Single or in a couple

I just read this very nice article on the BBC News about being single or being part of a couple. I loved this piece. It is honest. Or I felt it is.

I have been there. I have been asked what was wrong with me for not being in a relationship (although now I am again part of a couple), why do I not want to settle down, why do I need to be so independent to make so difficult to be with me as a couple, why...why...why.....like if being alone instead of being part of a couple is a curse.

Understand me. I love being in a relationship with a person I love. But I do also love myself a lot. This has been a problem already in the past. I recognize this. But I do love myself and my life. And being part of a couple has never been (and I doubt it will ever be) the center of my life, nor what defines me as a person or for who I am.

Certainly, I would rather be alone than with a person who does not love me as much as I love myself.
Certainly, I would rather be alone than with a person who does not love me for the way I am.
Certainly, I would rather be alone than with someone who think he should be the focus of my life.

And this does not mean that I am unable to love or of being part of a couple. It means that it will take a little bit more effort for me to find someone who will respect, understand and appreciate than in my life being part of a couple is something that make me happy, yes, but it is only part of something that makes me happy.

...and this fear of being alone that often (at least for people I know) urges a person to be part of a couple, to not spend the week ends alone, to not have to face the pressure of the world that points the finger at single people, to just be with someone......well, in my case, it has happened that I felt lonelier in a couple sometimes that when I was truly alone, single.

When it comes to me, it actually freaks me out quite a lot the idea of being in a couple, and especially the idea of long term commitment, the idea of making decisions not only based on what it is best for me and my life, but based on what it is best for "us" as a couple, the idea of something becoming a routine rather than the true pleasure of being with someone......

I can say for experience that people relax a lot when they can fit you in one of the "standard" boxes (in couple, married, straight, gay, weird....), when they stop seeing you as a threaten to their stability and their securities of what it is known........

.....I do feel very very lonely sometimes and I am happy to be in a relationship with a person with whom I have no problems to think about myself as a part of a couple, but I hope that I will never forget to love myself first. It is my own duty to make myself happy. And if this will mean to be single again at any point in my life and have people looking at me as "poor her" or start asking uncomfortable and rude questions again, I hope that I will be able to be true to myself and not settle down for what someone else from the outside expects from me.

In any case, enjoy the article on the BBC.

Happy and scared

I am not sure what really happened, but for the first time in a long time, I am really, truly, deeply happy. I feel the kind of happiness that makes me walking around with a smile.

I am back to Montpellier for a short work stay and I am spending a lot of time with close friends, who keep showing me how happy they are to have me here. The same for the people I used to work with. It is a nice feeling. Plus, I found the strength of stopping a very unhealthy and painful interaction and even if this decision still makes me sad for a lot of reasons when I think about it, overall, it makes me also feel lighter and happier for having taken a step toward my own happiness, instead of always putting someone else in front of me. Last thing, I think that finally, after long long long time, I feel able to love again. I just can't stop smiling.

Unfortunately, I am also quite scared....It has been so long since the last time that I felt this way for more than just a short moment or one day, that I am afraid that this feeling will end soon......

I don't want to let you go

My closest friend just sent me a nice email with written: "I understand how you feel, but I just want to see you happy".
It was nice. It is nice to know that someone wishes my happiness and look out for me, to try to protect me from suffering and being hurt. But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes the same people who want our best are the ones who hurt us. I did the same too to people I deeply loved. Sometimes we don't realize how our actions can hurt another person. We don't mean bad, but the result can be very damaging for the other.

Anyway. My life in Portugal is not settled and I keep having huge mood shifts depending on the days, depending on work, depending on my interaction with the others, etc. I am constantly frustrated here because there is no way to get to the end of anything or have an answer to anything in a reasonable time. I am spending my time doing actually nothing for my own work, but just talking to this person and that person and this other person to try to figure out if we need to buy some materials, if we already have it and where it is, etc. It is a continuous loop in which people just talk, talk, talk.

I am definitively more a person of actions instead of just talk, talk, talk.

And I am Mediterranean, but I don't share the tipical Mediterranean mentality of "don't do today what you can do tomorrow". My motto is more "do what you have to do as soon as possible at least that thing is done and you can move on".

From here my deep frustration of living in this country so far. To get anything done, I need to ask the same thing over, and over, and over. I am already sick of it.

On top of this, there is my personal life, which is not at the top either. I always have huge problems in letting people leaving my life. When someone matters to me, either a friend, a colleague, or a past important boyfriend, I like to keep these people in my life, because they are the people who make a difference to me. My friends are few, but they are the same since longtime and when I meet new people, I keep only close friends when I move from one place to another. And I try my best to keep them as a part of my life, no matter how much time and energy I need to invest on it. They are the ones who make my life meaningful and much better.

Love and friendship mean a lot to me and to my mental health. I can't do without those.

The thing is that I don't get close to too many people. I am very protective of myself, because I know how vulnerable, sensitive, and how easily I can be hurt by people who get close to me and became important in my life. But the ones who make the cut, I wish they would stay there, in my life, forever.

