The prompt on the dating app reads, “I’ll fall for you if…” One answer I recently came across said, “You’re a gentleman who does that thing where you walk on the street side of the sidewalk …” Admittedly, this is not something I do or consciously put into practice. This isn’t the first time, I’ve…
Category: Relationships
Thoughts and Readings on Being in a Healthy Relationship
Unqualified
Sometimes I think I’m not really qualified for this job,the job of my life, I mean. “Homework” by Tony Hoagland Today, I felt wholly unqualified for life. I bounced between trying to write poetry, trying to write a post about trauma, processing the potential challenges of moving (tied to the post about trauma), reading poetry,…
Conflict and Therapy
Thursday nights were therapy nights. We did this every week or every other week for a few months. Trying to recall our routine, I think it must have been every other week, but then something tells me that we had weekly homework or that we would be asked “how was your week.” The frequency only…
Regrets: We Have but One Life
A poetry account I follow on Twitter posts/hosts a “poetry thread” almost every day. The poet picks a broad topic and shares a poem that relates to or exemplifies the topic/sentiment. Other people share poems that also relate. I usually read the original post and poem and maybe one other one, but seldom dive into…
To One Day Have a Shared Language
I subscribe to a daily poem email list. I don’t read them every day. Instead, every week or two, I’ll read a bunch of them in one sitting. I did that this morning. In the bio for one of the poets, he wrote about how he loves when he gets lost in his writing. He’ll…
Speculation and Dithering: An Addendum
As soon as I hit publish on my recent post about dithering, I second-guessed how such a post would be interpreted and/or received. This happens a lot when I have concerns about who might read it or what they might think. It happens when I talk about any subject over which I hold multiple and…
Speculative Questions and Dithering Answers
The other day I wrote a long and rambling mess of a post about indifference as a form of accepting uncertainty (Adjusting the Throttle of Indifference). Or at least that’s what I was trying to write about. I was also trying to touch on what it’s like to try to live without expectations and how…
Adjusting the Throttle of Indifference
Indifference…. we sometimes deploy it as a defense mechanism. We sometimes use it as a cudgel. Because it can be used in these ways, it seems important to be able to distinguish between real indifference and manufactured indifference. As a defense mechanism, feigned indifference – saying one doesn’t care – means they can’t be disappointed,…
Love Lessons from the Gottmans
It’s cuffing season – “that magical time of year during the colder, winter months when people are more compelled to start relationships. It usually runs from late fall, through winter and up until the warmer days of spring and early summer.” Oddly, almost all of my significant relationships started in the frolicking days of summer….
Sometimes on My Mind but in Different Ways
Last week I started texting with a woman from California. We talked late one night and I found myself frequently referring to my recent past as “a few years ago.” It seems everything in my life happened a few years ago – all of my dating history falls into this category, my recent jobs, my…
Going a Few Rounds
It’s football season, which means my dad and stepmom have been coming to the house on home-game weekends. The last few times they’ve visited, I’ve felt this urge – at the end of the night before I go to bed – to want to call or text someone as part of some end-of-day unwind conversation….
Attention and Avoidance
The other day I went to the pet store. I needed to get treats and poop bags. In one end and out the other. 120 poop bags – that’s almost two months’ worth of shit that I’ve committed to picking up. The cashier was new and wasn’t sure how to exit the current register screen…