Showing posts with label relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relations. Show all posts

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Spellbound Selves

You know that moment, at a party or in a club, when everyone around you is utterly drunk and you are as sober as a judge? When you witness people embarrassing themselves to a point where you really hope they won't remember when their intoxication drops? People who you thought you knew pretty well impersonating someone else. It's like looking at long-time friends for the very first time.

It seems that the exact same thing happens when everyone around you is in a relationship and you are single.

This thought came into my mind during these festive days, when I spend an unusual amount of time with people I otherwise rarely see (note to self: this is material for a blogpost). I'm sure that they have experienced the change gradually, but for me, it comes as a shock. The guy who had us all heartbroken by playing 'hard to get', has turned into a puppet under the orders of the lady holding the strings. He keeps running from one place to another like a loyal puppy following her orders. He's not alone. The once professed and active feminist is now responding to nicknames ranging from "Princess" to "Babe" and using terms of the kind of "my Little Muffin". Personal interests seem to vanish to make room for joint activities: the great cook of the group now only bakes cupcakes. Or, in some cases, one of them absorbs the lifestyle of the other: the barbecue organiser now follows a strict vegetarian diet. 

When drunk, if we were able to watch ourselves from the side of sobriety, would we regret the person we become when bewitched like this?

When in a relationship, if we were able to watch ourselves from the side of singlehood, would we regret the person we become when bewitched like this?



Sunday, July 20, 2014

Ignorance is Bliss

There is a magnifying mirror in my parent's house. Not a normal magnifying mirror, but one where I swear you would be able to see the deepest layer of your skin if you stare at it for more than a minute. I haven't been able to look into that mirror for that long. The second my eyes caught sight of my face in it, I turned away. Scared.  

This revealing mirror got me thinking that more often than not, it's better to live alien to certain truths. I don't mean that we should all lie (not even white lies), no, I'm a very honest person. What I mean is that, occasionally, ignorance is a direct cause of happiness. A few very personal illustrations of this point:
  1. Dental surgery - I truly believe I am a happier person without knowing the details of what happened in the 2 hours I was anesthesised
  2. Santa -  the confusion of finding a Barbie hidden in my parents' wardrobe a few days before seeing it under the tree and the consequent revelation of years of false beliefs
  3. Sales - they can ruin the excitement of owning a pair of gorgeous shoes, when seeing them half price a few weeks later
  4. Food - I trust that you're all familiar with the ingredients that go into the very Spanish black pudding or outrageously expensive French foie? And I don't want to know any of the translations for the delicious plates I tried in Tokyo...
  5. Relationships - if he ever stupidly slipped, he can live with the guilt. I'm not a priest, you won't be forgiven upon confession
  6. Judgmental people - I prefer living not knowing what you think about me. I don't care

    and of course, the thing that started this post in the first place..
  7. Magnifying mirror - my happy little world of ignorance perverted by the blunt truth

So trust me when I say that:
"The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with."

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Let's badge it!

Walking down the streets on any given day, a stampede of working souls, who can't seem to get home soon enough, rush in every direction. All with a distinctive feature: a label hanging from their necks. Literally, not metaphorically. Call it label, call it badge, call it what you want... It all serves the same purpose: openly displaying information.

Here is my proposal: if we are to disclose information, do it in a way that it'll benefit society as a whole. Tell the world something that will help them. It would save so much time and efforts! Efficiency, people, efficiency.

I'll illustrate this using myself as an example. My chest would proudly exhibit the following (not exclusively, but enough for you to get a sense of what I mean):
  • Good with faces, terrible with names
  • Don't care about the size - or number, for that matter - of your house, car, [enter material possession]
  • People who are happy all of the time scare me
  • Sometimes a glass of wine is the high of my day
  • Happiness is a good book and a milky tea
  • If you think you're better than someone else, don't come closer
  • ...
Are you in? 

Think that it will work both ways. I sure know that my my life would have been so much better if I knew up-front some of the things I only got to learn the hard way... 
  • "can't keep promises" 
  • "will lie behind your back" 
  • "my life is build around smoking"
  • "fake"
  • "will betray"
  • ...
 
Let's make the world a better place, let's badge it!