I know that this doesn't work well with past boyfriend, especially if the relationship has been very intense and meant something to both. I know that this is also not easy when people live in different countries. Also because I am not able to go from a close relationship to someone to something very superficial. I have never been able to deal with people close to me who faded away in some way from my life. I always, always suffered very much because of that.

And it keeps happening. I never accept this as a fact of life. I am not the kind of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I am happy to be left with the memories of the good time we have". I am more the type of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I don't want this to be over".

But of course, this does not depend only on me...so what is the solution since I am clearly not able to let people go out of my life if they had/have an important role in it? I don't think that at this age I will ever learn how to deal with it. Should I close myself off even more to get close to people until I am 100% sure that they will play a role in my life and stay there? how can I know that in advance?

How can you avoid to get hurt since you cannot predict the future?

An algorithm will not find me Mr. Right

I have never had any idea, until very recently, that our world and many things in our world are based on algorithms. To be honest, I didn't even remember what an algorithm is and until the moment I met a colleague of mine who told me to be "not a mathematician, not a bioinformatician, but an algorithmician" (first of all, try to pronounce this word.....it is already a task!), I couldn't care less about algorithms and what we could do with them. Thanks God there is wikipedia!

Exactly...what can we do with them? basically, a lot. Algorithms will not make me a coffee in the morning (at least not for now), but they are used for a lot of things. From developing new computer games, to predict the movement of the stock market, to find your Mr. Right (or Mme Right, whatever is needed). Really? yes, really.

Enough about the algorithms that for me still remain a foreign world.
I just read an article, the sunday opinion of the New York Times, about how an algorithm, even if as we saw above they can be used to do many extraordinary things, does not guarantee finding the best mate to be happy with.

I have always doubted about the use and success of the online dating, which reminds me more of something like shopping at the supermarket than actually of anything to do with romance, but this article supports my view that not because an algorithm matches you with another person, you have an higher chance to be happy with this person than if you would meet someone at a cafe'.

I know that in the last years is getting more and more difficult to meet new interesting people without being connected (Facebook, Twitter, online dating, don'tknowwhatelsebutIamsurethereissomethingelsethatneedsaninternetconnectiontowork), but isn't at least a little bit more exciting when someone come to talk to you and you actually don't expect that (of course, I am not considering here the drunk guy who barely stands on his feet)? isn't much more fun to be out with your friends and meeting new people in this way?

For some things, I am not sure that the progress and technology improved our lives so much (and science proves it!)!

If I want to have an happy relationship......

..... I have always to keep in mind to be with someone who loves me at least as much as I love myself or more.

I can't settle down for someone who makes me feel bad about myself.

I can't settle down for someone who makes me feel worst than how I would feel if alone.

I know myself and it doesn't matter how much I can like or love someone. I am not going to be happy in a relationship if I am happier or equally happy alone.

Getting married - better sooner than later?

I am not getting married. Better to state this upfront to avoid confusion. I am not even engaged, nor I have a boyfriend.
It is not about me.
But my cousin is getting married soon. She is very excited, her future husband is very nice, we all like them together very much.
Since how long she is with her fiance'? a year and a half. He proposed to her after less than a year and a half. Too soon?

I would say that at this age, one year is enough to understand if you could, if you would like to spend your life with the person you are with. I actually lately developed the strong conviction that when it comes to getting married to someone, better doing it sooner than later.
I saw a movie last night, Rear window, and almost at the beginning of the movie, the woman of the insurance who helps James Stewart states exactly something similar to my previous sentence. That when it comes to marriage, we think too much. I am not suggesting that it is wiser to just jump into something without thinking, but sometimes we do think too much and analyze things until the bottom, so that anything magic about it gets examined so much to lose all the magical effects.

All the thinking about "will he/she be the right one?" and "what if...?". I don't believe that after a year with someone, spending more time together will help in answering any of these questions. On the other hand, many couples get to the point that after many years together, getting married is the following natural step...and at that point the relationship is already "mature" one of these relationships in which your partner is more your best friend than the person who still gives you the electric feelings. Nothing bad with mature relationships, if the partners still like each other and enjoy being together. It is a natural process. All the relationships get to that stage. I just think that it is better and nicer to get married when everything or most things about the other person still look fantastic, the encountered problems never seem so serious, and the enthusiasm of being together is still there and strong.

I got to think that when it comes to marriage sooner is better than later based on my personal experience. I analyze things and people so much, and I am so allergic to commitment (how can I know if I want and enjoy waking up next to the same person in 10 years from now???), that I let fade away the enthusiasm of being with at least one person that I would certainly have married if he would have asked me at any time during our first two years of relationship. Instead, since then, since that experience, I always feel so much fear to commit to someone, to change my life for the unknown that I end up, or ended up, pushing and pulling anyone who I like or I loved.

Will I ever be ready for the "big" step even if I would have a Mr. Right in front of me?
Will I be able to stop seeing any possible problem that I would need to face or live with and just for once jump into something which is not only about me and something that doesn't only depend on me and therefore I cannot predict and control?

