Long Relationships

1. Keep your cell phone charged.
2. Keep your cell phone by your side.
3. Do not turn your cell phone off.
4. If you break rules 1-3, borrow somebody else’s phone or (gasp) use a land line to check in with your loved ones, they’re worried about you.

As my boyfriend and I sat eating Hawaiian Pizza on a park bench last night, the sun set slowly and we realized that we’ve come to a point where decisions don’t have to be compromises anymore. I don’t know if two people just become more in tune with each other or what, but over the weekend there was no arguing about music selection, pizza toppings or movies to watch, to name a few. And better yet, our selections were more than just mutual choices, we were both completely satisfied with what we had to work with.

We discovered a surprising comedic gem over the weekend, too: Norbit. I’ll admit this movie looked pretty stupid from the previews, but never again will I judge a movie by its preview. Norbit has (of course) Eddie Murphy starring in three different roles, Cuba Gooding, Jr. acting like a complete ass, and other small roles by Eddie Griffin, Marlon Wayans and Katt Williams that totally make the movie. Don’t believe me. See it for yourself.

So it seems that Cananda and Singapore, two of the most high-tech and innovative countries in the world, grasped a new dating concept before the rest of us. Canada’s Admit an Attraction and Singapore’s Hitchoo are pretty similar; after meeting an interesting person or prospective love interest, site patrons can hand out a card with an access code to his or her private profile site with personal details.

Since the tickets don’t contain any personal information, both parties are guaranteed a level of privacy they wouldn’t have if they exchanged phone numbers or email addresses.

That’s all fine and dandy, but, you know, I’m assuming the profile would still contain some sort of contact info, and let’s face it: if you give somebody your card and they’re not interested, they’re probably not going to stalk you. But, uh, whatever, go ahead and spend money to talk to people you’re already met in person. It only costs CDN 9.95 for a 12-pack of cards at Admit an Attraction. At least in Singapore they give you eight cards for free before charging 8 SGD for 12 additional cards.

Here’s a fun piece I found this morning: Is technology bad for relationships? It should be more like, “Is technology bad for morals?” Nevertheless, it contributes to my text message research. I personally don’t use texting to cheat or lie, but hey, everybody’s different.

Here’s my personal favorite text from yesterday: “If you suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotion.” I knew right off the bat that these weren’t my boyfriend’s original words, and no, he doesn’t do LSD. It was a case of the random song lyric text, this one clearly originating from the great Funkadelic. George Clinton spoke the words, if I’m not mistaken.

Song lyric texts show me that the man can’t help thinking of me even when he’s driving around funking it out. I like that.

And yes, my boyfriend does have habit of driving and texting. I’m enrolling him in a self-help class as soon as possible.

God I’m glad he doesn’t read this. Ha. And no, I’m not being DISHONEST about this blog, he just happens to hate blogs, social networks, e-mail, everything. How did such opposites become so close? I’ll never grasp it.

I heard a great story on the radio last week about crafting the perfect text message to a lover. I took a mental note (the kind written in invisible ink) and forgot until… well… about 30 minutes ago when I first started looking for the text version of the story online. I still haven’t found it and don’t think I will. But I really did hear that story. Seriously. I wouldn’t make this up.

My own research on the subject is slim, but I’ve noticed that my boyfriend generally utilizes text messaging to woo me with corny, romantic goodness. Or, of course, pick a fight.

I generally send really unsexy innuendos that just end up confusing the man. Ha! Just kidding. My texts ROCK.

I am going to look into this more. I leave you with the only confirmed rule when it comes to relationships and text messaging: You don’t text message breakup.

Do you ever get stuck in conversational ruts with your significant other? I know I do. I mean, it is rare that I’m at a loss for words, but I think often two people feel as though they’ve run out of things to say to each other. This doesn’t mean the thrill is gone or two people have fallen out of love, I really just think people forget how much there is to learn about their loved ones.

Well here’s something you should try regardless of how exciting your conversations are. Trust me, it’s much preferred to, “So how was your day, Honey?”

My boyfriend and I were out cruising around last night, and during a silent moment he asked me to tell him something about me that nobody else knew. Oh, and it couldn’t be just something that I did, but just something about me.

