The Break-Up song

What do you think about this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cnuWY-Al9A

Know Your Role

Question: Is it common to have an audience when you're in a relationship? Do we know when to close out curtains and keep the neighbors out?

Answer:

For the most part we have a hard time keeping our business to ourselves. Relationships have so many problems. And it can seem like even more when we have invited too many people into what should remain between two people.

When we bring all the extra people into our relationship, we are asking for friends to give their opinions and tell us what they think about a certain situation we give them permission to tell us what they "THINK" they would do if ever in our situation.

The reality is that there is a difference between advice and an opinion and since I don't want to give you any false information, I looked up the two in the dictionary.

Opinion: is a view, judgement or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter.

Advice: a recommendation regarding a decision or a course of conduct.

See...told you there is a difference.

What we need is advice from friends. What we don't need is what you think, or your judgement (opinions).

Friends (and I'm going to say this as nice as possible) need to learn to play their role when it comes to relationships. Say we have a friend named Katie, and Katie is mad at her boyfriend. Your role here as her friend is to be mad WITH her for as long as she needs you to be, and when she's over it and happy with the boyfriend again you push that incident to the back of your mind and be happy that she's happy.

Our role as friends is to be the supporting actress/actor when it comes to getting involved in our friends relationships and quarrels. Now unless our friends are being put in danger we should learn to play that role better than Denzel or Halle'.

I hope that wasn't condescending...if it was I'm sorry, but its the truth!

I'm Not Scared...Am I?

I know its been a while since I've written to you, but I guess I've been sorting through a lot of feelings and thoughts.

I'm curious as to what you REALLY think about love? Is it really worth all the trouble?

Love makes me feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. Half the time I don't know whether I'm coming or going, and feeling foolish all the while.

Am I silly for loving this hard, this deep? I wonder if we are putting ourselves through all this for nothing. If love is real then where is the payoff, and when do I get mine?

"Everyone falls, you just be careful of falling and staying there..." is that what we do when we fall out of love? Are we in a rut? I understand that love is a mutual thing or should be at least but how come when we give in to love, it feels like we end up loosing? Who is the referee and why hasn't he blown the whistle yet? I call foul, charge or something!!

Have you ever given so much that there's nothing left over for you? People we are being taken for fools in this love game! I'm not saying give up on love but instead wake up and see it for what it is...a ploy to get us to open up, be giving, forgiving and understanding, patient, supportive and even after all that there is no guarantee.

Are we going to be afraid to love the next time love comes knocking at our door, and if it does come back how will you react? Will you do all the things that you've done in this one?

"I'm not scared of lions and tigers and bears...but I'm scared of loving you," is this really what its come to?

Love is a risk that I wish there was insurance for...hmmm how much does it cost to fix a broken heart?

Mixed Signal=Traffic Jam

Lately I've been hearing a lot about people sending mixed signals in relationships and to be honest it seems to me that the main reason for the confusion is that people are unable to clearly communicate their thoughts and feelings.

The other day, a good friend told me that "communication rules the nation," now as cheesy as that sounds, it's true. How can we be involved with some one and not know how to explain how we feel. Mixed signals are problematic, obviously because they are difficult to interpret.

Often times we find ourselves getting mentally tongue tied making it harder to articulate how we feel. More so, I think that when we get this way it's from one of three things: we're not sure how we feel, don't want to hurt feelings or we're playing games. I hate to be crass but these are the only real reasons for an emotional mix up.

For example if you're not sure of your own feelings, the safest thing to do is to let the other person know what's on your mind. Clamming-up isn't an form of expression, but quite the opposite. When you're fighting an emotional battle within your self, you don't suffer, your lover does. Only because they can't read you.

Secondly, we send mixed signals because we think that it's the best way to save face, keep from being the "bad" guy, and let the person down easily. It's not. Be an adult and flat out tell them that your not interested and keep it moving.

Lastly, people send mixed signals because they are playing games. Common courtesy says that you treat people the way you want to be treated. If you don't want any one to play with your heart, and constantly yo-yo-ing your heart back and forth then do them a favor and let them go...sometimes I think we hold on to people because we want them, but just not yet. You want them to be there when you're ready to settle down. Life doesn't work like that. It's not fair to hold some one an emotional hostage until you're ready to be what they need you to be. In the end you'll only make them bitter toward you.

I'll leave you with this: if mixed signals cause traffic jams on the streets, doesn't it stand to reason that they would do the same in your life? Be clear, mean what you say and say what you mean. Mixed signals=Traffic Jams

Over-estimated, Under-rated

Ok so the more I read "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man," by Steve Harvey, the more I feel like I have always (kinda sorta) understood the male species. As I continue to turn pages I realize how simple their needs are and how easy it could be to please both them and myself.

Ladies it dawned on me as I flipped through the pages that our problem is not that we don't understand the men in our lives or the men that we would like to be in our lives, but instead two things: we over analyze/complicate things and we under estimate the value of our own common sense.

First we make things too complex by thinking that men think the same way we do. They don't. Plain and simple, their thought process is much less complicated than ours. We find ways to make things difficult.

We (women) need to get to the point, be direct without being rough. For example if you like a man to be prompt and call when he says he's going to, you could say "I put forth the effort to do what I say, so if I say I'll be there at 7pm then I do whatever it takes to be there on time if not earlier." Instead of saying "I hate waiting on people," Get it!?

If you're laughing it's because you're guilty of being harshly blunt. I know this is something I have done myself, so I can't pass any judgements. Everything is easier to digest when its dipped in sugar. Its just like when you're getting ready to go out with friends and one of them has on an outfit that isn't flattering on her frame, you don't say "you look a mess" but instead you say "do you have a shirt that looks like..." its all about finesse!

We constantly say how we just want these men to be upfront with us, but a lot of the time we're not upfront with them....not the way we expect them to be with us. If we want them to do something we expect them to just know what we need, but DUH! They aren't mind readers they don't know unless we tell them.

I have come to realize two things that we teach people how to treat us and that men will be what we tell them we think they are. If you begin a relationship and your significant other is mean and talks down to you then that's how they will always talk to you, until you decide to check their behavior. If you are constantly telling someone that they are a liar, then that's the role they'll play; since you already think they're lying they will. Sad but true.

Wrap your mind around this and let me know what you think...I'll be waiting!