Emotionally unavailable men

I am 36 and even if I do not have large experience when it comes to relationships and men, I can say that I have a bit of experience on this subject and that my experience is based on a sample size coming from many different parts of the world.
I had few very important relationships in my life. Two with someone from Italy, one with someone from Holland and one with someone from the USA. Plus, I base what I am about to write also on the experience of my girlfriends and sister.

Where are all the men/men gone? I am not talking about the dominant, bossy men, of course.
I am talking about men we could rely on and build something with, without them having a crisis and leaving us, without them not knowing what they really want, without them not being able to decide when it comes to important matters, without them not being able to distinguish between deep love and infatuation.

Of the four important relationship I mentioned before, three of them were with very good, incredible men. And I loved all of them very deeply, even if in a different way. I am someone for whom freedom is one very important value in life. I am someone who not easily gets into a relationship. I am someone who doesn't easily fall in love, and even less is willing to commit. I am complicated and I am very independent. I understand that I am not the ideal "couple" person. But when I am in a relationship, I am 100% in there. And I try, even if I don't always succeed, to work my issues with the other person.

What I am coming to realize lately is that most men I have met, my sister have met, my girlfriends have met are emotionally immature and when it comes to relationships they have no idea of what exactly that means......I think that "us", women, we are more aware of how we feel for someone and what we would like to have with this person. Them...I am not sure. They can love you very much and still not being aware of that or still feel that "it should be different" or still have many doubts on what being together means. I have met a lot of men who are afraid of feelings and strong feelings. And it didn't just happen to me.

I wonder what it is the right strategy to deal with these men. I am not the kind of person who would convince them to be with me or on how they feel for me. I can't be in their minds and know how they feel. And I have too much self-respect to be with someone who is not sure if he wants to be with me or what he wants. But I keep finding myself being asked to invest more than them, running the relationship not as a team but as a carrier, me being sure of what I want and them not being so sure about me/us (and they never know why that). This till the moment the relationship is over and then they suddenly realize that they can't live without me or they want me back. By that time, I am almost always saturated of their insecurities and I am never fully able to trust them that they got emotionally "more mature". I am also very very tired to feel the psychotherapist of every man I am with....because they all have issues......

I have issues too!!! a lot of them, believe me!!!!

But the thing is...if I have issues (or my sister or any of my girlfriends) is "us" being too demanding, irrational, putting pressure on them (men love this!!!!), & company. If they have issues, we have to understand. Or anyway we end up trying to understand because we love them. We have this sick spirit of saving the world.

I admit that I am very good in making relationships difficult and probably most of the women when they love someone feel very insecure (well, me for sure!) that the person they love may leave them. But the thing is. It is many many years that I am having distance relationships (which honestly suck!!!!) and for sure I wouldn't know from where to start if I would have again a "normal"/ in the same place relationship, but I often end up with the feeling of running away from a relationship and just think about myself in a very selfish way because I am sick of the situation and the fact that all the guys I have been with ended up not knowing what they wanted from me and with me.

So, what I got to wonder is: does it exist out there a man who is man enough to know what he wants from the person he is with and honest enough to admit it to himself and tell her? And how come most of my girlfriends, my sister and I keep meeting men who are sentimentally totally immature?

Love, anger, affection, and nothing

I was just wonder: is anger toward a person better than nothing?

When a deep, tormented, happy, passionate love relationship is over, what does it remain?

I just came back from a work road trip that I shared with two other girls and of course, because of the hours spent in the car traveling, we had a lot of girl's talks.

One of us is in her 3rd year with a guy she loves, she is attracted too and everything. So all good. But she does still think about one of her ex-boyfriends. She said that he wasn't for her. She said that she is very happy with her current boyfriend. But she also said that while for her other ex-boyfriend she could just feel very happy when she heard that they moved on, for one of them she still has some sort of feelings. Not that she would like to have something with him again, because she is happy where she is with the person she is now. But she also said that she had such a passionate, intense, deep love with this guy, that even if it is over and since longtime, she can't still think of him with someone else without feeling a pain and she still thinks of him from time to time and wonders if it is better to feel a passionate, intense love, or a deep love and attachment. She just know that she is happy, but she wonders what there is still so much left over from her old relationship after so long.

And so we wondered what happened after we break up with someone with whom we had something very intense. Last summer I met an ex-boyfriend of mine. I loved him very deeply. He is the person who gave me again confidence in men, who tough me the meaning of love and happy relationship. At a certain point, when I realized that we wanted different things, I ended the relationship. It took me a bit to get over it, but I did. And now I think of him with love, affection, gratitude and I have a lot of good memories, but I am happy for him if he is happy and I am happy if he has someone else who makes him happy. When we met last summer, he told me that he was still angry at me. After about 6 years after the end of our relationship, he was still angry at me.

I couldn't believe it.

So, during these long trips in the car, us, three girls, we started to wonder about what we would like that our lost big loves would feel for us. I think that nothing is the worst thing of all the possible scenarios. Someone who for me meant so much and with whom I shared so much ending up feeling nothing for me. I guess that this may have something to do with my father, but I have a dreadful fear of just being easily replaced. I want to feel special and irreplaceable. I know that it may sound very childish, but I honestly would like that in the same way as I have special thoughts for the person with whom I had a very passionate, intense, deep relationship, this person also would keep me in his heart in a special place together with a lot of nice memories and thoughts about me.