I couldn’t really think of anything, so I just ended up telling him about a thought that has passed through my mind a couple of times recently, and from there grew one of the best talks we’ve ever shared. We both learned so much from the conversation and I think it’s safe to say we both feel much closer to each other now. It’s funny how much people really do hide their true thoughts and feelings. (Well, this is true for us, but maybe not so much for some people. Don’t pretend you don’t know the type.)

The only untouched feelings we have are so tainted by the time they escape our mouths. We spend so much time reporting the news, but what’s really important and what brings us together are the passions and feelings we share with each other. How sad that we keep so much of them inside, especially from that one special person who makes the world turn.

So go out and express yourselves! If you spend a lot of time musing over something, tell your loved one! The high you feel is almost as great as falling in love in the first place.

I just threw myself into one of the biggest commitments I’ve made in a while: I got a cat yesterday. When I told a friend she looked at me, shocked, and said, “wow, you’re in control of another life,” and then went on to talk about how odd it seemed for me to be in such a responsible position. Uh, how hard could it be?

After bringing him (Eddie) home and playing with him for a little while, my neck, eyes and arms got kind of red and itchy. Perfect. I denied to myself that I was allergic. I was already in so deep. I couldn’t stand the thought of giving him back to his old owners or an animal shelter, so I’ve decided to keep on trying this whole thing out for a while to see if it’s really all that unbearable.

Later in the day my boyfriend came over to see the cat, and he’s even more allergic than me. I didn’t so much as sneeze all night and he was practically breaking into hives. Oops.

So I guess it’s all kind of like going on a first date with one of those lovable people with one small quirk or bad habit. Do you throw that fish back out into the sea just because of one little thing? (Like pet dander? Or bad taste in favorite baseball teams?) I’m optimistic about these kinds of things. They can be worked out.

The question is this: will my boyfriend be able to get past a new male in my home that gets his pet allergies going? He said it won’t be a big deal — he’ll still come over. Score for me, being a cat lady is a forgivable quirk!

And I was accordingly called a heartless robot, or something like that. Well I stumbled upon this:

I was strictly looking for Mindy Smith performances, but this caught my attention. They’ve actually found a way to make 2002 look nerdy. It seems like it’d be such a fantastic year — we survived the millennium and we’ve been going strong for two! years. But wow, I didn’t realize how confused we were at that point in history. Unless the movie was supposed to have taken place a different time? (Please say 1997 — things were so forgivable back then.)

You know those little “one small step for man; one giant leap for relationship” kinds of moments? I think I had one today.

I guess I should introduce the situation a little bit before I get into details, so here’s a quick run-down: my boyfriend and I are living pretty far away from each other for the summer. Normally he lives in a town that is 101 miles away from mine, but the distance still doesn’t keep us from visiting at least twice a week. Now we can only see each other on weekends. I realize that the situation really isn’t terrible at all — in fact I still know very little of the struggles long-distance lovers experience.

There is, however one specific problem: he hates talking on the phone, and I want to squeeze his brain of every detail of his day’s activities, thoughts, annoyances — everything.

He gave me a quick ring before class, we swapped a few words, and he told me he had to go.

“But you still have eight minutes until class starts,” I reminded him.

“Well, I don’t feel like talking to you anymore and I’m going to go study,” he replied.

The slightest error in diction really can be killer, huh? So, usually I would act hurt, hang up, possibly send him a text telling me I was hurt by what he said, draw the whole thing out and turn it into a long, dramatic “my boyfriend’s an a*sshole fest ‘07.” (Yes, T-shirts and all. And YES, I do realize how anal-retentive I sound in that quote.)

Wow, I didn’t think I could make myself appear more vulnerable, but sometimes that’s just what he does to me. Luckily, instead of reenacting my normal routine, I quickly jumped back onto my high horse, told him in an honest and edgy way that his carelessness for my feelings pissed me off, and once he had finished class he sent me a sweet message with a nice apology.

No need for a huge road blockage after a tiny fender-bender, eh? And all I needed to do was be honest about my feelings. Imagine that.

