Always Have An Out

So it has come to this.

The Adrants blog posted an entry this morning about Cosmopolitan magazine's newest service - the ability to pre-schedule a phone call to ring while on a date, providing a convenient out from a bad situation.

According to Adrants:

The function is powered by Moderati and can be accessed at the mobile component of the Cosmo site. The service costs a dollar and, we suppose, saves you some dignity.

Makes logical sense, I suppose. I am still in favor of the 15 minute coffee date, with the "oh, I have to meet someone" excuse to extract yourself. But then again, a dollar is a very cheap price for an instant out. Consider me sold on the concept.

Love's Ending

"I just want one day when I don't wake up and feel like shit."

On the other end of the phone line, separated by 700 miles, my best friend begins to pour out his sorrows.

"I'm serious - I just want one day when I don't wake up and search for the nearest bar."

I murmur sympathetically. The twin wounds of heartbreak and betrayal are still fresh on his heart; at this point, there is nothing I can do but listen.

As my friend talks, my lover comes up behind me, scooping me into an embrace. I quiet my breathing and feel our chests rise and fall in tandem. We are connected. I revel in his touch for just a moment, and then kindly push him away. My friend is still on the line. I need to empathize with him.

His love is now lost, removed from him by way of betrayal. His pain is deep. He mourns.

Helen Fisher writes about the loss of love in her book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. In her chapter on lost love, she writes of the point of resignation:

Eventually the disappointed lover gives up. Their beloved is gone forever and they are spent. Many plummet into hopelessness. They toss in bed and cry, Drugged by the potent liquor of sorrow, some just woodenly sit and gaze into a void. They hardly work or eat. Perhaps they feel an occasional urge to renew pursuit of their lost love or a passing flash of anger. Generally, they feel deep melancholy. Nothing pries them from their anguish - except time.

---Fisher, p. 168

After venting for a few moments, my friend stops and recovers.

"I'm sorry, " he starts, "I just don't know who else would understand. You've been there, you would know."

He is apologetic for his weakness, his endless belaboring of the issue. I tell him everything is fine. Sitting here almost a full year later, I have seen love's full circle. I remember sitting alone in my apartment, grappling with the idea that the most significant relationship of my life had ended. Isolation crept in as most of my friends were in relationships - they could not empathize. I remember the feeling of being absolutely alone with my feelings and myself.

And yet, some how, three months later, I was out. I got new friends, went to new hangouts, found new hobbies. At first, it was just to fill time. Later, I realized I had always wanted the life I created. Five months later, I fell in love for the second time. Love found me a bit gunshy, but I back into it anyway, giving rise to the most fulfilling relationship I have ever known. Eleven months have passed, and I am happy. I am in love. My life is good.

Unfortunately, my friend cannot see that now. He is deep in the throes of pain. The constant reassurance that "it will get better" is not sinking in. For now there is only darkness.

I sigh and touch my love, who is stretching on the bed next to me.

"It's no problem," I say, "Just keep going. How do you feel now?"

Snow...Fall

I sit, looking out my window, watching the thick snowflakes lazily make their descent to the earth. My apartment is small and warm, but for some reason, the space feels to large for me, which is ridiculous, as I can see all 500 square feet of my abode while sitting on my bed, without needing to turn around.

Suddenly restless, I flip through a few magazines only to abandon them in a heap next to my bed. I pick up a book, and re-read the same sentences over and over again before giving up and staring at my ceiling.

I want to stop myself from waiting for a call that is not coming, but I find I cannot. Hours pass, and I continue to wait, thinking of ridiculous excuses, putting off errands to be run, waiting for that one word, that one sign, that you are thinking of me.

It is no wonder why some people would rather run from love than to embrace a feeling they cannot control.

I want to rage, to break something, to do anything to ease the pressure that is rapidly mounting inside of me. I've pounded out 40 minutes of pressure on the treadmill at the gym, on a higher level than usual, hoping that the driving guitar rifts from my Ipod and the sound of my body gasping for air would drown out the sound of the phone not ringing.

The gym completed, I again sat in my apartment and stared at the ceiling. Moments later, I am up again, lacing up my sneakers, choosing to walk to the grocery store and do some shopping. Two miles, $60 in groceries, and two miles later, I'm back in my apartment. Unpacking takes 10 minutes.

The phone still hasn't rung.

I fix lunch. That takes 10 minutes. I eat lunch, while flipping through a book I've read dozens of times before. I put away my lunch dishes. Put in a load of clothes. Take out the trash. 40 minutes have passed, and still the phone refuses to negotiate.

