portfoliopaula

My favorite part of this book is a 9-page laundry list of all one can't do while in a relationship. To give you a sense of it: "You can't leave the house without saying where you're going. You can't not say what time you'll return. You can't stay out past midnight, or eleven, or ten, or dinnertime, or not come right home after work. You can't go out when the other person feels like staying home. You can't go to parties alone. You can't go out just to go out, because you can't not be considerate of the other person's worries about where you are, or their natural insecurities that you're not where you should be, or about where you could be instead. You can't make plan without consulting the other person, particularly not evenings and weekends, or make decisions about leisure time usage without a consultation... "You can't do less that 50 percent around the house, even if the other person wants to do 100 or 200 percent more housecleaning than you find necessary or even resonable...You can't not express appreciation when the other person makes the bed, even if you don't care. You can't sleep apart, you can't go to bed at different times, you can't fall asleep on the couch without getting woken up to go to bed... "You can't can't be less concerned with the other person's vulnerability than with expressing your own opinions. You can't express inappropriate irony about something the other person takes seriously. Or appropriate anger at something the other person takes casually. You can't call a handyman to repair something if they consider themselves to be 'handy.' You can't not be supportive, even when the mate does somethign insupportable. You can't analyze the cinematography in a move that they were emotional about. You can't not participate in their mini-dramas about other people's incompetence, or rudeness, or existence." And so on and so on. She ends with: "Thus is love obtained." Just great.

2022-11-14 16:35