Honey, if you love me.....

....won't you please, please smile?

A curious, amusing game from my younger years. If you happen to be unfamiliar with it, the basic concept was thus: the group sits around in a circle, generally on chairs, with one person in the middle. This person selects someone, sits on their knee or lap, and recites the line "Honey, if you love me, won't you please, please smile?" using any mannerisms/tone they wish. If the person manages to keep a straight face whilst replying with "I love you honey, but I just can't smile", another victim is selected and the process repeated until a smile is produced, whereupon the two swap places and the new person in the middle continues the routine.

All in the name of fun and entertainment, but rather similar to the mind games people have a habit of playing in real life. "If you really loved me, you wouldn't do that..." "You're my friend, you have to come." "If you truly appreciated what we have, you wouldn't be afraid to take the next step..." "You can't say you love me and want to be with me, and expect me to believe you if you then say you don't want to have sex."; demanding others jump through hoops, manipulating them into doing something that supposedly validates and proves the existence of a relationship (be it friendship, family, religious, or romantic).

That's not to say we shouldn't do things for those we love (or those we hate, depending on your views regarding forgiveness, and killing your enemies with kindness, and all that jazz). Even things that require personal sacrifice in some form. I hope that I generally make it clear that there isn't anything at all people shouldn't ask of me; they just shouldn't assume or expect compliance purely on the basis of the existence/desired affirmation of a relationship/rappor.

If I do something for another, I want it to be out of love, a desire to please the person, adherence to my (overbearing) sense of integrity, perhaps to create opportunities for new experiences, or achieve some form of gain (mutual or otherwise). Not to merely feed the concept of a bond between us, satisfy social expectations, or ratify emotions *coughreligiouspeoplecough.* (It all applies to religion/a relationship with a god, too. Perhaps more so).

For when that starts to happen, the things we do cease to be about the people involved, and begin to center around sustaining the image of a relationship; taking action out of a misplaced sense of duty, as opposed to communicating with each other. Perpetuation takes precedence; fear of the unknown prevents a relationship from running its natural course (be that towards demise, or greater depths of trust and intimacy).

Instead of being something to describe people relating to each other, the relationship becomes an entity in its own right, which must be sated. It must progress through various preconceived stages, in the right order, and once one 'level' has been attained, it is hard to go back to a 'lower' level. You've already been to third base, so henceforth you have to go at least that far again. You've done W, X and Y together, so the only next logical step is to do Z, and you simply have to go there for the relationship to mean something. Right? Your self-worth is entirely dependent on upholding relationships with friends, deities, and lovers. Right?

Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid.

Interaction needs to happen in both directions; that's why it's inter-action, instead of just actions out of obligation. Relationships should yield rewards other than "being in a relationship".

Change should not be feared and resisted. People grow together; people grow apart. The wheel of life keeps on turning.

Ad infinitum....vita aeterna

BFF - Best Friends Forever. Eternal Life. Eternal Damnation. "I'll love you forever".

Infinity. Eternity. Forever. Evermore. Hogwash.

As humans, we seem to have an obsession with stagnation. A refusal to embrace change, growth, the spice of life. We want things to last forever; why? Fear of the unknown future? Why is "eternal life" the ultimate reward? Is what we have never good enough?

Certainly, it is pleasant when a good thing lasts more than a fleeting moment. But who's to say that if a good thing passes on, it won't give way to something better?

One can spend so much time and energy in futile attempts to prolong, preserve, and hoard, that something perishes without being fully enjoyed. Smell the flowers now; tomorrow they will be gone. Don't store that food until it is stale and mouldy, because it is too good to eat. "Eat, drink, and be merry".

Clinging to relationships (be it family, friends or the OneTrueLove^TM) and not wanting to have to make new ones, long after your lives have gone down different paths, is senseless. I suspect that worrying over how to keep someone forever, has killed more than one relationship.

Similarly, fretting endlessly about health (sometimes to the point where it makes you ill and stressed!); enjoy things in moderation, don't refuse every slice of white bread, piece of cake, drink or cigarette, for the sake of the extra two weeks' life it might bring you when you're old and decrepit and shitting in your pants. When death could be just around the corner, as inevitable as taxes, why waste time and effort to suffer in vain?

Friends, food, moments, love, lovers, life....all come to an end. Fact. There's no use worrying about it. I'd rather simply enjoy it all as much as I can when I have it, and when it's gone; it's gone.

Deep down, all people are good....

....it's just difficult to get past the ribs to the really tasty parts.

I can be somewhat disillusioned when it comes to humans. It's not that I'm cynical, we just all suck. The social constructs we weave around ourselves, to create a senseless prison, are frustrating to say the least.

God loved the birds and made trees....Man loved the birds and made cages.

