Friday, March 9, 2007

Make Up Or, Break Up Sex?

Anyone knows that New Year’s Eve can either be really, REALLY fun, or REALLY bad. I keep trying to convince myself that staying in and getting sushi take-out with a bottle of red wine and champagne to toast with when the ball drops is such a better way of celebrating New Years than racing over to the “Bal Harbour Shops” 24 hours prior to the big night trying to scout out new “digs” since I can’t seem to settle for anything my wardrobe has to offer!

The phone and texts won’t stop. Are you buying a ticket? What’s your deal? Where are you going to go and what have you decided what to do? Dude, I can’t hold this ticket forever! Previous years I had no question of what to do and would buy two or sometimes even three tickets to parties held either at Raleigh, Setai, Shore Club or Shelburne, or wherever else I was being “convinced” to go. For some reason though, this year I wasn’t too keen on partying in one of those overpriced hotels for hours on end, where you can’t even make it to the bar for a well-needed drink, and the music can barely be heard because, unlike the promoters promised, instead of the table being “front and center,” it is so far back that it’s practically in the restroom! Chartering a yacht with friends would’ve been more satisfactory, maybe a tad more expensive, but a midnight yachting excursion over an over-crowded club isn’t too hard of a choice! My alternative to those “hotel parties” was my Floridian friend, Enrique’s, “house” party on Alton Road, catered with sushi and a professional DJ spinning the tunes. SO appealing as this was, I accepted the invite! After 12AM hit and the bottles of champagne got popped, we all headed down to the beach to see friends, hit the parties, and scope out the “scene!”

I don’t know too many people who have ever met their “mate” or let alone began a relationship by meeting on New Year’s Eve. I do recall, however, lots of “break-ups” and fighting ignited among some couples. Why do couples choose holidays as their prime time to pick a fight? How many of you in relationships have been in situations where, at a family gathering, your significant other decides to start in? Well, it’s the most unpleasant thing that one encounters, next to your aunt’s dry turkey breast or over-cooked brisket that the sharpest knife won’t cut. Being embarrassed by someone is worse than having a random hook up where the girl, or in some cases guy, didn’t “shave.”

I’m mind boggled why so many couples stay in relationships with tension and constant bickering. Why, prior to marriage, do couples feel the need to get “therapy?” Seriously. Aren’t the early stages supposed to be the “honeymoon period?” Therapy before marriage, WHAT? If you really analyze this one, then please WAKE THE FUCK UP and start acknowledging and accepting that he, or she, may just NOT be your “soul mate.” If you are staying with the person just because the make up sex is SO HOT, and steamier than the steam at “LA Sports Club,” this isn’t a good enough reason to stay together. It’s not like you’re 90 years old in a nursing home looking for that widow to come and jerk you off! Should relationships be SO much work that you get the feeling you have a second job? Sometimes other jobs are excuses for not wanting to go home to face the real issues.

Don’t couples know how UNHEALTHY and DRAINING fighting under tension is, and worse, doing it under one roof? Issues that are causing problems more often than not will lead to weight gain from eating a hot fudge banana-split sundae with non-fat ice cream so you can try and justify the calorie…just like make up sex or her giving you great “head” is a means of trying to solve the problem. Well, just like any nutritionist will tell you, calories are calories, and the non-fat ice cream won’t PERMANATLY stop you from gaining weight, just like make up “sex” will not PERMANATLY stop or cease the existing problems. By not confronting the issue and burying it in the cup with all the topping, or worse, under the down comforter and 400 thread count sheets, is not going to help make your relationship better or make the tension evaporate! How come, then, do many couples still stay together prior to marriage, when deep down they truly aren’t happy? Is it the fear of being alone, or anxiety that they’ll never have such great sex, or the dread that they’ll never meet another, possibly better suited, candidate?

I will never forget a few years ago when I was in Nuevo Nails, a salon in Coolidge Corner (Brookline, MA) and ran into a married friend of mine, Allison. At the time, I had been living with my boyfriend, Sebastian, for six months. She asked me how everything was going--you know, the standard “girl talk” while getting mani’s/pedi’s. My ex and I were going through a “rough patch.” Some bumps are repairable, but I told Allison how I didn’t know where our relationship was going and was having serious reservations…but not that ones that Amex Platinum can’t fix! For ten years, Sebastian and I were best friends with “benefits.” But when he moved back to Boston and into my apartment, before we knew it we became your “old married couple” that wasn’t truly happy. Allison understood our “rough patch”; she told me that she had a similar situation with her ex. She said, and I will never forget this, “You are too young to be this miserable and unhappy. Unless you fully close one door, you are preventing the opportunity for a new door to open…if you want that new door.” What I wanted was MY apartment, with me, time ALONE, and SPACE to figure out what it was that I really wanted. Was it Sebastian, or was I holding onto something I knew wasn’t necessarily right for me?

I realized that day that she was right. It was the rude WAKE UP CALL that I needed. I wasn’t scared of being alone or coming home to an empty house--for heavens sake I’m an only child--talking to myself is “normal.” I was more concerned with hurting someone I deeply cared about. I had finally come to the realization that he wasn’t the “one” for me. Breaking up isn’t easy. It’s always easier to end a relationship when you can HATE the person because of something they did, (i.e. cheating, etc.), but this wasn’t the case. Just because you care about someone and may even still “love” them does NOT mean that he or she is the suitable person for you to spend the rest of your life with. Frequent fighting isn’t the way to live your life. Making excuses or “brushing” off the problem for the time-being isn’t like crumbs you can vacuum up. Trying to MAKE that light shine at the end of the tunnel that you know will never shine like you want it to, (like the canary diamond in the window at Cartier), will only make you unhappy. If you truly care about the person, shouldn’t you then be honest enough with yourself and them to end things rather than hitting the point where you’ll end up resenting them? Just because two people aren’t meant “to be” doesn’t mean the world is coming to a crumble. As the Maven, I ask: How many of you currently, or at some point in your life, have been in wrong relationships? Then, WHY don’t you just part, go your separate ways, and seek to find happiness somewhere else? If the shoe gives you blisters, then why don’t you just get a new pair?

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