So, as Valentine’s day is approaching, I would like to play a little game, called: What is love?
The rule is simple: give your definition of love.
Here’s mine: love is accepting to lose.
Now it’s your turn…
One of my friends is about to get married to her ex. They first dated 20 years ago, but it didn’t work at that time because he was flirting with other girls. Between them, it was just a teenage fling. They called it quit after one year and started dating other people. He got married seven years later. My friend moved in with her lover the year later. And both became single again three years ago. They met again because they were neighbors. When she left her lover, my friend moved in an apartment down town, and her ex chose the same one without knowing she was there. When they realized they lived in the same building, they decided to become friends. And got to know each other a little better than when they were teenagers. To their surprise, they got along really well. So, they decided to dust off their old relationship, and give it a try.
When I asked my friend if things would have been different if they didn’t date when they were teens, she replied negatively. “OK, back then, it was just a fling. But we were so young. We wouldn’t have imagined we would get married one day to each other. At that time, all he wanted to do was to have fun and to experience life. He didn’t want to commit in a relationship. And I didn’t want that too, although we loved each other. Now, it’s clear for both of us we want to be with each other for the rest of our life” she said.
In the case of my friend, I’m still wondering if this full circle is caused by pure randomness. After all, if they didn’t move in the same apartment, they wouldn’t have got together. But it’s a great thing for them. I went once to a wedding where the bride and groom got together again after a series of ordeals. They fell in love when they were 17, but their family were clearly against their union. He was Jewish, she was catholic. There was no way their family would accept another religion in the family. They had to meet in secret. And their family tried to intercept their communication as much as they can. Once, the future bride didn’t receive any news from him for 4 weeks, and she started to worry sick. She had no choice but to call her future mother in law and ask her when J. was. And she told her it was over, that J. finally understood they would never go anywhere together. The future bride was in shock. She tried to find him, but never managed to do so. She didn’t know J. was sent to see his dying uncle abroad. She didn’t know her mother-in-law told J. she wanted to call it quits. She didn’t know her own mother told J. the same lie. When J. came back, she confronted him. But he simply told her he never wanted to see her again.
Five years later, they bumped into each other by accident in a seminar. Both were married, so when they noticed each other’s ring, they concluded they were in a neutral situation. They were alone in the seminar, and knew nobody else, so they stick to each other during the whole event. At the end of it, J. asked her why she left. And then, she bursted into tears, and asked him why he didn’t want to talk to her, as his mother told him. When they realized they were manipulated by their family, they became pale, and didn’t say a thing. The next day, he called his mother for an explanation, and she called her to have one too. And they admitted the truth.
To their surprise, their spouse understood the situation, and accepted the divorce. They married two years after this meeting, with their ex as maid of honor and best man(…), but without their family. I guess here, their full circle isn’t caused by pure randomness.
I can’t help wondering: when do we know we’re made for each other?
When I was in College, there was a girl who always came first in our promotion. And she had an affair with one of our professors, the one who was very elitist with his students. If you weren’t in the top grade of his exam, he wouldn’t talk to you in other ways than in derogaroty terms. The best students were granted his kindness, and he only talked to them during the pauses. Of course, he was very hated. And my classmate was too. She got an A+ for her exam with him. And she was the only student who only got such a grade with him. So, we all concluded that she got her grade thanks to her affair with him. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t wise enough to shut her mouth about it. If no one knew, we would have only concluded she was clever. Period.
Later, when we started our career as journalists, I learned she slept with the chief editor of her media. The guy has the same charachter than my old teacher: elitist, arrogant, and very hard to work with. Few journalists managed to stay in his media, because he’s such a pain in the ass. And also because he didn’t hesitate to fire the journalists not good enough for him. Of course, my ex-classmate is a great journalist. But again, if her affair with her boss was kept secret, no one would have put her professionalism in doubt.
