Where the streets have no name

To the request of drunk american, here’s a little glance at my years spent in College, and in particular, at a special day during the year. 

On my college campus, there’s a special event organized each year where gather all the students of the town: the St Verhaegen. This event, always held on the 20th of november, celebrates the folklore of the student life of our university, and marks the end of the hazing for those who wanted to do their “baptism” and receive afterwards a hat we call a penne. When I arrived in my college the first year, we had a visit during one of our classes of two women coming from the family planning, a help center for women who need advice or help on their problem related to sex and pregnancy.  These two women had a short message especially for the female students. It went something like that: “Ladies,  we know many of you will participate to the St V. We’re just here to remind you to be careful during this event. Each year, we see arriving students like you in our center because of what they did on this night. Most of them had drank too much and forgotten about condoms, and come to ask us for the abortive pill”. Most of my fellow students couldn’t stop giggling after their intervention, and some of them wondered in what kind of mess we would end up by partying at the St-V. 

So, we went there, and curiously, I didn’t drunk that much on the first St. V. I made. I guess curiosity took on my ethyl envy that night. The party is usually held at the same place every year on the campus, under a big tent and in the middle of the wood. To arrive there, we had to pass through a deserted path, which wasn’t deserted at all. We heard some moaning and grinning coming from behind the trees surrounding the path.  Then, one of my friends saw a girl with her pants down and a man shaking his groove on her. And they didn’t seem bother at all by our presence. In fact, they both looked as if they had a few glasses in their nose. We just decided to leave them to their business (one of my friends, who was drunk, wanted to join them, but we impeached him). We finally reached the tent, and started partying. At one moment, one of my male friends had to satisfy an urgent need, and went outside the tent. He came back, mesmerized by what he saw. He told us he saw one couple busy banging in a hidden corner, while another one just did it against a tree – again- without caring if anyone could see them. At the end of the evening, or let’s say early in the morning, we decided to leave, but some of us wanted to eat something. So we headed to the nearest fritkot we could find. There was one close to the campus. And when we arrived there, we saw, again, a couple busy doing nasty things in a dark corner, but not dark enough for them to be ignored.   And this is where we ended our first St-V.

The next year, it was so freezing cold everyone was pressing against each other  inside the tent. We saw no fornicating couples (or at least, I was too drunk too remember anything). After that, I can’t tell you because I stopped assisting to the St-V. party. My friends and I  preferred going to bars and clubs than events like that, too filthy (there is always vomit everywhere and you cannot walk without putting you foot in it). But according to the other students, sex scenes like the one we saw are still very much there.

 

The greener grass syndrome

(this goes out to my greener grass that isn’t so green- I’m sorry)

Drunk american mentioned in one of his post how funny who we end up loving in our life, given that there’s always smarter, sexier,… than our partner. It’s also funny when you have found the love of your life, you will get confronted to infidelity that urges you to take its guidance. Who’s never been tempted to see if the grass is greener elsewhere is either a liar, either really secluded. During our love life, we will always have to deal sooner or later with that temptation.

Oscar Wilde said that the best way to avoid temptation is to yield to it. I remember this from high school because it was pronounced by one of my teachers who had an affair with another teacher (everyone knew about them). Knowing his personal situation added to this sentence its full meaning.

In my previous job, my former deputy director left her husband to move in with her lover. She told me back then she married young because she wanted to escape her life in her family, and fell in love with the guy from the security. But things didn’t go smooth between her lover and she. He was jealous and possessive. My boss’s daughter came once working in our office and explained to me what her mother had to do to avoid fights all the time with her lover. She couldn’t see openly her ex-husband, she had to ask her daughter to cover certain of her activities. Her daughter told me she wished her mother would leave him, but she was also afraid of his reaction.

In the Observer, I found an article about love and its many definitions. It differentiates the crush, the limerence and true love. I still believe you don’t cross the road of true love many times in your life. On the other hand, you can fall in love or have a crush many times in your life. So, why would you spoil your true love for some relationships that won’t last?

That’s a tough question. Living with the love of your life brings you ups, but also downs. There will be period where you don’t see each other that much (because of work, the children, the friends,…) There will be period where you don’t love him/her that much, because he/she has defects like anyone that can be truly annoying. So, doubts play an important part in our infidelity.

Then, there’s the chemistry. The most dangerous threat for a couple, I think. This is what I heard once, among the women I know. “My man was traveling abroad for a long period, and I met during his trip a guy I wanted badly in my bed. He was the opposite of what I like in a man: short, not well educated, not that intelligent, not that funny. But there was something about him that just drove me mad. Things heated up really fast between us. It started when we were in a restaurant with a group, and he just played with my feet under the table. I replied to his advances, and we ended up in his apartment after the restaurant. I was really overwhelmed by love, but six months after the start, we realized we had nothing in common, and just broke up” .

Things could get even worse if you fall for a terrible lover. “I fantasized a lot on him, he was very athletic, drool-worthy and charming. But when we switched to the bedroom, I was wondering what I was doing with him. Geez, he was terrible” T., 34, said.

Of course, if your legitimate partner is a total dork, leaving him for someone else (better, I hope) is justified. You can even find true love in the corner of those stories. “I was married with my longtime friend, because I was convinced I couldn’t find a better man than him, but I wasn’t really in love. Then, I met another man in my office, and I felt I had a better connexion with him than my husband. We started an affair, and we realized we had so much in common, that we broke up with our partners and started from scratch a relationship. We’re still happy together ten years after” H., 45, explained.

So, this would mean one thing (at least from the women’s side), if we go and see elsewhere, and really cross the line, it’s because we don’t love that much our partner. But some women need to go and see elsewhere to find out they really love their husband after all.

This is tough, I must admit, to stay faithful, isn’t it?