It helped me to talk about these things with other girls. It helped me to feel that I am not the only one who questions herself, no matter if the others are single or with someone else. It didn't solve anything and it was still just a lot of girl's talk, but some time it is very comforting to feel that I don't come from another planet and that I am not that weird after all. Sometimes, it is very comforting to feel a sense of belonging.

Sometimes it would be very comforting to feel that all the love that we invested on someone, all the good things, how we used to be so special for each other, it is still there in some way and that we both keep a space in our heart for that special person who made us feel so much. I have this space in my heart. Childishly, I would like to be reassured that the people I loved so much, have it too for me.


PS. I think someone just peed on my balcony from the apartment above. They are having a party. I was watching a movie and I heard some liquid dropping in the bucket that I have on my balcony. I hope that it was just some beer and not really some pee, but I am not sure......BLEAH!

Spring is here

France, morning

I slept late this morning. I am even later for work.....I have to prepare for two jobs interviews in the next weeks, so it is also ok if I take it a bit easy with myself and try to get to the interviews not amazingly stressed.

It is official. Spring is here. I am in the part of France that has not been touched by the storm and the disaster and here we have sun every day, a minimum temperature of 10 degrees already, flowering plants with the first flowers and insects that start to come out.

It is official also that with the spring all the senses wake up and I see all these couples around to bill and coo. And it is some days already that every morning when I wake up, I can't stop myself from thinking of how nice I was living with the olandesino in Germany. Our lives there were pretty miserable, but our life together was wonderful and I remember it as one of the happiest moment of my life. We were not "officially" living together, as both of us had an apartment, but we were in fact almost always living together at his place. I loved waking up next to him and see his smile first thing in the morning. I loved when he was going to the bakery to get fresh bread in the morning. I love when some other mornings he was going to buy fresh fruits for breakfast and coming up with the fruits but also with some flower or a plant for me. I loved laying down on his hammock on his large balcony in the sun, while he was reading next to me or doing his things. I loved making fresh pizza on sunday. I loved watching all the animals that he had at his place and seeing him taking care of them. I loved when we fed the little prey mantis that were just newly born. I loved our week ends together. I loved when he was taking me in his arms making me feel home. I loved when he was singing songs of Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, feeling completely comfortable with me there. I loved planning our holidays and sharing our dreams. I loved being and feel not just a couple, but a strong team. I loved immensely all that, and I miss feeling that way and having the chance to live all these things again.

Some people after years or even months complain about the routine of being a couple. I never had that. For me what others call it routine was all the little things that made living with the olandesino so special. All this happiness was years ago. All these happy memories are far happy memories unfortunately. I miss feeling that way. I miss feeling a team with someone. I miss sharing my life with someone. I miss growing stronger with someone. I miss the feeling that it doesn't matter what can happen in my life, I am not alone.

I never had that anymore. After that my relationships have been full of drama, living in different countries, and tears, and happiness too, but not in such a light way, there was always something else.

Water, water, water

Italy, night

It keeps raining. It never stopped since this morning. My mom got calls from people she knows asking for help in finding an apartment to rent, while their houses are covered by water.

Beside all these problems, I have to admit that I don't dislike the rain. I actually like walking in the rain and I love hear the noise of the rain on my jacket or on my umbrella. Walking in the rain makes me thinking, and it is perfect when my mood is so and so and I just want to be.

My mood is definitively so and so. It is nice to be at home with my family. It is nice to not have a daily schedule, it is nice to have to work only a little (even if I am not motivated at all and I have to force myself to even do that little), it is nice to finally have the time to just do what I like to (like sleeping a lot for example). But every end of the year makes me in the mood for a balance of the past year, and even if I can't complain about my work in this 2009, I have to add another failure to my list of personal experiences.

I didn't write too much about it before, because I got so hurt by my previous relationship and it took me so much to be even able to think that I could be happier with someone else, than I didn't want to write about it. In this year I felt scared, happy, angry, frustrated, in love, sad, optimist, pessimist, worried, and a lot of other things. I guess that I had too many expectations. I guess that I suffered so much in the past years because of my previous relationship, and I wanted so badly to have something light, happy, and easy, that I was not ready to deal with uncertainties and with anything bad similar to what I experienced in my previous-last relationship. And so, it was intense, like anything that deserves to be called a relationship for me, painful (as it seems to be a necessary ingredients to any of my relationships), and left me empty.

I always wonder how many tears a person can cry. Is it me? Am I too demanding? Am I too independent? Is it because I am not willing to compromise on things that for me are important? why does anyone else seem to find the right person and I don't? why even when I think that I found that person, everything has to be complicated and difficult and it always ends up in frustration on both sides?

I am a very difficult person to fall in love, to find someone I like, but when I do find that person, I want to live the relationship with all myself. And I feel that I deserve that the other person is in there in the same way. I am not easy to compromise, and I am not an easy person to be with. And I know this. But none for sure can claim that I don't give all myself to the person I love, even if I am independent, even if I strongly want to keep my identity and not fuse with the other one.

