Babygirl, unpack yr sweaters and get FABULOUS in FALL gay homo queer &c 2012

aw Alex. I raise a glass in your honor. Wish I could be there.

i dunno. things are too complicated to talk about on a messageboard. lol

honestly, half of me wants to figure out how to make us perfect and wonderful and having lots of sex and being awesome and half of me wants us to just be stable/drama-free/happy enough for me to not make relationship drama the primary focus of my brain and feelings until i have a little more time/space to breathe.

anyway, gonna go ignore work in favour of noms because food is important.

don't be a doormat. you can be supportive but there's a fine line, and no matter what the situation, you need to back yourself up.

also fights do not mean you should give. imo the best things almost break like fifty times before you find the right balance. generally speaking i think structural solutions are best, finding out what the fight's really about.

*fights do not mean you should give up

Alex I'm heading you-know-where if you wanna come
Your relationship is young, be cool and don't sweat it

Also surm is smarts

Alex, I forget: do you live together?

Oh god no. We do not live together. Last year we lived a block away from each other and saw each other ALL the time and this year he lives with two girl/friends and two kittens and finding the healthy space/not seeing each other enough balance is kind of happening?

Although he is oddly reticent to come to my place and I really need to be at my place more often/often enough to have structure and functionality etc.

I am very happy having my own (+ my roommate's) space. We did the super domestic thing and I like it especially the cooking together and cuddling but if we ever live together I will require an Alex-room where I can be disorganized and nerdy and read etc.

i mean . . . . it sounds like he is really playing this alpha dog card

making you adjust to him

better watch that

O - I texted you! On my way now although I might do a bit of absent-minded work while eating for a bit before things get going. Also I have some friends who were possibly going so they might show up fair warning although they are generally chill people

yeah, montrealers!

It's not an alpha dog card so much as very severe OCD which is diagnosed and being treated as of may-ish but is still a thing. It is miles ahead of the first year and a bit when it was not at all diagnosed but it is something to navigate.

Anyway. Fun now. :)

ah. i too have very severe ocd. it's not cute.

but then again i also have OPD so it's hard to keep them straight

My trouble, which I explained to Stevie last night: I'm more comfortable with this particular chap as a Friend With Benefits rather than a boyfriend. His sexual history and certain inclinations have made me wary to the point that I mistrust his health.

it's hard to keep them straight

interesting metaphor

meow

I want a friend with benefits like I want to me made out of broccoli.

be

alex, sympathies

i don't think i'd see any reason to stay in a relationship if there were three emotionally draining shouting matches within a week. i don't need relationship drama in my life.

the time thing i was complain about is exactly what's happening today, it's really very ordinary but annoying: he's coming over tonight (we haven't seen each other this week yet), i won't have finished the reviews i need to have finished by the time he gets here, and then when he gets here won't have any chance to finish them off. it's annoying because the stuff i've left unfinished will be on my mind and stressing me out all the time he's here, and i don't seem to be able to get to the optimal place of being able to wholly enjoy actually seeing him because there's always something fucking else i haven't managed to do.

why haven't i finished them already? that's a GOOD FUCKING QUESTION and one that i seem to ask myself every day of my life, in or out of a relationship

The point of staying in a relationship w relationship drama is usu that the high are so high that it outweighs the lows, even when they're p low lows.

Well, theoretically no, re: shouting matches,

My relationship with bf developed at the same time as a couple of close friends of ours who are super vanilla, lovely guys, always turned out with hands held etc. etc. They got married pretty early on. Bf and I would fight fight fight a lot lot lot, once every two weeks there'd be shouting and angst and anger. We'd always look at vanilla couple and say, "why can't we be more like those guys?"

The watershed moment for us-- as I told Alex last night-- was when we committed to not let 'breaking up' be a poker chip, like, a mental one. Because it had been. Every fight we'd been in, there was that nagging feeling, like, "omg I can't believe this is so difficult and I want to walk away", exactly what lex is saying: "i don't need relationship drama in my life"

So as cheesecake as it sounds, we admitted that we wanted to be together and that we wouldn't let a fight break us up

And then the fights stopped immediately

i think with me it's that i actually dislike confrontation a lot - or that's not entirely accurate, if i'm up for confrontation it's because i've already made up my mind that i don't care about or respect the person i'm confronting. i've almost never had a shouting match with a friend, and the times i have, it was usually the death of the friendship right there. i kind of figure it's the kind of thing you can't go back from.

a lot of it, with friends and boys, is that: i like this person and enjoy their company, so why would i shout at them over a little thing if i can keep that annoyance suppressed? and if it's a not-so-little thing, well, do i like them that much then?

Oh totally. Thing is that I'm not describing "fights" as being a result of actual personal differences, but-- in my case, and possibly Alex's-- a manifestation of a desire for stability.

Eight years ago, for example, if bf went out with our friends but didn't call me and let me know, and I'd be working at home instead of being informed that there was 'something happening', there would be a "why didn't you call me" + "did you not want me there" + "do you not want to be with me" flow chart that would turn into an argument.

Now, bf will literally tell me he's going away w/friends for a week (to Istanbul, as I mentioned!) and he'll actually tell me the night before he leaves, like, "surprise! you're not coming! stay here and get some work done!"

Before we agreed to commit, I probably would've had a meltdown but now I'm mostly just charmed.