All the journalists I know calls her arrivist. But I think she may have her reasons behind her attitude. When you were trained to be the best in what you do since you were little, chances are you will reproduce this scheme over and over again in the future. My ex-classmate isn’t the only one in my profession to react like that. When you think about it, this profession is like you were permanently studying at college. The contacts you can have often teach in university. And they treat you like their students. So, we can reproduce this strange bond over and over again. But this quest also shows how insecure we can be. Creating such a bond like my ex-classmate with her boss and her teacher isn’t healthy. It’s only based on a narcissistic recognition, that can break into pieces when someone else takes your place in the heart of your boss/ teacher. In the case of my ex-classmate, I know her parents got divorced when she was 5, and she always tried to be first in class so his dad would be proud of her. It was the only way for her to exist to his eyes, because he moved away in another town to start a new family with his new wife, and wasn’t that much available for my classmate. I guess she’s only repeating the same pattern with her boss, and her ex-teacher. But I can’t help wondering if she’ s happy that way.
So, did you ever fall in love with your teacher/boss?
Once, one of my friends asked me if I could introduce her to one of my single male friends. I replied that the two single guys I knew might be far from her ideal of the prince charming. The first one is divorced, but takes custody of his four children. He’s very very busy, and we all have a hard time seeing him. Yet, he’s adorable. When I told my friend about the children, the colour of her face changed and I thought she was about to faint. So, I told her about my second friend. I love him as a brother, but he’s a little bit special. And I told my friend she might be surprised about him, because he’s not conventional at all. But she said: let’s go for it.
The D-Day, I asked him to join us in a cafe, and when he arrived, I pretended to have a call from my man to come back home early. The next day, she called me and said she wasn’t interested in him at all. And he told me he spent the most annoying date he ever experienced. So, I guess my career as a matchmaker ends here.
I don’t know if matching your single friends is a great idea. Recently, another friend of mine got introduced to one of her friends ‘ friend, and got disappointed by the meeting too. Their friends set up the date during a party with ten other people, and she said the guy spent his time hooked on the cleavage of another girl. She got also offended he didn’t propose to her to pay for her part at the restaurant.
Yet, with some luck, those odd matches can work. But there is also another option. One of my acquaintances was friend with a girl she met in a knitting class. Once, she was invited to have tea and biscuits at her place, and when she arrived, she fell on her friend’s brother who came to visit her sister. He was tall, handsome, a had a great sense of humor. From that day, they couldn’t live without each other. Another of my acquaintances met her husband through one of her patients. She’s a nurse, and developed friendship with one of her patients. When she had to change her apartment because it was too noisy, but didn’t have access to her next one yet, her patient offered her to stay at her place for the time she needed. And this is how she met her grandchild, who just came back from Canada to say hello to his grandma. Instead of moving to her new apartment, she moved to Canada to follow him.
I don’t know if randomness is better in this kind of situation. But when I see how turn the dates of my friends who want to be introduced to other people, I can’t help wondering if expecting too much of a meeting ruins your chances automatically with the other.
So, do you count on your friends to find the one?
This morning, we had a huge laugh in my newsroom about this news. I could only imagine that big guy calling his wife to sob on her shoulder. Ok, we’re mean. If we were at his place during the Lehman Brothers collapse, God knows what we would have done instead. But as I read in a magazine, men are more sensitive than we think. This stroke me when one of my friends announced she was leaving her husband because she had enough. “I warned him several times about thinking about our couple rather than him alone. I told him to care a little more about me. But he wouldn’t listen. So, I thought that he would be better off alone. But when I decided to leave him, I didn’t expect him to react the way he did” she said. “He would beg me for months to take him back. He got depressed. He even cried in front of me” she added.
According to psychologists, women manage their emotions better because they talk about these with their friends. Men, on the other hand, hold their emotions. And when the levee breaks, those flood like a torrent. Besides, if a woman tries to recreate with her lover the bond she had with her father, a man also tries to do so with an ersatz of his mother. Apparently, this can cause them a lot more nostalgia, a quest for this fusion bliss that is much more overwhelming than the feelings a woman can have. This quest is dangerous, it can lead to self-destruction. I don’t say that women can’t do this too. But psychologists say we don’t react exactly the same in this kind of situation.