My friends seem to think that my working-life-style is not ideal for a relationship. I agree with them, it is not ideal. But then what should I do? it is already so hard for me to find someone that could be interesting enough for me to make me desire to be in a relationship with someone else except myself. What should I do? should I say to this person "I am sorry, I feel that we could have something nice together, something more than a friendship, but anything more in not compatible with my life-style and so I am sorry, but I can't"? And this till when? Until I find a permanent job and stopped moving every year? or what should I do? give up my dream job to see if a relationship would go somewhere without the distance? is any of these two options minimally fair?

Is it the new year going to be better?

PPS. After talking over and over with close friends and family, it seems that in the case of this last relationship, a bit more understanding from the other side and a bit more attention to my needs too would have helped a lot. This doesn't solve the situation, and it doesn't make me feel better anyway as the end product doesn't change...but at least I can think that this time, maybe the fault was a lot from both sides. Of course, living in the same place or living closer, would have helped to discuss things in a better way.

You are becoming an ugly person

France, night

Yesterday my sister's husband told me after lunch that being alone, without a boyfriend here, without a regular, normal relationship, living alone and liking my life alone, I am becoming an uglier person.

And he didn't mean uglier for the way I look (beside the fact that I don't shave my legs since a couple of weeks, and I am sure that if someone would see that, he wouldn't think that it is very nice), he really intended as a person. I am becoming, according to him, a worst person because I spend too much time on my own and I actually like it. He left me speechless. First, because I don't think that it is absolutely true, but of course, I may be quite biased about that. Second, because I was so surprised by what he said to even think that he would deserve a reply on the topic.

Today, when this topic came out again, he said that what he really wanted to express was that the longer someone lives alone and likes it, the more difficult will be to compromise and have a relationship. Which may well be. But I am not sure that being with someone just for being with someone who lives here would be a good solution either. Or that would make me happier than I am.

I am 34 years old and I still have people who tell me how I should live my life, what I should do to improve it, or that prefer to not talk about divergent opinions on things. Which would be ok if these people would have an idea of who I am as a person, what I think and what my dreams are. It is not ok when what I do or think is making me a worst person because I don't follow the general standards.....

How many people can say that they are living the life that they wanted to live? of course, it is not perfect. Of course, sometimes I feel very lonely and I miss that special person who looks at me like there are not coolest person in the world and makes me feel that after all I don't really come from Mars and that even if I would, it wouldn't actually matter to him. Of course, I miss that. And I miss to hide in the arms of my love when I feel like. And I miss my old time friends. And I start to deal not so well with the uncertainties of this job and the idea of having to start my life again maybe in another place. Of course, I would like to have more time for myself. Of course, some days I am very very scared and pessimistic. Of course, I feel all this and more.

Would I like to change my life if I could? NO.
Would I like to change the way I am, especially lately, if I could? NO
Would I like to change my job if I could? NO

And so why people before to give me advices on what I should do to improve my life, don't take the same time to try to see who I really am, what I like, and what my dreams are?
Why do I get frustrated when these people give me advices about things without considering if I am really happy or not with what I have? Because I care about them and their opinion, and in my mind I still hope one day to be able to share my dreams and my ideas with these people and that they will be able to love me for whom I am and not just because they are part of my family or because they need me in their lives.

Love, love, love

France, morning

Last night I crossed out one of the things from my "why not?" list. I met a lot of new people. I went to two different Thanksgiving parties and I enjoyed both of them.

But I also felt very sad. At both these parties there were couples who were looking at each other with hearts in their eyes. Both couples were looking at each other in a way that from the outside looked a lot like "the world could fall apart, but I am happy because I have you".
I felt very very jealous. It was in both cases a very strong happy bound to look at and it was shocking for my deep cynical view about relationships. These couples are not even new couples, they are in both cases together from sometimes. In one case they are even married from sometimes. And from the way they looked at each other, they were in their own exclusive world.

I can't remember the last time I have been in a drama-free relationship, a relationship in which not only I felt happy and light, but I also felt that anything could happen and I would still be happy because I was not alone. I can't remember the last time I saw the look of love, admiration, the look of "I am in the right place with the right person and I am fully happy" in the eyes of the person I loved at that time. It has been long time anyway.

Getting closer to Christmas doesn't improve the way I feel. 99% of the times I am totally happy with my life. But there is that 1% of the times in which I wish I could have that again, a happy, drama-free, light relationship. One of these relationships that makes me feel that I walk 10 meters above the ground. One of these relationships who makes me feel smiling, with a silly smile, from morning to evening without a specific reason, but just because I am happy.

Sometimes I wonder if I will have something like that again. Something that doesn't have to come with a heavy baggage, something that makes me smile all day long for no reasons, except that I have my own happy world with someone else.

Whatever works

France, evening

I finally saw the latest Woody Allen movie, after I heard so much about it. People have been telling me that this is the best movie Woody Allen made, that it is so funny, that it is absolutely a movie to watch.

I just finished to watch it and I feel I should watch it again. It goes on very fast and you get to the end, or at least I got to the end, and I felt like "bah, ok, dunno". Did I like it? I don't know.