Wow, really? How did it take this long to come to such an earth-shattering conclusion? According to this new study:

Bachelors might have sex on their minds more than their single female counterparts, but once in a committed relationship, men and women have similar attitudes toward the act, a new study finds.

Translation: women don’t waste their time having sex with the guys they wouldn’t date, and, well, men will take whatever they can get.

The subjects in the study had to answer a series of (if you ask me) hilarious statements on how they feel about sex. A few examples:

In category 1, “sex as personally and physically pleasurable,� statements included:

* I should get drunk to enhance my sexual experience.
* If I want to be close to someone, I should have sex.
* I should have sex with my partner so he/she will not leave me.
* I should have sex with as many people as possible.

Category 2 is boring. Here’s another series of statements included:

In category 3, “sex as personally costly in terms of having negative emotional, psychological or physical consequences,� statements included:

* Sex makes me feel guilty for violating my morals.
* God will punish me for having sex.
* Having a one-night stand makes me feel cheap.
* I will get an STD by having sex.

So, according to this study, women don’t want to have sex with every living and breathing member of the opposite sex because it’s considered a social taboo? Please.

When Mr. Right shows up, however, women ditch society-imposed gender roles, warming up to sexual pleasures, the researchers found.

Well that’s cute.

You can vote here to see if your “sexual desire matches your partner’s.” The last time I checked the results, the numbers don’t quite match up.

Ladies, how does your desire for sex match your guy’s? * 705 responses

31 percent — I want it more often than he does.
30 percent — We have about the same sexual appetites.
39 percent — He seems far more interested than I am.

Guys, what about you? * 1139 responses

70 percent — I’m definitely more interested in getting it on than she is.
19 percent — We’re into it about the same amount.
11 percent — I can barely keep up with her!

Somebody’s lying.

I’ve been jealous of many, many women in the past. Ex-girlfriends are always first on the list. After that, pretty much any gal who so much as breathes near my boyfriend is obviously trying to steal him away and deserves to be punished accordingly.

Seriously though, I really am a bit jealous at the moment. The potential threat seems low by my measurements, so this jealousy grows strictly from my boyfriend’s increasing appreciation for another woman’s looks. It’s always annoying when a significant other develops a celebrity crush, but trust me, this is worse. My boyfriend won’t stop gushing over my mother.

He says he’s always found her attractive, but over the past weekend he noticed a new spunk to her. Yes, that’s right, my mother has 30 years on me AND sexier spunk. Wow, this could get really dirty really quickly.

I’ve taken it pretty well, I mean, I guess I do own many of her physical qualities, and this can only mean that I too will be an attractive older woman, which never hurts. But when my boyfriend jokingly suggested that I dye my hair the same blond color as my mother, I decided things may have escalated a bit much. And my over-dramatic reactions to his jokes are only making things worse.

I was right all along: my mother IS setting out to ruin my life.

Everybody knows (and fears) the phrase. I feel bad just expelling the energy to type it out: “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” Well, according to this story by a Santa Cruz psychologist:

The “in love” state has been psychologically likened to insanity, where the boundaries between reality and fantasy have become blurred. As thrilling as it is, this euphoric state’s decline is normal and expected. The body and the psyche can tolerate high passion for limited spans and then need to return to homeostasis that can be preserved for the long run.

The article says the euphoria of love will last long enough to procreate and wean a child. So what about those couples who really do stay (madly) in love forever? Is there really something so crazy about that?

The typical remedies for a loss of passion are suggested: make time for each other, make love to each other, appreciate each other, etc. They sound like nicotine patch solutions to me. But who knows, maybe that’s just what those seemingly drug-addicted and psychotic lovers are doing.

“in love”, loss of passion

I have a few friends getting married this year; generally, I’ve managed to avoid the wedding onslaught that seems to plague recent college grads. For the most part, I stand on the outskirts of the fray that is wedding planning.

The advertising that goes into the wedding business is dangerously coercive. It’s your one chance, they tell you. You can’t put a price on forever. In essence, it’s your one chance to blow as much money as possible. During my engagement, ads like these disgusted me. I hated knowing that the ads worked, that brides would decide to spend their money on an illusion of security embodied by twenty-dollar slices of cake, antique cake toppers, and lighting designers. While I knew exactly what my wedding was costing my parents, I also knew that my marriage wouldn’t come without a cost.