I contemplate calling again before rejecting the idea. I called in the morning, sent a text message around noon, and called again at two. Any other action from my end would be admitting my desperation. Unfortunately, I am desperate. My emotions are at war: one faction wants to call and call and call until I get through, and demand an explanation for the last 48 hours of non-contact. The other faction feels like every single phone call transfer to voice mail is another tiny rejection, chipping away at my already fragile wall of dignity and self-control.

The second faction wins. I resume staring at the ceiling.

Apparently, these kind of feelings are not unique to me.

In Helen Fisher's epic thesis, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, she dedicates an entire chapter to the unraveling of an affair. Entitled “Lost Love: Rejection, Despair, and Rage,” the chapter delves into the feels and emotions that accompany the involuntary end of romance. Fisher writes “Almost no one in the world escapes the feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, fear, and fury that rejection can create.” She then goes on to quote Emily Dickinson, who wrote “Parting is all we need to know of hell.”

In the section dedicated to separation anxiety, Fisher outlines the chemical reactions that take place within the brain in response to being away from an important loved one. She closes the section with these words - “How ironic: as the adored one slips away, the very chemicals that contribute to feelings of romance grow even more potent, intensifying ardent passion, fear, and anxiety, and impelling us to protest and try with all our strength to secure our reward: the departing loved one.”

We are genetically wired to become panicked when the thought of our loved one leaving us crosses our minds. This is an especially difficult process, especially if one of the parties involved has been hurt before. Having experienced the pain of withdrawal, we do everything in our power not to experience that set of emotions again.

Some people refuse to let a love go: they continue to call, write, stalk shared locations hoping for a glimpse of the loved one. They ignore all the missed calls and the nights alone, and throw their whole selves into convincing the other person that they are making a mistake, that the need is a mutual one, that the experience they have is worth fighting for.

Others, choose to run away – they bleed their insecurities, and would rather work on a new conquest, or receive the quick gratification of inspiring desire in another person. It's just another way to cope.

I switch my MP3 playlist to one that better reflects my mood, opting for the sounds of frustrated rage that categorizes the group Atmosphere. The lyricist, Slug, has made an entire career out of romantic rejection, spilling his anger and sorrow onto track after track, making albums that are essentially an audio graveyard for deceased relationships.

I let Slug's voice lubricate my thoughts as I fight off the urge to do something, anything, to alleviate the pressure. Should I call the guy that almost was? No, no...that's too much of a distraction, and in my current mood, would create more problems than it would solve.

I would call a friend, hit the town, distract myself for a few moments – but I feel it would be unfair to my friend to become my entertainment for the evening, knowing that they would just be a fun means to kill a few hours before returning to the anxiety I am trying to leave behind.

My hands itch to dial the number again, but something inside me will not allow my hand to move toward the phone.

I inhale deeply, and continue to fight a war with myself.

Luckily, the snow is still falling. It is more interesting to watch than my ceiling.

Repost: The Nature of Things

As I am deleting the old Love/Lust/Logic blog, I am reposting selected entries. This was originally posted October 4th, 2006.

If I had to choose a label for myself, I would call myself a logophile - in simpler terms, a lover of words.

While I am also a bibliophile (lover of books), a glossophile (lover of language), a cinephile (lover of film), and a metrophile (lover of subway systems), logophile seems to fit me the best. I simply love the way words sound, the many ways they can be used and combined and contracted into a brand new form. I love discovering new words, and finding the perfect way to express precisely what I mean. My "word of the day" emails from dictionary.com fill me with bliss accompanied by an almost sexual undertone, and I find myself repeatedly stabbing at my mouse looking for that daily satisfaction.

I relish words, worship them, and have been known to withhold them if I feel as though a particularly splendid twist of language would be wasted on the listener. While my day-to-day vocabulary tends to skew toward pop culture terms and profanity (bling, bitch!), under the cover of solitude, I spend hour upon hour exploring and puzzling over words and connotations. Armed with a basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation, and with a dictionary, thesaurus, and online Babel Fish by my side, I often felt that I could conquer the world, one word at a time.

Until recently.

