20nothing.com

I have always had a problem that there is no “I” in team. Grammatically speaking, I can deal with the spelling. But the actuality of being a team player has always bothered me because I don’t enjoy doing anything according to anyone else’s rules. It makes relationships rather difficult because official titles and traditional guidelines fall as flat as any ball I have ever attempted to throw in a netball game.

Dating is full of rules. How long should you wait until you sleep with someone? (Twenty minutes?). When do you say ‘I Love You’? Can you fart in each others presence? The list goes on and is almost endless. I have always had a problem with rules being so enforced or integral in love, because when it comes to attraction we say it is illogical. It is, then, a contradiction to bring logic into it and, in reality, the only logic lacking is the twisted idea that there is a right way or a wrong way to do something so individually relevant.

The moment you admit to people that you are attracted to someone, there is a waterfall of questions that start with “Have you kissed?” and ends with hypothetical children names. There seems to be an expectation that attraction is going to follow a predictable path that is understood by everyone.
“Isn’t that boring?” I recently asked my relationship-happy boy friend. “You meet someone, you like each other, you love each other, you get married, eventually you just like each other…”
He explained that the natural progression of relationships is biological and I started wondering if I missed the “Lets Get A Mortgage” DNA strand.

When I revealed to my people that I am attracted to The Prettiest Boy In The World [official name] and then said that I had no plans to do anything about it, confusion was thrown at my face like the last time I tried to play baseball.
“Why don’t you go and visit?” was one suggestion.
“Why don’t you move to Melbourne?” was another.
“Why don’t you just change everything in your life simply because you are attracted to someone?” was a, paraphrased, idea.
No one seemed to understand the enjoyment one can have from simply having a feeling with no pressure for it to materialize into anything more than getting to know someone.
“Why do I have to do something?” I asked. “Who says there is a particular movement to make?”
No one gave me an answer. But I did get quoted many lyrics that can be found on horrible love song compilation CDs.

Emotions can routinely confuse even the most intellectual of people. When it comes to love, dating and, even, sex, the general rule has been for emotions to lead the way as rationality or reason are an unromantic reality. I have always had a problem with this, as if I followed everything my emotions told me to do, I would be a bald singer living on a boat in the middle of the Dead Sea. Knowing that this [probably] wouldn’t be as fun as it reads on paper, I reason through any emotion that tells me to do something irrational until happiness and enlightenment can be found. I am not special here, as most [sane] people do a similar thing in areas of their life. But, when it comes to love, dating and sex, they won’t think about things for a second.

What is more romantic than working out what you want to do in your own life? The best answer I have come up with, after lots of pondering, is a never-ending-bottle of scotch. But, sadly, I will probably work myself out before anyone creates such a waterfall of magic. The romance of doing something because you know you want to, because you know it makes you happy, not because you are expected to or need to, is the epitome of a fairytale.

I sat back, by myself, finishing a tumbler of scotch I would have to refill on my own and felt enlightened that, even if it isn’t understood, I at least have the balls to do what works for me.