For sure it reminds me a lot of my interaction with a person closed to me. Me, like the young girl in this movie, very colorful, always wearing improbable things, feeling sunny; him, afraid of germs, diseases, what it could happen, a lot of deeps thoughts. Two quite opposite views that attract each others. Like in this movie. I agree with the way of thinking the main character expresses at the beginning when he talks to his wife: "we match so well, that rationally is perfect".

Apparently as this movie shows, rationality when it comes to love and relationships is not all. But, whatever works.....isn't the general philosophy of this movie a selfish way to look at things? yes, great in this movie at the end everyone is happy....but when does this happen in the real world? who would say after breaking up with someone, ok, we have been very happy till worked and now it is right that we follow whatever works for each of us? In this movie, it looks a lot like: it worked until it did and then he didn't work anymore, because it didn't mean to be anymore. As the main character says: love is not forever. Love it is not what moves things, except in a few cases.

I think that I am still a romantic girl in that sense.

But at the end......it is true....sometimes we break our heads over things and we don't realize that we just have one life and it is just up to us to make ourselves happy.

So, as Boris says at the end of the movie: That's why I can't say enough times, whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.

I found the movie funny and sad at the same time (in a classical Woody Allen style).

The second choice

France, morning

I went out with three girls yesterday. Very nice people, I never met two of them before. Of course, one is leaving next week, one in a week and one at the end of the month. Our lives of people moving continuously around the world..... when you find someone with whom you would get along well, they are moving to another place.

And this goes for romantic relationships too. It takes sometimes to build something and then with the gypsy kind of life that we have, when the relationship gets strong enough and you are deeply in love for each other Puff! it is time to move. And distance relationships are painful. I don't know how people manage them. I had a relationship when I moved to Germany and it soon became a distance relationship and the distance was killing me and it was very painful. It was not fun for anyone at the end.

Then I had a very long distance relationship with the olandesino. We managed for very long time, across the world, even with an Ocean in between. But I don't know how many times in the relationship I felt heart broken, I felt that I couldn't take anymore, I felt that I would leave my job, my dreams just to be with him. I don't know how many hours I spent on skype just to talk to him and see him with the web cam. I don't know how many hours I stared at the computer screen wondering why I had to be so far from him, why we couldn't find a job in the same place, why we had to keep moving all the time, why we have to have only short contracts or short-term fellowships that wouldn't allow us to make any plan.

Distance relationships for me could work only if they are limited in time and if the distance is not so much to allow to see each other often enough. Often enough being for me at least once or twice a month. Otherwise, it will just became a growing pain and a struggling.

How did I get in this status of mind? Because one of the things I talked about last night with these girls was exactly this, how to deal with distance relationships. And the positions were pretty much clear:

- You block yourself, avoid to fall in love for anyone and get attached
- You keep having "fun" relationship with people who are ok but for whom you don't feel that much, so that when you will leave there will be not pain and something to carry on with a distance
- You try anyway, even knowing that probably will hurt you like hell at the moment that you will be apart

If you didn't try a distance relationship, you can't understand what I am talking about. And I am not writing this out of arrogance. But because I heard so many times from my friends and family things like: you have to be strong, it is not so bad, at least you have each others, I think I could do it, I think I could manage, you suffer only because you are too needy....and things like this.

I may be needy and probably I am. But meeting more and more people with a life-style similar to mine, you understand that it is not just you who can't deal well with distance in a romantic relationship. They are just hard to deal with if you love someone very deeply. Someone manages them (and they have all my admiration).
Someone decides that she/he can't take it anymore. And if this goes with the thought that the person you leave was the "person you wanted to spend your life with" then you will keep loving this person for very long time.

One of these girls yesterday told me that his ex- was the person she thought just right for him. But it didn't work because they were apart for so long that it was hard to keep a healthy relationship. So, finally she realized that she had to give herself a chance and move on and try to find someone else, even if this person would probably ends up to be a second choice. Even if she will never stop to love her ex-. Even if she will miss him. Even if she will have moments in which she will thinks "why?".
Until one day in which she will find someone that from just being a second choice will became so important in her life that she will not want to be with anyone else but him.

something I am good at

France, night

If there is something I am very very good at is to pick the wrong movie and have a lot of expectation for it.
Tonight I got the movie "Two lovers". And I had even higher expectations after the guy working at the video store told me: "you will love this, it is a romantic comedy"................

Now, either we have a different concept of what it is romantic and what it is a romantic comedy or he had not clue what the movie is about or the movie has a romantic hint that I was not able to catch. Anyway, the movie put me in a bad bad mood.

The main actors have such a bad roles. And also, is it to be considered romantic a guy who proposes to a person who is crazy about him, just because he got refused by the person he actually really loves? is it romantic that he renounced to his dreams? is it romantic that he may one day maybe learn to love the person to whom he proposed to? is it romantic the fact that he would have left her without a single word to run to the other side of the country with someone else?

I found the movie very very depressing. And unfortunately, also realistic about the human nature and how people have fear of remaining alone and how often after being refused, someone who just wants you seems to be what you need and the best solution to avoid to completely fall apart.