As the world of words has always been my sanctuary, it is a rare occasion that I find myself without words to express how I feel. This feeling, though rare, leaves me with such a sense of impotence that I am depressed for days, wondering how something I loved so much could have failed me. In romance, my relationship with words has always buoyed my lustful conquests. My gift of words has allowed me to flatter and persuade many tempting boy-toys into being my playmates. I also have an excellent ability to inspire lust, and use words to divert attention from my lover's frustrations or complaints and pull them into a fantasy world of my own weaving. My words are carefully detonated missiles, able to detonate upon demand and bring carefully crafted emotional defenses to ruin. I evoke strong feelings and emotions with two or three cunningly crafted phrases. However, I reserve the most powerful of words in my arsenal for a time when I truly mean them, and truly need them. The most powerful of words I hold on to, waiting for just the right moment to deliver them in order to maximize the intended effect.

The holiest of holies is the dreaded phrase, three small words that encompass such a large range of human emotions: I love you.

Devastating when used lightly, subtle and intoxicating when used correctly, the phrase "I love you" generally elicits a strong emotional response. Most of us have learned through trial and error that this phrase is not to be used lightly, for it signifies a bond between two people that can no longer be called casual. The gravity of the phrase itself is overwhelming and the very nature of what the phrase means and its societal connotations force even the bravest of us all to tread lightly with its usage.

While I have used the phrase before, for many years, I found that what I thought was love began to wane over the years, slowly sputtering to an ungraceful death. 3 months, 2 self-help books, and one illuminating bell hooks tome later, I resolved to never again use the term "love" lightly. If I were to pledge love to someone, it would be more than a declaration of affection. It would be a promise, a decree that I would work to make this person happy, a vow in its own right that I would work to uphold, as opposed to expecting to be loved without obligation or responsibility to the other person.

Or so I told myself.

Little did I know that my heart was conspiring against my mind, and while I held these lofty ideals of love in place, painstakingly glued with the best intentions, another part of me was forming attachments. The word began to overtake my body, and I felt it sit heavily upon my tongue, and beat against my chest trying to escape. Despite my best intentions, the dreaded words demanded to be heard, marched up to my mind and lips and demanded to be spoken. The pressure I felt internally was tremendous - how could I hold in a feeling that was so strong that it would come unbeckoned, in the middle of the most mundane of daily activities? As I realized, I could not fight the the feeling for long, I resigned myself to holding it at bay as long as I could.

And thus, I dug my own emotional foxhole, steeled myself for the inevitable, and waited.

One magical evening, the opportunity presented itself. A wonderful night, sparked with a thoughtful gift, continued with the thrill of infatuation and endearing conversation, climaxing with a metropolitan rendezvous and concluding with twisted sheets, provided the perfect backdrop for honesty. With my mood acting as a potent truth serum, I basked in the afterglow, reveling in the richness of emotion, and feeling relatively unconcerned when the long suppressed phrase began knocking around my conscious mind. In the evening, in the moment, I pulled myself closer to the curve of my lover's body, inhaled his scent, felt his touch, and spilled my soul.

"I love you," I whispered, the phrase I had whispered half a hundred times, only now made audible, for his ears to hear.

A long pause ensued. One, two, three heartbeats later, a soft kiss followed. Then silence.

I sat in the darkness, still in his arms but growing cold, realizing the painful and obvious truth - my feelings were not returned. I waited for the inevitable - for him to rise, to clothe himself, to walk out of my apartment, and of my life.

But that did not happen. Instead, we slept, and in the morning it was as if nothing had changed.

Inside my mind however, everything had changed. Why did he not feel the same for me that I felt for him? I had given him the highest praise that I could - did he doubt my sincerity? Did I rush into the phrase too quickly, robbing it of a preamble that would have assuaged his fears and allowed him to say it in return? With the best words I had suddenly used, I felt lost. It was as if all the words I had in my mind evaporated, and I was unable to communicate and express even the most simplistic of emotions. If the most important words I have ever spoken failed to have impact I wanted, what was left? How could I continue to construct a world around my words if they had failed me when I needed them the most?

The days continued to pass, and my mind began to question every single nuance in our relationship. The word had been spoken, and could not be undone - yet I felt a chasm of panic growing wider and wider within me without an end in sight. A deafening silence was omnipresent, beginning to symbolize our interaction, with his continued silence and me focusing more and more on what was not said. I endlessly analyzed nothing at all, wondering why there seemed to be no words to express how he felt toward me.

Another day passed, and I found myself hanging with my friend Kim on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. After confiding in her about the concerns I had about not hearing the words I was looking for, I was taken aback by her random flash of wisdom. After carefully listening to my description of the problem, her face grew very serious. She thought a moment, seemingly weighing each word carefully before she spoke, giving each syllable the consideration that a jeweler gives to an exquisitely cut diamond.

