Sandbox Romants: Wooing and Problems

think whatever the corrected version of yr:

I wasn't really talking about that in particular tbh and wouldn't necessarily agree with what you said there either.

post was otm, also, it being something i eventually kinda understood at least the complexity of, having previously been p binary about it all. that there's context doesn't diminish someone def having done wrong, or doesn't necessarily edge anything closer to being more inevitable or more forgiveable, etc, it just sometimes is a thing that helps you understand why someone did the thing they shouldn't have

ehh, I'm gonna take a page from Mr. DJP's book and just flat out say that I genuinely believe a lot of (most of) people are actually a bonkers level of crazy and barely holding their shit together. maybe it's only by living with people for an extended period of time that you get to see the cracks well enough to know of the slobbering horror lying beneath, and also reveal your own seeping pits-of-hell insanity to somebody else. and once that revelation has happened, or happens in a hazy, smouldering always at the periphery of your vision way – once you've seen + revealed the skinless, raw, and pitiful aspects of all the parties in your own relationship - only then can you determine how well the standard rules of engagement w/r/t relationships apply to you.

Both otm imo.

but... but... but I want life to be simple

Yeah well then, you're fuck. Sorry, man.

I don't think there is much gray in the cheating dept: did you sleep with someone else?

i would say this is pretty gray indeed!

what if you kissed someone else, what if you harbored lustful thoughts in your heart, etc. that line is going to be different for ppl in different relationships.

naaaaaaaaaah

^

I'm stranding betwween a v young lady and a much older man, q who derm to know each other by sight only. Guy just introduced himself a nd it's proceeding to hit on her

Standing
although I do feel stranded

Exhibit #1:

http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/images/lewinskydress.jpg

mookie otm

lol - where is this happening, Justine?

wtf is that, R?

i mean the line might change but rarely that much and the fact of an event is a fairly definable boundary

Oh on the train!

I mean he's kinda handsome but clearly sleazy

She had a test -organic chem - to get to so she declined his offer to get a coffee

I don't think I could ever approach a complete stranger and hit on her

that is the infamous blue dress that monica lewinsky wore when she was not having sexual relations w. billy

that's a good look for some dudes tbf

The definition of "cheating" might be reasonably clear, but the consequences or how diff ppl deal with it is completely all over the map. Some ppl will go "thats it no excuses, no 2nd gos, fuck u". Some forgive, work thru it. Some, if itwas just a kiss might even laugh it off.

I don't think I could ever approach a complete stranger and hit on her

― The Love Song of L. Alfred Sotosyn (dayo), Thursday, December 8, 2011 12:34 AM (1 minute ago)

This is true, and something I always end up wondering about w/ the "men are conditioned to do this..." thing I read about on some other threads. When I was single, the primary fear of approaching somebody I found interesting/attractive, and a secondary (but no less potent) fear of coming across as creepy or douchey or domineering made it practically impossible to meet potential dates unless they were friend-circled first.

yep

When I was about 22 a guy asked me for a light and then after a few minutes of chit chat he asked if I wanted to go see his friend's band. I had recently resolved to be more spontaneous so I went. We had fun and wound up kissing goodnight at the train station. The next day I found out he was still in HS. I was p horrified but respected the hell out of his courage tbh.

drunk is difft!

Just thinking about the sort of nerve it must take to ask a total stranger out like that dude on the train or my HS boyfriend of one night. lol.

Oh that guy wasn't drunk. It was like 4 in the afternoon and we were on a street corner when we met.

remy otm - the second factor not wanting to come across as creepy or douchey is a strong influence

statutory makeout xps

you're arrested...for the crime of being fine

I feel like maybe the best way to meet new girls at this point in my life is to buy a leather jacket and wayfarers and stand on a street corner and smoke

hmm

he told all his friends he kissed a grownup imo

lol tbf he was 18 and not 15 or something

We were friends after that for a couple years but in a sibling sorta way. He did say that my studio apartment was so "adult punk rock". Oh Alex.

wow this thread blew up.

ZS if you haven't had it already i think you are due for a massive bender that involves smashing beer bottles at some point (preferably against some rocks/not on people). you deserve to be angrier!

(i always offer to go down to the docks and chuck rocks into the water with heartbroken friends. that helps too and is slightly less destructive.)

awwww

throw beer bottles at sailors, win win

i don't think it'll ever be in me to have a rigid morality of relationships, not that i'm criticising you guys that do but it's been a unpredictable sea of grey to me for most of my adult life

i don't think it'll ever be in me to have a rigid morality of relationships

not in a global sense, sure, but I think it's vitally important w/in your actual relationship to know what, for you (& partner(s)) is absolutely okay and absolutely not

not universal rules, tbh, just on a relationship by relationship basis ito 'here's how this'll work for us' iykwim

hmmm i am perhaps not best placed to talk about this right now, and i guess i'm musing out loud. and yeah honesty is important sure but

i dunno how to explain...perhaps to say that the worst thing a partner cd do to me wd be a long way from a sexual infidelity...and that something about "no grey areas" always makes me antsy?

not willing that as a universal law or anything. contracts weird me out a bit i think.

like i shd probly get to the bottom of this unsettlement at some time in my life ho ho

http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/romanticintent2.jpg

yeah this. "cheating" feels like an odd word seeing as it is mostly game related and then the whole "where is this relationship going?" 5-year plan stuff. all odd legalistic things - at least linguistically - that rub up wrong against some kind of "free meeting of hearts and minds" crap in my head. i think i might equate rules with death somehow tho

i mean that form is a joke but it has some kind of truth about the potential for commodification of relationships (broadest sense) in it

perfectly aware that these are not popular or possibly sensible concerns here

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

those kind of questions, generally, are odd to me i think. and sort of presumptuous and sort of grave-tempting and sort of mildly saddening

tbh i feel the same about "what do you want for your tea tonight?" too

i don't think those ideas are as uncommon as you're painting, julie, tho i've seen you express the gist of them before and maybe they're more front and centre for you i dunno. But the idea/worry that 'let's not tie our future selves down' isn't unique in itself