We have emotions, good and bad ones. They can occasionally override logical thought. To complicate things, we also have a plethora of -mostly unwritten- laws attempting to control how we deal with our feelings; taboos, stiff upper lips, keeping up appearances, "proper" behaviour, religion, dating protocols, institutions such as marriage...

Love, in its purest form, is arguably one of the finest and most powerful emotions (brief aside: Ziggy Marley is Epic Win); yet we so often manage to spoil it with jealousy (and who doesn't love Freddy?).

Relationships have been on my mind rather a lot lately; dealing with the fallout of friends' romantic dilemmas, other friends getting engaged/married, various dramas and gossip, have all had me thinking about how I relate to others, and how that compares to the general populace.

I've also met some thought-provoking people and had great discussions on various subjects. One of them I was interviewing for FYi RADiO, and had some interesting things to say on the subject of sexuality and its fluid nature; having previously considered himself a happy out-n-proud homosexual, he is now a happily (heterosexually) married father of one. Another is an enlightened Swede (I'm slowly building up a collection of them) who seems to share similar views to me regarding relationships.

Far too much defining and limiting goes on in mainstream thinking. Friendship is this, and "serious" relationship is this; friends can't cuddle, or hold hands, or share a bed; partners must only do these things with each other. I am this, therefore I can only be romantically/sexually attracted to/involved with this; why is a gay man treated like a heinous traitor for finding happiness with a woman, getting married and having kids?

Can't we just go with the flow, and do whatever feels right in the situation? Why the rigid adherence to generalised preconceptions about ourselves? Why the stifling sets of "appropriate" and "inappropriate" behaviours? I have good friends whose company I truly enjoy; it has been assumed on more than one occasion that we are dating, when the relationship couldn't be any more platonic. It's at once amusing and infuriating. Blur the lines a bit, people! Break down the walls! In previous blog entries I ranted about how we sometimes view physical contact; how sad, for example, that two male friends would refrain from exploring any physical element to their relationship (eg hugging) for fear of appearing gay.

The dubious virtues of monogamy is another aspect of relationships open to debate. Had you asked me a few years ago, I would have been quite staunchly all for it, and why not? We are brought up with the concept drummed into us as the ultimate ideal. Yet it is a practice founded on jealousy and possessiveness, neither of which I would consider beneficial.

The highly unrealistic Hollywood/Disney concept of One True Love ^(TM) only serves to compound the problem. Two people meet, perhaps become friends first, get along, and then the Next Step is taken and they're Going Out. So much unnecessary stress and pressure to Live Happily Ever After, and somehow the relationship changes; rather than progressing naturally, easily, suddenly everyone's talking about it, there's nerves, a whole list of things to live up to. One person has to fulfil all of another's needs and desires, almost from day one it seems. There is a monopoly on who they can see, how they can interact with others. You can't hang out together, you have to go on Dates. Suspicion and jealousy rear their ugly heads, people feel "trapped" in their relationship, some "cheat". They've moved out of the "friendship" box and into the "partners" box, where the rules must be different.

Those who aren't privileged and are Single can feel a sense of despair, longing, sadness. They're not good enough to be in this fabled Relationship. Attraction, or Crushes, become a source of boundless angst, for fear of expressing love and receiving rejection, or apprehension over what moving out of the Friendship box will do to the existing relationship. Pointless. Complicating.

Marriage; once a business/political contract, joining tribes/families, sealing the exchange of land and possessions (including the woman). Nowadays more for "love" (and to give into peer pressure, religion, for legal/tax benefits, or immigration, and to claim exclusive possession of each other). Noble.

Am I generalising? Of course, but I've met far too many people who are all worked up over the whole monogamous relationship thing.

Do I disagree with monogamy in general? No; I disagree with it being marketed as the One and Only Way, and of people falsely committing to a monogamous relationship, when they're going to cheat. Certainly, if two people grow close enough that they meet all each others' desires, or they wish to take on the responsibility of raising a family, then monogamy could work. Divorce statistics would suggest a lot of people are rather hasty in making that decision, though.

How sensible is it, considering the fluidity of sexuality and character, to bind oneself into a lifelong emotional and sexual relationship with one person, and one person only?

Nor is this justification for being a slut. I view promiscuity as lots of sex, with minimal relationship. What I'm talking about is being open to concurrent relationships developing naturally, building trust and respect, taking them as far as the people involved wish, without adding all the complications and social hangups. Omitting the jealousy. It doesn't always have to lead to copulation, nor does it have to avoid copulation. There are other forms of intimacy/physical closeness that are just as valid, perhaps more so in certain situations.

Besides, sex is the last thing I'm looking for in a person.


(But it's still on the list, with a very select few.)