"Do the words really matter what the person says, if the person expresses how they feel in other ways?"

I blinked, a bit astounded by her logic. Of course it matters what someone says - speaking something out loud is an indicator of intent. So much else is left to your own interpretation. It's just like entering into a relationship - unless one party clearly states their intentions, the situation continues in this vague ambiguity for the foreseeable future. Listening to her examples from her life, and her thought process regarding the issue of words vs. intent got my own gears turning. As much weight as I placed on the use of words and the presence of certain words than others, was I overlooking the reason why the word was formed in the first place?

"I mean, think of how many people say things that they don't mean...Would you rather someone say the love you, and be insincere, or have someone that treats you with love, and does everything you want, but just doesn't say it?" Her eyes implored me to think things over more, before making decisions out of fear.

I sat down on the curb where we stood and tried to think things over. I always liked things to proceed with the utmost clarity. Words and actions have to be consistent. Without one, the other is left open to our flawed interpretations of meaning. People use words with the intent to deceive, this I know. Actions are often misleading, as affectionate gestures mean different things to different people. But words, for me, hold a kind of purity - that is, if you search long enough and hard enough, you kind find the word that fits exactly how you feel, that expresses what precisely you mean. The ability of perfect expression has been my holy grail - to be able to express myself so clearly that no ambiguity results. Expression without misunderstanding. Eliminating conflicts before they begin because my intentions are quickly revealed by cracking open a dictionary. Words provide clarity. So how could I ever comprehend an existence that is not about the precision of the words used?

Kim sat down next to me in the sun dappled parking lot. She looked at me and read the confusion on my face.

"Toya," she said gently. "They're just words."

Green Eyed Friends and Jealous Lovers

I chose to remain silent.

Sitting in foreign and hostile territory, I held my breath. I had been in this situation before, but no where as near as outnumbered. It was as if my back was too the wall, with three hostile harpies poking at me with sticks, waiting for me to lash out. I bit my tongue, making sure that no matter what happened, I would not yield, would not succumb to their petty psychological warfare.

Meeting new people can be difficult. What should be a pleasurable experience can be marred by malice and motive. This is especially true when you meet the friends and family of a significant other.

The American Heritage dictionary defines jealousy as being "Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position."

Jealousy is a natural human emotion, rearing its head whenever a friend or loved one appears to be removing themselves from your life. This could be due to a variety of factors, but jealousy is a constant force to contend with in life.

And most of us do. We swallow our jealously down, using the tools of clarity and logic to diffuse it's destructive power. We are civilized beings, and we know that all emotions have some sort of cause, as irrational as it may be.

Jealousy is an emotion that stems from the desire to possess - so why do people in the throes of jealousy take actions that would be detrimental to the relationship they hold so dear?

Friends sabotage relationships, willing to deny their friend the happiness of connection in order to satisfy their own selfish needs. They want you around, and this new person is in the way. Or friends fight other friends, foolishly squabbling and creating divisions to ensure that their place in the friendship hierarchy is preserved at all costs. In the most radical of cases, the jealous person chooses to extract themselves from the situation, willing to forfeit a friendship for the perceived slight to their ego.

Jealous lovers are a more dangerous creature. While friends may cause a friendship to end over their foolish insecurities, a jealous lover can end your life. For some reason, love and jealousy create a potent concoction, with a high rate of mortality. An article in Post this week recounted the story of a woman who was nearly burned alive by a former lover - and that that pattern was on the rise. The idea of possession of a loved one is so strong that some people cannot fight the temptation to give in to the ideal. Some paramours want you to isolate yourself, to frame your life around them, to become a part of them. They react violently when you want to assert yourself, see different people, spend the odd night away from them.

Since jealousy can temporarily heighten emotion, it can also produce heady feelings of love in the target. We all want to be loved, treasured, cherished. Some feel that jealousy is their mate's way of proving how much they care.

The feelings are different for everyone. However, I think that the best way to deal with jealously is to see it for what it is, to diffuse its power by acknowledging its presence.

On that uncomfortable night, I stared at jealously's lure, and refused to take the bait.

Falling from the Clouds

Everything was awash in gray. The day took its tone from the weather and provided nothing but quiet reserve and a subtle air of melancholy. A quiet morning slipped away, lost in the somber morning light and a permeating sense of depression that seemed the envelope the day. My phone signaled a text message. One friend, bailing on our brunch plans due to a death in the family. Message delivered, the phone sunk into silence. Another friend called, returning my text – the heaviness in her voice implied a situation more serious than she was willing to let on. The threat of love lost lingered in the air long after I hung up the phone.