Fortunately, I have some good books here to read before to go to bed (I am planning to re-read the Harry Potter books before the new movie comes out!). I hope that my mood will improve. My first thought of course was: gosh, imagine if a guy like that would happen to me. I could live in the illusion that he loves me, while instead I am just his second choice. So depressing. But it does happens. I know people who got married in this way. The person they loved didn't want them and after waiting at the end they married someone else for whom they were not in love, but who made them feeling wanted and loved.

I wish I will never find myself in either of the two places, not as the one who is the second choice, not as the one who will decide that someone for whom I am not that in love with, but makes me feel desired and loved is better than nothing.

I am an hopeless romantic!

Big love, best friend

France, night

I had a very very tough day today. This morning began with an hour and half at the dentist (and the dentist is normally never too pleasant), to which it followed a busy afternoon in which I tried to organize all the things I needed to change apartment (stop the electricity here, open it for the new place, stop internet here, open it for the new place, stop the insurance on the apartment here, start it for the new place, etc etc etc). By 5pm this afternoon I was so tired that I almost fall asleep on my bed (I took a day off to do all these things).

So, what I needed this evening was a nice relaxing girly movie. And I picked up the perfect one (I am normally a disaster in picking up random movies): Made of Honor. It was what I needed, light, funny, with a bit of tears and a happy ending. Just perfect! And of course, it made me thinking.

What happens when the person you love is also one of your best friend? it is scary and exciting at the same time. The olandesino was certainly one of my best friend before to be my boyfriend. I guess we always liked each other a lot, but we liked each others company even more to not wanting to see that ending too in case a romantic relationship would end. So, for long time, we just were very very close good friends. Till we realized that we could lie to ourselves as much as we wanted, but there was something more than just being good friends between us. The sad part of the story is that when a relationship is over and your exboyfriend is also one of your best friends, you don't only lose a boyfriend, but you lose someone who knows you well, someone who you know you can call at whatever time, someone who can be a friend even being your boyfriend. The olandesino and I, probably because we were good friends since the beginning, didn't break up in a bad way. It was just the right thing to do and we both agree on that. But I guess that we now both miss the friend that we represented for each other. And this is sad. I wish that one day, when a bit more time will be passed by, we will be able to be an important part of each other life again.

I guess that I am so much into my own world and I can have so many different faces that I may or may not want the other person to know, that for me to live a big love, the person I am with has also to be a very good friend of mine and vice versa. It just adds something more. But it is also very scary. It is scary to think that you may lose a big love and a best friend if something in the romantic relationship doesn't work the way it should.

But I keep believing in it. And I am also optimist that everything, giving it the right time, will fit into the right place.

In the middle of the night

France, evening

I just came back from the beach, where it was a bit cold and windy. But I enjoyed it and I even jumped into the water even if it was very cold. Now, I am going out for a relaxing walk with my best friend, the iPod.

Before, I wanted to write about last night. I came back home around 1.30 am and I soon fell asleep. I got wake up by someone crying very very laud. It was the middle of the night, 2.30 am. I realized that it was one of my neighbour. The one who lives with her boyfriend next door. She was crying very very laud, desperately. She walked into the corridor, still crying and then back inside her apartment. The walls here are not real walls and so I could hear her very well. I didn't know if knocking at her door and ask her if everything was ok, if she needed some help. As she came back home alone, I guess she had a fight with her boyfriend. I didn't hear him coming back at all. She kept crying and crying and I felt very sorry for her.

And I thought of myself, of how many times I cried in that way for a man too. The last time, not so long ago. I am sure my neighbors heard me too. And I got to think, is it worth it? shouldn't be being in a relationship something that makes you happy? sometimes we hurt the people we love most. Again, is it worth it? I felt like knocking at her door to ask her if she wanted to talk with someone. But first, my French is not good enough for this kind of deep conversation and second, it was none of my business and I don't even know her, beside the bonjour and bonsoir. So, I didn't. I stayed in my bed feeling miserable, feeling sorry for her and for anyone else who suffers a lot for love.

Fighting is part of being in a relationship, I guess. But when you are in a relationship and you start to feel less well than when you are alone, less stable, and you feel that the other person doesn't treat you with respect, no matter how divergent are the opinions, no matter who's fault it is, when the other person doesn't treat you as something precious, even if he/she loves you deeply, isn't the right time to re-consider the relationship? I know that when you deeply love someone this is very very hard and my tendency is to always find justifications for the behavior of the other person, always trying to forget about these moments. But these moments actually stay in my head and they just pile one top of each other, till everything gets ruined.
I heard my neighbours fighting so much, so many times and this girl crying so many times....

It is so much work being in a relationship. This is why if I am in a relationship, it means that the person is really worth it, otherwise, for me there is no reason to go through so much for someone who represents very little. At the beginning everything is great, beautiful and the small problems are cute, they are not even problems...but with time, only a few, very few people for me are worth to invest time, energy, days in which things don't go well, tears.
I am definitively not someone who is in love for love or relationships or marriage or any of these things.

some days

France, afternoon

I am back. And I got back sick. No idea of what I have. Actually, yesterday I got quite scared as I felt like I couldn't breath and I felt a strong pressure in my chest. But I am not having a heart attack, which is good. I got a check. So, I don't know what it is going on. I may have an arsenic poisoning due to my work, which would be quite bad too. If I have it, it shouldn't be a bad one anyway and I will get tested for it on monday. For now, I just have to take it easy.

