Hi, GL,

There is certainly a romantic appeal to a person who was orphaned at a young age working hard and finding happiness later in life. But that’s not the only literature around. Jane Austen would caution against using passion as the basis for a relationship as well as Shakespeare in his satirical work Romeo and Juliet (two teens committing suicide after a few days of meeting? Utter foolishness). Dostoyevsky used passionate morals to commit ‘evil’. Emily Bronte had a different view of orphan in Wuthering Heights. The concept of Jean ValJean being forgiven for his criminal past, on his deathbed, by Cosette is eyebrow raising, the Hunchback had a grimmer ending. In the Italian version of Cinderella, Zezolla was fending off the advances of the King until he had cornered, forcing her to marry him. In the Grimm version, Aschenputtel planted a tree on her mother’s grave. Come time of the ball, she had asked the tree to grant her the dresses and accessories to attend. Her stepsisters had cut off part of their feet to fit into the shoe, the prince carried them off until the birds told him to check the bloody shoe. At the wedding, the bridesmaid stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by the birds. Didn’t finish Harry Potter, was more enamored with the Chronicles of Narnia.

Oh yes, I am very well aware of the other classics. I guess ultimately it is a combination of chance (which books happen to be within reach) and individuality (which books one wants to read and reread and which were good, but which one doesn’t want to reread).

Fairy tales are tricky here because children’s versions do not contain all those sordid details. I have a very hard time understanding how Danes can claim that H. C. Andersen is the greatest fairy story teller when so many of this fairy tales do not have happy endings and are rather grim in nature. Of course, the child goes with whatever s/he is “fed” – I learnt about all these “real” versions only much later in life.

I liked The Chronicles of Narnia, but to a point. I am a very conservative and faithful person, and it is very difficult for me to switch to a new person as the protagonist when I got so used to the “old” ones. It was not the only children’s book in which older brothers and sisters (whom I happily followed) are somehow “banned” from the location. I would either read and reread only the earlier volumes or replace their younger siblings’ names with the ones I was so used to.

Fairytale do have a happily ever after, yet that also beg one question. What happens after happily ever after? The reader can only see a certain timeframe of the story to inferred that the characters was happy at a certain point in time, but it might not end that same way at their death. There is also no glimpse of the mundane life after the end. There might be an epilogue, but that doesn’t give much fact of the last ending for the main protagonist(s). Were they truly happy after the ending or is it something the reader must imagined to feel happy after finishing the journey of the characters? The narrator writes “The End” at the ending and it is, as the story has ended. Yet if the characters were living, the end merely implies the ending to one part of their life, the rest is left to the imagination. After all, someone must live to write that tale.

Oh yes, very well aware of this one, too. But again, when I was a teenager, it was a thought that I agreed with, but didn’t want to go much into because it was only so much more interesting to follow the adventures that would bring the characters together.

Also, given how unfair and ugly life sometimes is, one can’t but help wishing for happy endings. Even though on the conscious level one knows that one can’t be happy, like HAPPY, all the time.

In addition, everyone thinks that s/he is unique, and it was only so easy for me to fall into the trap that “if I wait long enough and am a good girl, all my dreams will come true provided that my love is reciprocated”. I think I believed that well until I was 23 and fell hard for my #1 with no happy ending (not surprisingly).

Funnily enough, my ex believed (and still believes at the ripe age of 55) that all that matters is to find the right person. Sure, one makes mistakes, but that means that that person was not the right one. So he kind of supported me in thinking that he is the one indeed – also given how differently he treated me, for how long as well as that he was the first man with whom I had real sexual intercourse.

Anyway, I described my ex’s modus operandi in depth to Matt.

Concerning any psychological disorders, the APA always has a difficult job of choosing what disorders should or should not be added to the DSM IV, the psychological guidelines. No matter the constant research, there is always outliers to human behavior so there might be theories, but not laws. Even now, psychologists and psychiatrists are still debating the spectrum of narcissism. Does someone embody Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or are they merely on the spectrum, e. g. egoistic and weary of looking/being vulnerable? Difficult to diagnosed.

Again, completely agree. I started dabbling in psychology when I began to feel that my ex started  to retreat (sometime at the mark of 2,5 years into the relationship). What was confusing was that I was feeling that something was off, yet he would still do romantic and amazing things from time to time, so I, having read all about the abatement of passion, took that as a sign that he was getting used to me – in a good way, like passion transforming into love. Again, a lot on Matt’s thread.

What is interesting is that psychology-wise there is no “norm”. If you are “functioning”, you are “normal.”

So they change things again and again (e. g. career, geographic location), but not matter what, one partner is always dissatisfied.

I am afraid I stop following you at this point – why is one partner always dissatisfied? Why can’t the two find a way that would satisfy both?

So once you’ve made the decision to commit after deciding if you want to be with them, how do you choose to love that person?