Love is perhaps one of the greatest gambles we make in life, a twisted game of Russian Roulette played with emotions and words instead of a wheel and a ball. We hold our breaths and toss, hoping, hoping that the one we want will be where we land. Just like Russian Roulette, we often think love is deceptively easy, more a game of luck than a game of skill. And just like Russian Roulette, we could lose everything we have worked for with one poorly judged play.

The pain is intense. Even sitting on the other end of a phone line, listening to the death knell of a friend's relationship sent such an ache through my being that I found that tears ran down my face, well beyond my ken or understanding. The ending of a relationship. So abrupt, so final. More heaviness began to bear down on me. The day became a muted blur as I quickly pulled on some clothes and went to meet my friend. I exited my apartment, inhaling air crisp with the chill of winter. My breath caught in my throat. How many times had I been in this situation before? All around me, relationships were crumbling like sand castles at high tide, leaving me and my fledgling love clinging to each other on a shrinking shoal. My friends' pain easily blends with my memories, creating a demented tapestry of feeling and investment. Everyone starts out the same way, full of starry-eyed declarations of love and promises of fidelity. Eventually, except for a lucky few, those feelings begin to ebb and fade. Words develop hurtful edges, you spend more time apart, the love that you have woven with each other begins to unravel.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we engage in such painful exercises in futility? Why do we hunt for understanding and companionship, knowing it will more likely than not end 1, 2, 3 years down the line? Why do we even play the dating game, knowing that if you play for real you are wide open to receive someone else's pain and abuse? For some reason, in a society that is overwhelmingly cynical, where sarcasm is praised and optimism is met with scorn, how do we some how manage to hope against hope that things will work out. How do we continue to wait for love, knowing that it could be so easily wrenched from us? Is there even a purpose to this?

I walked slowed down while approaching the cross walk. I looked up to get my bearings, and a single raindrop fell, landing right below my eye, tracing the path my tears had left. Convenient that: When I had to be strong for someone else, the sky cried for me.

Upon the Altar of commitment...

How much are you willing to sacrifice for love?

If you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this person was the one for you, the one that moves your whole universe, the one who brings sunshine with a smile, if you knew that that person would be the one you could merge your soul to for the rest of your life...what would you sacrifice?

Would you accept minor annoyances? A lover that was decidedly unfashionable? Extra long hairs coming out of an ear? A woman with a moustache? A man with breasts?

Would you accept emotional distance? Knowing your lover will not come to you when you call them? Knowing that in times of need they may pull away from you and seek their comfort with someone else?

Would you accept physical distance, left behind while your beloved is away for school or for a summer study program? Could you accept them being discharged in the military, them relocating for work, them spending a summer in the Incan ruins and not with you?

Would you accept pain? Would you accept a partner who is emotionally abusive, someone who is cold to you because they can be, a person who does not honor your company in the same way you honor theirs?

Would you accept physical abuse, trading bruises, scrapes, slaps, and broken bones for whispers of tenderness and declarations of affection?

It is very easy to sit and read and think and rationalize with your mind exactly how you want to experience love. You think to yourself that there are clear lines and boundaries. That your lover would never intentionally hurt you. That your lover would never manipulate or abuse you. You begin to fantasize. Your lover would instinctively know how you feel in every given situation, and dispense just the right medicine to heal what ails. Your lover is aware of everything that pleases you, and brings you sweet tokens of their affection.

You also fantasize about yourself - that you would be the best lover humanly possible to them; that they would never lust for anyone else, long for someone else, because you would be everything to them. The idea isn't necessarily to be that person's only experience in love and lust, but to be chosen. It is not to delete what came before - it is simply the desire to be the last. The one and only. The chosen.

But, as Shakespeare so eloquently put, "The course of true love never did run smooth."

More often than not, your lover does not understand how to make you completely happy. How to please you in every single way.

Or perhaps, they do understand, but choose not to compromise what they want in order to make you happier.

That is the most painful reality to face - explaining what will make you happy and having the other person disregard what you say, or willfully refuse to acquiesce to your wishes. So you compromise. You adapt to what your partner is willing to do to make you happy, and find a way to reconcille the rest in your mind.

But how much of that is something that should be compromised? What if you end up sacrificing a key part of yourself to make someone else happy? Or if you had done exactly that in the past, which has made you resistant to sacrificing any part of yourself again, for any reason.

Upon the altar of commitment, how much are you willing to sacrifice in order to get exactly what you want?