Women’s independence nowadays can also cause men to stress more, to be more sensitive. Women are not afraid anymore to talk about their sexuality, and to act like a man with the opposite sex. This is how you can hear stories about guys sobbing about how they met a woman in a bar, sleep with her, and then hear her saying that he was a good shot, but she only wanted to have some pleasure, and that it was the end. This is how a big and powerful business man in your country can call you to sob on your shoulder because someone said he was a dick… And that someone was a woman…
Most men don’t like to be challenged in their sexuality with their partner. My male friends admit they hate women who are very explicit with their needs in the bedroom. But I have to admit I hate that too for a man. So, that leaves us equal 
I’m convinced that if men show more emotion nowadays, it’s because our education has changed. We don’t teach little girls to be a nice little housewife. We don’t teach boys not to cry. Is it for a better? That is the question.
Recently, as I was waiting in the queue for paying my stuffs, there was a lady just before me who carried a pile of pajamas and other home interior clothes. Those weren’t exactly the same kind that Calista Flockhart wore in Ally McBeal, for those of you who recalled. Later, when I told this to one of my friends, I realized that this woman was trying to change something in her relationship. My friend explained that her husband complained a lot about the fact she would rush into her pajamas as soon as she came back home after work. So, she invested in some clothes she would only wear at home, a little bit more sexy. Hence, the sexy pajamas, as she calls it. Another friend of mine said she doesn’t completely change her clothes when she gets back home, but prefers to borrow her man’s knits to stay warm. And to smell his odor permanently.
For some people, changing clothes when they get home is a way to make a break from their stressful life at work. It’s also the occasion to get back to their real me, and let down the mask we often use at the office. For some people, it’s also a practical question. When you spend all of the day in your tuxedo, you don’t necessarily want to hang around in your house in it. Especially during the week-ends and the holidays. But it’s not a reason to hang around in your dirty pajamas/ worn out jogging pants, especially in front of your man. The same goes for your man. For sure, if you want to kill your couple, it’s a great way to do so. Psychologists say it’s important to be in a permanent seduction mode in your couple. This simply means you can’t let it go freely in front of the love of your life.
But that doesn’t mean you have to dress over the top all of the time either. “I find her incredibly sexy when she’s wearing a loose t-shirt, a cardigan, and a pair of jeans, with her hair tied up and no make up. She looks much more peaceful when she’s dressed like that than when she’s wearing a suit for her job” H., 35, said. “My ex used to wear a pair of jeans and a simple shirt at home, and there was nothing more sexy on him than that” I., 36, said.
Of course, if there are other problems in your couple, what you wear won’t have any importance. But if there’s no problem, it’s not worth creating one by letting yourself go, and then wondering why he/she doesn’t like you like when you first met.
So, what do you wear when you’re at home?
When I was a student, I had once to pick some documents at one of my classmates’s apartment, and when I entered the room, I remembered all the candlelights laying everywhere. I asked her why she had so many candlelights, and she replied that once lit, those created an erotic atmosphere. “I can’t have sex with the lights on. This is an alternative where I can let go without stressing about how I look during the act” she said. Years later, when I had once a chat with all of my friends, some of them admitted they also like candlelights or dimelight for making love. “It’s a trigger for sex. When the candlelights burn, I know I’m in the mood for sex” one of them said. “This is a compromise I found with my ex. He was tired of doing it in the dark, while I hated doing it with the lights on. So, once, we gave it a try with a different atmosphere. I bought some candlelights, and I was instantly feeling better about this. You’re not completely in the dark, nor in the light. And it creates shades, leaves you to imagine things. It’s stimulating. I like this. I don’t want to have sex in a different way now” another one said.
It’s true that most women hate to have sex in the light. While it’s also true that men want to do so like that. We do because we don’t have the same perception about the act of sex. Most women can’t let it go when they have sex in the light because they focus on their physical flaws. “I’m not perfect. I’m convinced he would notice how fat is my tummy, flat is my butt, … during the act. So, I prefer to have sex in the dark. Otherwise, I can’t concentrate on anything else than my flaws, and I would have a hard time to come”R., 34, said. But not all women are the same. “I need to see my lover during the act. I need to see his desire for me. This turns me on”H.,35, said.
Men, on the other hand, often see sex as a perfomance. So, they need light to see what they’re doing, and how their partner react.