This is easy for me. One, I am very conservative and hate change. So if I am used to having somebody around, I will resist change as much and for as long as I can.

Second, yes, I do remember that sometime around the two months’ mark of living together with my ex, I felt that I was getting in the groove – the routine had settled in, he was there. Yet I resisted with all my brain power.

The same a few years later when I was looking at his picture. Somehow at that point the features that are now so pronounced (for me and I don’t like them) became also very apparent, he had started to lose hair, by that time he had already grown a belly (why do men do it once they hit 50 – the “guy who led me on” also put on weight), but I was lovingly thinking and recalling him the way he had been when we first met and for the first year of our romance, what pulled me to him “…But I still love you, notwithstanding.”

Isn’t this what they call the conscious choice to love somebody?

So if you want someone who can pamper you, then put that on your list of criteria for partners.

Don’t quite agree. It is not the financial position of the partner that makes him provide for me and pamper me, but his generosity and desire to do so.

Right before my ex came into the picture, a guy at work, much older than me and seemingly in a much better financial position (I had just started and he had been there for a long time), asked me out. He didn’t bother to come up with the idea of where I might want to go (bluntly asked me what I wanted to do), we went for a drive in his sports car. During the drive, he would talk mainly about himself, about his securities and five-star hotels. It never occurred to him to ask me whether I was hungry or thirsty! I didn’t like him at all, but gave him a chance (thanks, Mum!), even though he was clear in Cat. 1 and reminded me strongly of a vulture in appearance. Funnily enough, some time later, I learnt that his salary was not as big as he insinuated it was – pure show-off!!!

But generosity and willingness to put oneself in another’s shoes (even if it is as little as noticing whether I am cold or tired) goes a much longer way.

Michelle says that I mention money a lot. Probably so, because many of the guys whom I didn’t like and who asked me out didn’t even bother to think of something we could do on our date or meeting – they preferred to delegate responsibility to me asking what I wanted to do. Accordingly, the only way to find out whether the guy is generous is to see whether he would let me pay for myself or INSIST on paying himself.

Because as somebody said, if the guy is not attentive, generous and putting his foot forward now when he is supposed to woo you, what will he be like when he gets used to you?

Also, I do like to underscore that I am independent and that the mere fact that you asked me out (or want to pay for me) doesn’t mean that I will sleep with you.

Finally, isn’t it because of money and financial issues that so many couples trip over?…

In terms of chemistry, physical chemistry is important if you are anything, but asexual. Though aesthetics can also be important too. Wanting and being able to kiss someone makes it easier to want to date, and chemistry can be developed if you are open to that.

Yeah, I believe that the family portrait test boils down to a) whether the guy is going to be a pleasure to look at in the morning, unshaven, disheveled, sick etc. and b) whether we look good together – like couples who have been together for a long time start to resemble each other – maybe I am looking for similarities too early on, also in appearance, me being pretty and in a good shape and sort of requiring a guy who wouldn’t look misplaced by my side.

But chemistry is important to you so seriously judge if you are comfortable with that person.

Comfortable meaning compatible?

You have good intuition, but what kind of information is your intuition drawing from? Is it drawing from your romantic idealism, your bias or your criteria? But judging someone as a series of data can skew your perspective since it doesn’t allow you to see that person as human, but a checklist of sort. Though if you don’t like something about that person, then you don’t like it so best to move on.

Yeah, I phrased it for myself the following way some time ago: I tend to think that the man whom I like possesses those qualities that, to my mind, go with that particular appearance, and incidentally, are the qualities that I, for some reason or other, want (or need) to have in a man. Hence being attracted to troubled men, men in a mess. If they aren’t attracted to me, my infatuation fades, but if they do, it gets on for me like a house on fire.

What possibly makes things worse is that I am rather flexible in many things and I tend to follow the “wait and see” rule, so I end up falling very, very hard because I kept waiting to see where it all goes and wishing I had some firm built-in boundaries that would knock sense in me when crossed. When I realise that it is not quite what I have been bargaining for, it is too late, I am hopelessly in love.

And people are rarely taught how to be responsible for their actions in a relationship.

I have been brought up on the premise of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you do upon others”, so it is twice as hard to experience grown-up people behave the way they behave ESPECIALLY if exactly these things have been discussed and you have been assured that they, in their sound mind, would never do anything similar.

People are rarely taught how to be vulnerable with others.

That is true, too. After all my reading, I now come to slowly realizing where others come from when behaving the way they behave – mostly because they are scared of one thing or another. Sometimes I tend to think that fear is the root cause of literally everything, but then I think that maybe I am again seeing things because I want to see them.

What you choose to compromise on is entirely up to you, but you also don’t have to compromise on everything. You have your needs, and your potential partner have theirs. Between what you can compromise on and what you can’t, you work on the middle ground of that ‘can’ with them.

Anita likes to stress that compromising (meaning conceding) doesn’t work. What works is win-win. What would you say?