Ah, but that’s a different cost. It’s not a bottom line on my spreadsheet or a profit margin in a bar graph. It’s personal, which means that no advertiser can grasp it.

Commitment, for me, is not the dress that hangs in my closet (unpreserved) or the crystal bowl holding my bouquet. It’s not the financial burden my parents took on so that a lot of people could be at our wedding. Instead, the commitment comes because I said, “I promise.”

I take you to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, according to God’s holy ordinance. I promise to love you as Christ loves the church and to be faithful to you as Christ is faithful to the church. I will love you, comfort you, and honor you, forsaking all others and keeping myself only for you, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.

These are strong words, but we said them knowing that the promise did not mean, “I will always be perfect.” It meant, “I will always try.” When being loving, faithful, and comforting gets to be too much for this flawed person, I’m able to stand on that first line.

I take you … to have and to hold.

So we hold on. We try our very hardest everyday and occasionally, we manage to be successful. The vows are for aspiration, but commitment helps us learn.

- - -
Note from RA: This post is my last at LongRelationships.com. I’d love to keep in touch at my original blog, Definitely RA.
- - -

couples, commitment

For more, subscribe to LR.com’s feed

There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

- Art Turock

This quote from Art Turock, motivational speaker and author of Invent Business Opportunities No One Else Can Imagine, is certainly applicable to business leaders and team managers. If they are committed to a company’s vision, they will look for results in measurable metrics that indicate success.

The same concept applies in long-term relationships, but those metrics are a bit fuzzier. Instead of profit margin and turnover, a couple needs to identify which factors are most helpful in showing their relationship’s success. As with many other aspects of a committed relationship, communication is essential in making sure that both partners understand what the other considers as relational success. Possible criteria could include:

- length of the relationship
- health of interactions with family
- demonstrated team-based decision-making
- similar views on family structure and roles
- flexibility of partners in change
- reliability of partners in adversity

The realm of relationships is hard to navigate on these black-and-white terms because emotion is so closely tied, but the concept is still solid. The idea is not to approach the partnership as a business transaction; instead, envision the relationship as a journey to some destination. Where do you want this relationship to take you? What do you want to accomplish with your partner? It is in setting up these milestones and benchmarks that partners can understand how their intention is being realized. Without results, the commitment - in business and in love - is not being served.

- - -
Note from RA: This week will be my last at LongRelationships.com. Thanks for your support and I’d love to see you at my original blog, Definitely RA.
- - -

couples, commitment, goals, communication

For more, subscribe to LR.com’s feed

When summer comes, there are a few changes that occur in our house. The storm door gets replaced with a screen door. We make fewer casseroles and grill almost all the time. Instead of turning on the heat, we switch on the ceiling fan. The biggest change, however, occurs in the morning.

As a teacher, JG usually gets up at 5:50am so that he can make it to school by 7am. Homeroom starts at 7:30, you see. JG is a morning person by nature and, while the hour is still early, getting up and started with the day appeals to him. On the other hand, I am a grumpy ogre and in the morning and woe to the person who tries to talk to me before I’ve been up and moving for at least an hour. I say all this to preface the big shift: I have to get up before JG.

Shudder.

My usual routine consists of smacking the alarm clock to deafen its buzz (plus or minus a few snooze button pushes), rolling over, groaning, and then racing around to leave more or less on time. In the summer months, it’s pretty much the same, except that JG is next to me, wide awake, talking up a storm, and wondering why I’m not quite as chipper as he is.

Don’t get me wrong - having JG around for the summer is great. He is really good about cooking dinners (hello, it’s grilling season) and taking care of random honey-do items. Heck, last summer, he painted six rooms in our house.

I just need to keep that in mind when I’m trying to drag my sorry self out of bed in the morning.

- - -

Note from RA: This week will be my last at LongRelationships.com. Thanks for your support and I’d love to see you at my original blog, Definitely RA.

- - -

couples, co-habitation

For more, subscribe to LR.com’s feed