Firstly, I am a psychology major with a penchant and passion for English and languages (a sentence that surprisingly ties the first clumsy paragraph up pretty neatly). Ha! Take that blogging! No but really, let's get this post moving...
I'm taking a course entitled Gender of Psychology and it's mostly discussion based so there are a lot of strange topics and interesting comments as well as a fair amount of bullshit and crossing of (should be) personal boundaries. In any case, yesterday evening we stumbled about the topic of 'Friends With Benefits' relationships on which I was pretty vocal. A few of the older students took more staunch views about the topic but I think I put forth a pretty valid argument with which most of the class seemed to agree (or at least not hate?): I think a big problem is people falling in love with love or 'falling in love' as a remedy to their loneliness or because of some insecurity that makes them find being alone with themselves uncomfortable. This, of course, is the opposite of what a 'good' relationship should be. As silly as it sounds, I do believe you should at the very fucking least like yourself before you offer yourself to someone who you want to be your romantic partner. To me, it seems like a basic line of logic that if you don't even like you, why should you expect others to?
Do note that I've been told I'm a little 'blunt' about those sorts of things. I'm not at all the kind to mess around with the 'Build walls to see who cares enough to climb over' mentality or any of that 'teen love' shit (or at least that's how it's tagged on 'tumblr').
Anyways, I finished up my opinion with saying that it's less harmful to your would-be significant other to make a mature agreement to satisfy whatever basic needs you both share than to get with someone in a blind emotional frenzy and then end up regretting something or 'falling in love' with someone else as the ignorant, fickle heart likes to do. The counter was suggested that it's difficult for women to overcome their need for a deep emotional connection, but I think that this generation's independent woman is capable of more control than that.
I'm also not one to fall into the trap of 'It's okay to make mistakes', or rather, it's unfortunate reinterpretation that even if you know it's a bad decision and do it anyway, it's okay because it was a 'mistake'.
Even if such feelings develop, there was an agreement. Saying 'I didn't know' doesn't change that. Like I said, 'mature', or as in (I'd hope) being about to think rationally despite strong emotion (like lust).
Or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about. What do you say?