But those dynamics can change with time, when both partners trust each other or know each other very well. It’s how you decide to do it that matters, then.
So, do you like to do it in the dark, or in the light?
In my office, two of my coworkers fell in love with the two biggest players. One got divorced after five years of tempestous up and downs. The other is still living with him, and has managed to tame him a little bit. They have moved together, and have three children together. Yet, with us (he’s my boss), he’s still playing it vain. You can’t talk with him without having him telling you his extraordinary experiences, and we all wonder if this is true. I call him Mr. Inflation, because everything he does/thinks is inflated. A bit like his ego. With him, a minor incident can become a huge one just like that. He can put drama in everything. It’s tiring….
When they first dated, it was a bit weird. They tried to hide their relationship from everyone in the office. I can understand that, though. Gossips start just like that in my office. If two people spend a lot of time together, then they’re probably having an affair… In the case of my coworkers, they hid their relationship for four years, until they admitted they were living together (but everyone already knew about it…). One of my friends knows him very well, and she said she had seen him flirting around several times in the beginning of their relationship. She really doubts he was faithful. But my coworker didn’t seem to bother. Perhaps he told her he was just friendly with women… God knows. But I suspect him to have told her BS all of the time. After all, when you’re a professional liar, why would you tell the truth? Things changed when his father died. All of a sudden, she became pregnant, and he cut heavily the hard partying.
The other couple didn’t end up that well. The guy was also one of the directors of our company, and had a big ego. He was also a professional liar. He wasn’t faithful at all to her, and when she got pregnant, he accused her of cheating on him, which wasn’t the case. He had a problem with alcohol, and was really mean when he was drunk. She finally left him while she was pregnant of their second child.
Most of us wondered why she fell in love with him. He’s the douchiest of the douches on this planet, and was really a tyrannic boss. He harassed many of my former coworkers who decided to quit their job because they had enough of him. But he had also a way to talk to women. I guess this is how he caught her.
Some people get easily fooled when people always tell them what they want to hear. With experience, you learn that when it’s too good to be true, then it isn’t true. But it is hurtful to get fooled like that. When you want to be in a relationship, and find someone who promises you thick and thin, it’s hard not to believe those promises. With a real player, you know that he won’t keep his promises. It should be a good sign for you to leave as soon as you can. If he keeps his promises, on the other hand, then, maybe he just wants to blow your mind. But this is sweet. Then, you can also find a man who doesn’t keep his promises, but yet, shows you proofs of love in a very unconventional way. One of my friends is dating such a guy, and she had to admit it was really hard at the beginning to trust him. “He would promise me to go to the South of France, to meet a key person for my job, to give me a book he really liked,… But he never kept his promises. Yet, he’s always there where I need him, without even asking him to do that. I just told him not to make promises he couldn’t keep. I know he tries hard not to do so right now. I find this really touching. I had to talk about him a lot about this aspect. And I guess if you don’t bother to tell what’s annoying in your partner to you, then you shouldn’t expect him to change just like that. It’s a question of communication”she said.
Maybe this is how my coworker managed to tame her player too. Relationships are not that obvious.
So, what do you do to prove to the one you love you really love him/her?
Recently, I had a strange conversation with one of my professional acquaintances. Instead of asking me how I was, he asked for my opinion on his successor at the helm of his previous company. He left because he had enough of the mad organization there, but only stayed during two years. I replied his successor was doing the best he could, in an environment of unfair competition. My intuition told me not to add more, and to switch to another subject. I just asked him how he was to change the topic. And he replied he was soooo happy in his new company, blabla. When he hung up, I thought to myself: gosh, is it jealousy, or what?
The thing is his successor is doing a fair job with his company. He has been working there for twenty years, and knows everything about the business. My acquaintance came from a whole different background, and his beginning was… clumsy. During the two years he spent there, he took a lot of drastic measures to diversify the revenues of the company. Those were necessary. But some of those were a bit weird. The new boss takes more logical decisions. And listens to every advice coming from his sector. My acquaintance once told me these were BS.
