Musings

Harry says that the worst kind of woman is one who thinks she's low maintainance but is, in fact, high maintainance. After sitting at the bar with Brad Friday night and listening to him talk about his girlfriend (who, freudian-ly enough, he says is a lot like me), I'm beginning to think perhaps the hardest type of girl to be with is the strong, independent, feminist type. You see, what happens with the strong, independent, feminist type is that, of course, we can't always, consistently, be that way, in every facet of our lives. So inevitably, there comes a situation in which we behave in a way that seems out of character, perhaps even 'stereotypically girlish.' Now, if we were stereotypical girls, this would be expected, but since we are not, it comes off as game playing. Which, in general, I would argue, it is not. We're simply...multi-faceted. And here's where we become difficult to be with - not only are you expected to see this coming, but also to miraculously know how to deal with it. Because more often than not, these moments when we are weak, insecure, fragile, and looking for you to make it better, are also moments that reflect our least favorite parts of our personalities. So these moments are, to say the least, tricky to navigate. And after listening to Brad's genuine surprise over various interactions with his girlfriend, interactions where her response seemed perfectly predictable to me, I am forced to admit that our type is perhaps the most challenging.
(aside - how weird is it that not only does my brother have a girlfriend, but he told my parents and I about her? It's like he's a pod person or something. It's nice. But weird.)

Tangentially, in another one of our conversations Carrie and I were revisiting what it is we want out of relationships - the seemingly simplistic request that people be nice to us. And, furthermore, that they allow us to be nice to them. Which all sounds very nice and easy to do. But there's a reason I phrased it that way - allow us to be nice to them. Our combined experiences would seem to indicate that this is not, in fact, at all easy to do. Mostly because what we mean is that people allow us to be nice to them without being weird about it. Which seems to stem from people misunderstanding what our niceness means. So here's a cheat sheet - it means we like you. It does not mean I Love You or I think you're my boyfriend or I expect some sort of commitment from you or any of a number of things that seem to freak people (mostly boys) out so much. Another problem that C and I seem to run into is this belief in a false dichotomy that a 'relationship' is either a one-night stand or a full-blown, meet-the-parents, start talking about forever Relationship. People - there is a middle ground. Chill out.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's just Carrie and I. Maybe we should get married and quit complaining about everyone else.

And lastly, just to re-cap, Thanksgiving with the family was nice. At times, surprisingly nice. On Sunday I went to church with Mom and Grandma, at the same church where Mom and Dad were married and Brad and I were both baptised. So that was neat. They had a pretty rocking Jesus Christ Superstar-esque chorus and during the homily the priest mentioned that reading the Bible should make us uncomfortable, should make us think, and should not provide us with easy answers. Pretty impressive, especially considering that this is Texas. Overall I ate way too much food, and Friday night I definitely drank way too much (as evidenced by my barely coherent drunk posting). It didn't seem like all that much, but by the end of the night I decided I was too full of beer and switched to gin and tonic. Never a good idea. Still, I probably could have gotten over that if I had managed more than an hour or two of sleep before heading to the airport. So for most of yesterday I had the worst hangover of my life, but pulled it together enough to enjoy pad thai courtesy of the Canadians and attend hockey with the Canadians and Andy and even indulge in a little hair of the dog during The Forgotten (not bad, but a little too happily ever after of an ending for my taste). Now it's back to reality. Hopefully tomorrow I can start to put a dent in all the research I was supposed to do last week...