Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Relationships: Why I can't stand them!



I originally thought of a much better title for the topic of today's blog, but I forgot what it was and this one will have to do for the time being. If I happen to remember what it originally was I will update my original blog and make the appropriate changes. Basically I was reminded of some stuff that I have felt for a long time, after watching the Spanish language film Rudo y Cursi. In it Gael GarcĂ­a Bernal's football-on-a-current-losing-streak character Cursi falls in love with a opportunistic newscaster named Maya who essentially uses him for his money and status and then leaves him for another player that she sees as being a trade up ( At least career wise and financially) . Which is not to say that all women are shallow, money grubbing and/or opportunistic ( I want to make it clear that I do not hate women, I just hate certain behaviors that a lot of women seem to display with some regularity). What I am more upset at is when people, men or women basically screw themselves over (or their friends/family/colleagues) because of the relationships they have or because of the people they claim to love. I have lost many a friend or seen many a friend destroy themselves over a woman (or a man as the case maybe, but for the rest of the article I will be talking about women mostly).

For the sake of argument I will be playing the devil's advocate and I will speak about women in general, but all my examples can be the same for men as well. When it comes to love and bad relationships, no one sex has a monopoly. A good example of this would be my former friends Matthias and Martin, both of whom I met in college where they were exchange students from Austria. We stayed in touch for years after they went back to Austria and eventually I went to visit them for the 1st time in their native home in 2000. I planned the trip for months in advance and both of them knew when I was coming and for how long, as well as far I would be traveling ( Roughly 8,000 miles I believe). When I finally got there Matthias was initially nowhere to be seen or even heard from. When I did finally manage to get a hold of him he claimed to be too busy to meet, despite the fact that time was running out on my visit to Austria. Eventually he did pop into a bar that me, Martin and some other people were in, but only for an hour or so. It turned out his girlfriend was one of those kinds of women who doesn't want their boyfriend to do anything or go anywhere without them or without their permission. Matthias was only dropping by to see us because his girlfriend was busy with work and wouldn't know he had snuck off to meet us. Something which to me is reason enough to dump someones ass (If anyone ever tells you who you can or cannot see, that is controlling behavior pure and simple. You do not want to have anything to do with such people, especially if it is a man! You are no one's slave, property or their bitch, so never act like it. Especially in the name of love!)!

I learned a long time ago that if someone is in love or even thinks they are in love. There is no reasoning with them, and complaining about their supposed love or trying to warn them of future problems will only damage your friendship. It's best to just remain silent and wait for the relationship to end on it's on, as they pretty much always do at some point). So initially I kept my mouth shut, but I was deeply disgusted, especially after matters got even worse. A few days before I was to leave Austria, Matthias finally agreed to meet me and Martin at Martin's house. We were planning to catch up on each other's lives and drink it up into the wee hours of the night, or at least that was the plan. Matthias' girlfriend was informed that this was our plan, and she also knew I had not seen Martin or Matthias for 4 years and I would only be in Austria for a total of 2 weeks ( Actually I think it was less than that, but I would have to check my passport). Traveling all the way from Los Angeles just to see my friends that I hadn't seen in years. Yet she called Matthias on his cell phone every 20 minutes as soon as he arrived just to complain about him not being with her or to remind him that tonight was their special night. Apparently their "Special Night" was code for some sort of a sex thing. Anyway I finally had to take Matthias' cell phone away from him after I said very loudly," That she knows where you are and what you are doing! She shouldn't be calling every 20 minutes, it's annoying as hell!" For the rest of the evening it was obvious that Matthias wasn't drinking as much as he usually does in the thought that he might drive home later, but we ending up getting wasted anyway and staying at Martin's all night. A few days later I left Austria and eventually returned to the US. When I returned to the States I was informed by Martin that Matthias' girlfriend actually said she was glad that I was gone, for now she had Matthias all to herself. Which if you know me, is just the wrong thing to say as I was infuriated by this comment! If a girlfriend of mine ever said something like that about a good friend, I would dump them right then and there. I then confronted Matthias about what his girlfriend said and pointed out that none of his friends get to see him because of her and that she was an insecure mess and no one really thought they were good together or would even last. He said that wasn't true but I dared him to ask him what his friends really and truly thought of her to prove my point. As guys just shut up about stuff like that and so he would never know what they actually thought unless he asked them to be honest with them. He only asked a few of his friends and after each of them said they didn't like her and agreed with what I had said earlier, so he stopped asking. Saying that he loved her and that she was perfect for him, and all that other stupid crap people in love sprout. The funny thing is a little bit later he went to Australia for either 6 months or a year, I can't recall, and proceeded to cheat on his so called love numerous times. Which just supports my overall view of most relationships in general. People claim to love people all too easily and freely, without really knowing what true love is or even acting accordingly. If someone truly loves you, they would never prevent, guilt or manipulate you from seeing one of your friends or into doing what they want for their own selfish reasons. Nor would you cheat on someone, for any reason, that you claimed to love. Yet day after day people continue to profess their love to those who are not deserving of their love in the first place, or lying to and cheating on the same people they claim to hold so dear. It's a very sad daily occurrence that's unfortunately escalating all the time. More on this topic later on and how Martin did something fairly similar to what Matthias did, and why we are all no longer friends.

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