I have to go to a weeding in two weeks from now. My cousin will get married. I am looking forward to this family occasion, but I also still don't know what I will wear. It will be at the beginning of May, which in Tuscany can be extremely mild, cold or warm. It will be inside (inside the church first and inside another place after). I have a couple of old dresses that I can wear, but then I would need to put something on the shoulder. I went to look for a nice short jacket or something else, but nothing. If you look for something in black, you can find plenty of things. In another color no way. I am not going to wear a total black to a wedding.

So, I got the idea to try other dresses. One was nice, but I had half of my breast outside it, which I don't think would be right for a church wedding.....While I was trying this dress I got to think "why every time that I lose weight, my breast disappears and the bottom part of my body still looks the same?". In this way the disproportion between my upper body and my bottom is even stronger. If I could think of an ideal shape for myself, I would prefer this disproportion to be less evident. At least most Mediterranean women also have a bigger breast. Look at Monica Bellucci for example. Instead, I am a real pear-looking woman.

Yes, I am in one of these days in which I look at myself in the mirror and I think "bah"! Some days I look at myself and I think "wow, your body is so athletic, you look so good, etc". Some days, like today, I am more for the "mmm, bah". I guess it happens to everyone. I wouldn't change anything in my body, but in these bah days I pick myself apart and I wonder how the parts that the olandesino always loved most of my body are the ones that I like less (like my legs).
I hope that I can find a boyfriend again who looks at my body in a less critical way than I do in these days. My best-friend just told me that I idealize relationships too much...Of course in a relationships also other things count a lot and it is not only the way the person we are with would perceive us for the way we look that makes them loving us for long term......attraction decreases after you know and are with the person since sometime and it is not as it was at the beginning....but it is nice to think that the person we are with still look at us and think "wow, I am very lucky, she is beautiful inside and outside"...So, this friend of mine thinks that only some lucky women find men like that, that look at their partner and still find her beautiful and attractive after some time. Then, I think in my previous two relationships I was a very lucky woman in this sense....and these relationships still didn't work out well....can't everything in life, it seems....but I can't help...maybe because I grew up with no father caring about me (or finding me minimally interesting to pay any attention to me) and no men in my family making me feel special in any way, that I still need today to find a man who adores me and makes me feel I make a difference in his life and I am precious to him (on top of the rest of course....).



PS. it doesn't fit to the topic of the post, but it fits to it in terms of clothes. I love love love the Gothic dresses! They look so feminine!!! does anyone know a nice internet website where I could look around for nice dresses? of course, not for the wedding. My family would kill me if I would show up with something Gothic or anything looking vaguely extravagant!

awakening

USA, night

No doubt about the fact that the time I am spending here, it is working for me as a therapy to get more in touch with myself.

I realized one thing. I am not an insecure person. I love myself, my body, my sense of humor, the way I am, my feet of course, the way I manage to talk to everyone and make them smiling and feeling comfortable, I am happy for what I achieved in my life and I am amazed by the fact that I already reached some of the dreams I had as a teenager.

But then, when I am in a relationship, I am a disaster. What I think about myself stops counting and all what it counts is what the person I am with may think of me. I continuously look for signals that may show that he loves me less or like me less or thinks I am actually not that interesting. This translates in making the person I am with feeling under pressure and start to behave in a more careful way with me. And so, because I am too afraid of the person I am with not liking me enough if I am just myself, then I start to change to a more plain person.

The end result is that I get frustrated of not being able to be myself, that I start to feel better with myself when I am alone, that I frustrate the person who is with me, that I get to think that I am together with someone who doesn't allow me to be myself and then I get so insecure and unhappy and annoyed that I start to get the feeling of being in a cage and a sense of "itch" that makes me feel the need to break up.

Of course this was not the only reason for which my relationship with the olandesino ended. But now I see that this contributed a lot to make both of us miserable and very unhappy. I always thought it was his fault. I always thought that his being so cool and so full of idea on what it is right and wrong, nice and ugly, good and bad, was what made me not being able of being myself. Instead, I start to think that large part of this was all in my head and created by me and that I seriously largely contribute to screw up something that could have been just simpler, lighter and happier.

And now I am scared of not being able to get out of this sick pattern. The only way I see a relationship working for me is to find someone who loves me as much as I love myself. The problem is that as soon as I am in a relationship, I stop loving myself and I love the other person more than me. And this, clearly doesn't work.

hopeless romantic

France, evening

Definitively, I am an hopeless romantic. I was watching Wall-e and I found a way to cry for this movie too. I feel a bit stupid, I have to admit it. Every time there is a bit of romance in a movie or in a book, I end up like crying. I am dreaming of a light, happy, smiling love story.
I liked the movie and Wall-e and Eve are cute. But the movie is sad. Already from the beginning. Yes, there is an happy ending. But it is sad. Maybe I am just too sensitive....