That said there are other long term relationships I know where that same pushing of boundaries has resulted in one-sided drug use and extra-relationship affairs under the guise of "who cares? we're committed!" and that can get dark indeed

it would literally never occur to me to turn that scenario into a fight. at the very most if i was feeling particularly whiny i would maybe sulk for a minute

Ha yes well this was eight years ago, age 24 or thereabouts, a more dramatic age

whenever i'm feeling hurt or annoyed or whatever it helps me to remember the reason my bf and i decided to stay together in the first place, which is that we admire each other and our respective life goals and that we want to mutually help each other achieve those goals.

right now ph1l is kind of in the supporter mode as i'm not working, which i'm aware could cause tension if one isn't considerate, so i try to be perspicuous in letting him know i'm doing as much as i can to help and that our relationship is one of equals

FBTI, forgive me for this, but have you previously posted here with another handle for awhile? I can't remember and feel bad about it.

er, FGTI :)

I was going to ask too.

Fgti = 0w3n p.

Who was really awesome and wonderful last night and lifted my spirits greatly with a bunch of trivia and hangouts.

Ah, OK! Sorry about that.

Alex, sorry things are more fighty than righty.

And yeah! You're totally on the money about these fights mostly being about the stability thing and misreading each others' signaling re: seriousness and whatnot. It's almost two years in and it feels like a certain level of seriousness is/should exist and sometimes tiny things filtered through
Insecurities call that into question and result in tiffs.

I mean, there are sometimes root problems at the heart of it i.e. specific things to work on, but even then that's filtered through the lens of 'if this probably temporary issue turns into a new static aspect of our relationship what is the impact on my assessment of whether this is long-term viable?'

Which again, he's 22 and I'm 25 this should maybe not be the main concern. But it's floating around there and mixing with some life path uncertainty he has going on and it gets messy

Side note: Guys, I actually replied to a message from someone on OKC. Noncommittally, but this is kinda a big step for me. Next up, sending one.

Honestly I was feeling totally A+ by the time I got home at 5 am about just giving him some space to figure out where he is at with stuff and not overcrowd, but then he called this morning to say he was glad we had the talk we did last night about ~stuff~ and that the space will be good but said it in a way that is weird and vaguely non-committal about what direction we are moving in? Like after a direct question it seems that we are still boyfriends but he thinks space to figure things out for each of us without expectations would be good? Which sounds like a break but he's not wanting/calling this a break and he's being totally vague on if he still wants to be seeing each other a few times a week or if he means -space- space. So essentially I'm just gonna relax and play it by ear and wait to hear from him whenever he figures it out. Talking about it or actively trying to convince him of something will only get his back up.

Feeling strangely zen about it all.

Which means for the time being I can shut up about my relationship drama and instead be REALLY EXCITED for Eric. Yay!

Also, Lex, don't worry - "why have I not finished my shit that I need to do in time to socialize without guilt?" Is a question I perpetually face also.

Looks like handle changes are all the rage lately! I'm the poster formerly known as j3r.fa1ra11, btw. Felt like it was time to make myself less googleable.

Alex, really sorry to hear that things are crap right now. It's funny, I always feel severely ill equipped at giving out relationship advise despite being in one of 10+ years. I have to think its a combination of sheer luck and the commitment and insistence of a strong willed partner that has kept us together this long. Certainly this is something I could not have managed through my own efforts without the assistance of the some combination of the two.

The 20s are rocky for long term relationships, I guess, particularly the part where you are still working out the direction your life is going in terms of career and whatnot. The cool part is when you reach the point where you know that whatever you end up doing, they're likely to follow (and vice versa). It certainly lessens the anxieties of career and relationship when you know that one is settled. And as for Lex's issue, only thing I can say is that the guilt over not socializing later turns into, even when/if yr living together, guilt over ignoring them while you work. Especially if your S.O. thinks it's kind of silly and mean for you to be ignoring him and the puppy in the next room so you can crank out overthought opinions on Justin Bieber.

And yeah, the whole "will every fight result in a break up?" stage is the worst. I wouldn't go back to that for anything.

(that Justin Bieber thing was a specific personal reference, btw. I don't remember if Lex has reviewed any Bieber, or ignored anyone in the process of doing so.)

Hey, so I finally got together with D again last night. (Btw, +1 to coshowering) I really like him but I kind of have the problem lex does but maybe moreso cause he lives in the city and I live 45 mins out and only go down to Seattle once or twice a week (or not) for social/cultural things. And when I was in the city for several days continuously earlier this month, he was visiting home in Detroit. A couple other times we tried to arrange something together one of us was busy or not up for it. So we finally just got together again after like a month plus. We really like each other though!

As a side note, and maybe this is TMI, I kind of have a sexual conundrum. I really enjoy being submissive, but I really do not enjoy being penetrated. One kind of leads to the other though. I love the idea in theory and fantasize about it all the time but when it happens I'm just kind of like...oh right, I don't like that. Trying to figure out how to reconcile this.

well, there are all kinds of ways to be submissive, as I'm sure you've discovered. Do what makes you (and somebody else) happy.

xpost practice

I'm glad this has gone TMI. One of my problems with the guy I'm seeing is his confessions of liking "deviant" (his word) sex with strangers: bus stops, rest stops, gas stations. Although I'm not prude and don't mind open relationships, my reluctance to get penetrated has become -- no other phrase -- a sore point. I'm still wary of him, his impulsiveness, and the theoretical plagues he carries.