I guess everyone made the comparison between the two. And has come to the same conclusion than me: even if the company is severely wounded because of competition, it is in better hand with the new CEO. Knowing him, he’s probably too concentrated and busy on his job to think about it and brag about it. On the other hand, my acquaintance can’t stand this comparison. He already had a hard time standing the numerous critics he encountered when he left.
Ego, ego… Unfortunately, in love too, those comparison can happen. One of my friends dated for three years a woman we all hated. And when he eventually left her, we all told him how happy we were for him, and that he deserved better. Six months later, he found another woman, much nicer than his ex. When she learned about it, his ex wasn’t pleased at all. Everyone told my friend how cute was his couple with his new lady. When he was with his ex, nobody made that remark. She was jealous, and started to spread false rumors about my friend’s date. This provoked a lot of tensions in his couple. Until he decided to confront his ex and tell her to move on with her life. He didn’t shout at her, but apologized for the breakup and told her she deserved better than him. This probably calmed her down, because tensions eased suddenly after that.
Breakups are a delicate period. It can be highly traumatic for the one who gets dumped. And if the other treats you like shit, for sure, it’s not good at all for your ego. Bashing the new conquest of your ex can be therapeutic for some time. It can help you to move on. But if you’re still bashing her/him after ten years, maybe there’s a problem.
Besides, it’s not very delicate of your ex if he/she starts to shout out loud how better he/she is with his/her new conquest. Especially if you waisted spent a few years with him/her. But it depends on who left who, and how. If he/she dumped you like trash, I think it is legitimate to bash this douche. If you were the one who left, and not in the nicest manner, you should expect to be treated like that. It’s only fair. Yet, we all know we should move on with our live. We shouldn’t spend too much time for someone who obviously didn’t deserve us.
So, do you think it’s important to keep good contact with your ex?
In her new book, Elizabeth Gilbert explores the pros and cons of marriage. And as she points out in her book, married men find in marriage a lot of benefits, while it’s not necessarily the case for married women. In sociology, this is called the marriage benefit imbalance. The author gives the example of her grandmother, who made her fortune when she was young and single, but had to leave her life behind her when she got married to raise her children and run the house. And her fortune was quickly depleted by the numerous expenses of the farm.
This happened many years ago, and nowadays, women don’t quit their job anymore to raise their children. Yet, when you see the statistics for working women compared to their male counterparts, there is something alarming too. For the same job and qualifications, a woman is still underpaid compared to a man. She’s also likely to be less productive when she gets pregnant, because she will ask for time off to raise the kids. And she’s likely to refuse promotion just because it requires to work more hours.
When women get married, most of the time, it’s because they are in love. And it is commonly agreed that when you get married, it’s for establishing kinship for purpose of defense. It’s the foundation for raising your children. In my country, this is becoming an exception since people don’t wait to get married for having kids. But then, it becomes a problem when divorce gets in the way, because the woman can’t ask for spousal support like she could if she was married.
Yet, there are women who find their fortune into marriage. The most obvious example is the likes of Anna-Nicole Smith, who marry very old but very rich dudes to inherit their fortune. There’s also those who win the lottery when they divorce, because they managed to get an astronomical spousal support (see the divorce section in the Wall Street/City columns). But there are also those who find their fortune on their own. This is the case of one of my friends, who becomes a famous photographer five years after she got married. Unfortunately for her, her marriage didn’t bear her success, and she got divorced two years ago. Luckily for her, she married under the separation of goods, so her ex couldn’t pretend to have a dime from her newly found glory. On a less tragic note, my aunt also made her fortune after she got married. Her employee gave her the opportunity to finance her college studies, while allowing her to take time for studying. My uncle helped her running the house while she was busy with her studies. My cousin was just six when she started this. Thanks to her diploma, she could reach a better job.
So, if we go back to the ancient definition of marriage, my aunt’s example would be a great one for illustrating how a marriage offers you safety in numbers. Of course, my aunt could have done her studies if she was single too. But I guess having the support of your husband and son in this battle is also worth the fight.
In the end, I believe that fortune and marriage aren’t incompatible. It just depends on how you want to make your marriage work. This also applies for those who aren’t married, just in a relationship.
So, do you believe in marriage?
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