recognize the reference, and you haven't figured it out by the picture, it’s from Moulin Rouge, one of my all time favorite musicals in the history of the UNIVERSE!

What is this musical about, you ask?

One word: Love.

The greatest thing you'll ever know is just to love, and be loved in return. (Moulin Rouge AND the legendary Nat King Cole)

Despite my slightly pessimistic nature and my occasional frustration with the opposite sex I have to admit that I am a believer in love. A hopeless romantic. I love love. I love being in love and I don't care what it does to me. (Thank you, The Format!).

What I've been contemplating lately though is....why? And what is love anyway, except just another four letter word?

Romantic love has been defined in so many contexts: to name a few, scientific, religious, philosophical....

So who is right? Or are all they all right?

The scientific view of love stems from reproduction. Humans were made to mate and we want to mate with the best person possible to make sure our offspring survives. Scientists have studied certain aspects of the senses that draw one another together. Studies on pheromones have established that identifying a partner's smell can drawn one to that person. There are also certain body shapes and physical traits that are linked to fertility (broad hips or large breasts for women and broad chest and shoulders for men or a deep voice). All of these things that attract people to each other lead to the actual experience of spending time with each other and forming an attachment. This attachment is formed through oxytocin, which if you've read my previous blog posts you are familiar with. Oxytocin is the attachment hormone - the all-powerful hormone that is used in many human interactions. It helps in forming an attachment between partners in an intimate relationship and creates an everlasting bond between mother and a child. However, oxytocin is also so powerful that a stranger who merely walks into its line of fire can suddenly seem appealing. (Read More!) So basically science explains love by referring to certain processes that occur in our brain. But how reliable is this because our hormones can trick us into falling in love?! The whole idea makes complete biological sense but it personally makes me feel like a lab rat. On the other hand, I may just be hanging on to my idealized notions about love instead of recognizing what it really is.


Religion has attempted to explain love in many ways. We have the beautiful explanation of love from I Corinthians in the Bible (Read more..). Love is patient...love is kind..dot dot dot. There is a similar verse in the Koran that explains God's love and what he loves but there is nothing that I could find that defines love. It states, ”God loves those who do good" (3:148), "the pure and clean" (2:222), "the patient" (3:146). The definition of love in Buddhism is wanting others to be happy. It is unconditional and requires courage and acceptance. Many   religions also discuss different types of love such as friendship love ("philia" in the New Testament) or sexual love (Kama in Hinduism/Buddhism) and God's love. I can definitely appreciate the traits and aspects that are used to describe love in different religions. But does that really DEFINE love? Maybe love is an experience that can't be defined in human words?


From the philosophical view of Plato, love is considered to be something higher than physical needs. Romantic love is a desire for beauty that transcends all earthly experiences. Aristotle posed the idea of "one soul, two bodies" that led to the modern idea of soul mates: everyone lives as half a soul until they meet "the one" which makes them whole. That notion is very appealing to the hopeless romantic in me. But, really? My rational self kicks in and thinks, "So there is only ONE other person out there for everyone in the world?" Way too much pressure!


So....romantic love: I've done research, I've experienced it first hand (well, at least I think I have), I've seen my friends fall in love but I still can't define it. I know it's a feeling. I know it can consume your life. I know that it's what so many people in the world strive to find.


Maybe love and knowing whether or not you are "in love" with someone is subjective for everyone? Maybe there is isn't one definition of love and everyone experiences it differently?


I know I said this is a blog for "maybes" but I may have over-did it in this entry.


 Maybe (!) that is what is so intriguing about love - the mystery of it all. I'd like to hear your thoughts, as always!

I think I'm going to go watch Moulin Rouge now <3

Until next time, lovers!
 

To Love or Not to Love: That is the Question?

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My Hormones Are In Love With You: Males, Females and Attachment

Check that little comic out. Makes me laugh. Hardy-har-har. Only because it’s kind of true.

It’s an age-old thought: a man fakes (or claims) love to get physical needs met while a woman uses physical needs to get love.

I am quite aware this isn’t always the case and that there are exceptions to this rule, so I’m going to speak on what I’ve learned in my experience and those I’ve heard from others. 

Fundamentally we know this exists at a certain point: men want sex and women want love, intimacy and a feeling of closeness. I love how I used 6 words to describe what women want (which doesn’t even begin to really describe it) and only one simple word to describe what men want. Ha!  As a result of these desires, things happen, people come together and engage in a plethora of different activities, and as a result emerges the dreaded word……

 Attachment.  

You would think we (society, human kind, whoever) would have exhausted this subject already….but as I did some research and looked for related articles I really didn’t find much. I found many references to an episode of Sex And The City where Carrie asks the question “Is it possible for a woman to have sex like a man?” The episode portrays the four SATC women attempting to do this and conclude that physical involvement it isn’t quite the same experience for women that it is for men. 

I think it just comes down to the fact that by nature, (GENERALIZATION) men can compartmentalize better than women when it comes to physical intimacy. We are biologically different which explains a lot of the differences in how we process feelings and experience sex. I’m sure many of you know about all the wonderful hormon-ees (Yes, that’s a Big Fat Greek Wedding reference) that drive us to do the things we do. For example, the wonderful neurotransmitter Oxytocin,  also known as “ the cuddle hormone”, is released during physical intimacy, i.e. kissing, hugging, touching and the big O. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with this neurotransmitter. There are many others that I encourage you to read up on. You might want to start here: Read more!. 

To females: we know we get more emotionally involved than men, it’s just a fact of life. What fathoms me is why we are so compelled to act like men and try our best not to experience attachment? Why are we trying to deny who we ARE? A possible contributing factor could be due to the fact that we live in a society that is obsessed with sex, love, romance, and physical intimacy which obviously doesn’t help our existing desire to be loved. 

Alright, men, I want you to understand something: physical involvement for a woman CHANGES THINGS. Women like to pretend it doesn’t, but it does. Sometimes we like to claim that it won’t change anything and we’ll tell a man that all we want is a casual encounter. Then it happens and somehow our brain starts convincing us we want more or we start getting attached even when we don’t want to. So unfortunately, when you choose to get involved with a woman (despite what she says) the danger of attachment is there. So don’t act surprised, because I just warned you. I swear if more guys would understand and acknowledge this the world would be a better place. 

So is there such thing as “No strings attached?” 

As far as females are concerned, I think there are definitely ways of having casual encounters without feeling attached but it’s not easy unless you know exactly what you want (and you never see them again ha ha, just kidding?). So just beware when you decide to start a “fling” or cross a boundary with someone into the ever-so-ambiguous land of romance/sex/love. Your feelings are at stake and attachment can set in at any time. Above all, be honest with yourself and the other person and DON’T judge yourself if you make a decision to act on a desire. Finally, ladies don’t expect men to get emotionally attached at the rate you do, because it’s just not going to happen. 

Just know that once you feel attached, that feeling is hard to shake……especially if you have to continue being around the person or you see them often. So think twice (or thrice!!!) before you decide to “woo-hoo” (that’s Sims slang, you love me for that!), because a “Woo Hoo” can turn into a Womp Womp if you aren’t careful. Quote of the day ;)

I feel like this is not the last post I am going to write about this issue. 

I’ll end on that note and just say, “Until next time.” I hope to hear your thoughts.

My Hormones Are In Love With You: Males, Females and Attachment