loyalties

i've been wondering about this lately, because j and i are friends, and i've never had a boyfriend be friends with my best friend's boyfriend before. so the question i have is, who do you owe your loyalties to?

let's say the boys hang out. your boy comes back and tells you something you know your best friend would not like. could be serious, or maybe not. do you always keep that between you and your boyfriend, or do you at some point tell your girlfriend? 

I choose this

This Is How To Have An Amazing Relationship: 7 Secrets From Research

when I am struggling in my relationship, I tell myself "I choose this" and I try to let go of what is bothering me. "I choose this" means "I am choosing to be in this relationship because I think it will make me happier than if I do not." it usually makes me realize that what I'm stressing about is small and temporary. sometimes it doesn't.

a few months ago I was going thru a hard time. I had actually thought out ways to leave. not for good, but for a while. where I would go, who I could stay with. what I would say, or if I would just leave. me being me, I thought I would pack, write a note, and leave when he wasn't home. notice that I say "I thought" not "I planned." it wasn't so bad that I had actually planned anything, but I knew that thinking about escape routes meant that things were bad.

instead, we actually talked about it. I'm sure he noticed something and brought it up, as he does. and I told him, as I'm getting better at that. I hold him about my choosing to be with him, and I could choose not to be. that I did not leave my overly-critical mother's house only to get into a relationship with an over-critical boyfriend. he understood. he knows that it's not a good trait, but it's something his mom does also, and he learned from that. I think t and I have talked about this hyper-criticalness in our mothers so often, and have just as often promised each other not to do it, that I am extra aware of it in others, and extra motivated to avoid it.

I said that "I would rather leave you, than change you." it's not that I wouldn't want him to change, but it has to come from within himself, not because I asked him to, or gave an ultimatum. I want you to change because it's an objectively good thing, not because I have quirks that I want you to work around. relationships are about compromise, but you shouldn't have to become a worse person to be with me. we should build each other up, and become better people for being together, in being together. 

scars

i thought i had gotten out of my previous relationship almost completely unscathed. honestly, i still pretty much think it. but it's hard to end a 16 year relationship without holding onto some baggage. tho i only recently realized how bad it is.

i don't like to talk about feelings, particularly what's bothering me. i think i've always been that way. asian repression, maybe. but during the course of my last relationship, that habit got a lot worse. (no need to talk about why.) but now, when something bothers me, it still takes me weeks to bring it up. but the worst part is that i have to do it in the dark, and with my eyes closed, preferably laying down. it takes several minutes to come out, and i cry, and i shake, and it's weird how difficult it is.

i think i'm getting better tho. j is incredibly patient with me and gives me positive reinforcement after, which i need. i hope i continue to grow in this aspect. i hate that my presentation sometimes makes the issue much larger than it is.

tj

it was t's 35th birthday last week and she wanted to go to tj on saturday in celebration. she didn't have a particular destination or activity in mind, she just wanted to visit. friday night, after getting back to my parents house, i realized my passport wasn't there tho i had already checked my apartment before leaving where i thought i would have left it. i texted t to let her know that there was a possibility i couldn't join them saturday. i drove back to lg and did end up finding my passport so i spent the night and rushed back to la palma by 8:30am saturday, when she said they would be coming to pick me up. e had overslept to about 8am, then texted t later to let her know that he had forgotten his passport back at his place. we ended up not leaving my parents' until almost 10am. btw, he didn't apologize for being late.

e's family is from tj so he knows the city well, which is great, because we had nothing planned. we went to a nice restaurant for lunch, and after, we went to a supermarket then costco, per t's request. following that, we went to avenida revolucion where all the touristy clubs are where we had a drink and a snack. then we went to pick up tacos, waited like 2 hours to get back over the border, and came home. clearly, i'm glossing over a lot of the details, but that was the gist of it. basically, we went to... america, and not even a good or particularly interesting section of it. t seemed happy with it tho. she wanted to visit the grocery store and costco. the lunch restaurant was nice but certainly nothing special. we were too full to eat actual dinner so we got the tacos to go and had churros in the car in the border line. i felt like i'd wasted my day.

and i was consistently annoyed throughout. we left way later than planned so we didn't get to go to rosarito beach but we stayed in tj. tho thankfully e made good time and, again, he knows tj well and has internet over there so we navigated easily and pretty efficiently. but, honestly, his company leaves something to be desired.

he's racist. but i guess both he and t think it's cute and endearing? at every opportunity he makes lame racist jokes. these aren't even good racist jokes. they're incredibly simplistic, stuff a 6 year old would say. i think every time we see each other he asks if i've dog meat. he tells t to open her eyes bigger. he calls her panda and chun li and thinks it's hilarious when street vendors say ni hao ma at us. i don't think he dislikes asians, and i doubt he thinks he's being offensive, but wtf man, grow up. get clever or be pc, but at the very least, have some depth.

ugh, while i'm glad i went in support of t, tho i do almost wish i hadn't been able to find my passport.

sexy ghosts

a couple months ago while I was putting away clean laundry, I pulled his underwear drawer too far out and the whole thing upended itself on the floor. while I was putting things back I noticed a pair of red plaid underwear I hadn't seen him wear before. turns out they weren't boxers, or even men's clothing. it was a very short sexy schoolgirl skirt. ot mine, obviously.

at that moment, and even still, I'm not quite sure how I feel about them. or how I'm supposed to feel about them even. I struggle to come up with an analogy. I think like if he had found a pegging set of "mine." that's not a good comparison. not that an analogy even matters. I know he likes short skirts. and I had assumed he had previously played that out with others. still it's different to see the actual sex prop he's used with someone else, you know?

I guess what I'm struggling a bit with is why does he still have it? or why does he have it at all? shouldn't it be in her pocession? that he has it suggests that it means something special to him. and I would assume not the skirt itself, but who wore that skirt or a specific memory tied to the skirt (and therefore the girl). so what then? I probably wouldn't be unreasonable to ask him to get rid of it. yet, I don't feel comfortable with that. I mean, it means something to him and i want to be respectful of that. we each have past relationships and I think it's good to acknowledge and even celebrate that some. each person we've chosen to be with before has shaped us and made us into whom the other one now loves. it's crazy to pretend you're the first or best or most. you have them now and you should be satisfied with that.

still, it does make me a little uncomfortable and certainly self conscious. especially since I know he knows he still has it. I still put away his clean laundry every few weeks and I've seen it get moved from the side (where I left it) to the bottom.

I assume he'll see this post in a few weeks and we'll have a discussion about it then but for now I'm hoping to independently come to some conclusion about it. I've just been mentally writing this post since the night I found it so thought I'd finally get it out "on paper."

fleas!!!

wow, i haven't updated in a long time! most important update is that, well, yeah. we moved in together and are now fully moved in and have settled into our new lives and apartment. that's not to say it was easy tho!

i knew we had fleas. i wasn't sure from where but i knew the apartment had them. it wasn't a big deal tho since i was only coming up with a bite or two every couple days. until one day when j woke up and there were hundreds suddenly all over the fucking apartment! thankfully my parents had just left town so we moved into their house for a week. the exterminator came and pretty much got rid of the problem except that we both kind of have ptsd.

one nice thing that came out of this was getting to know one of our downstairs neighbors, a. they were also infested. but they're on the ground floor with a small yard and two dogs whereas we're upstairs with no yard or carpet or even rugs (exlucing two small bath mats)!

weeks later and my legs are so ugly still and we're still constantly checking ourselves for fleas. :( oh, lastly, in talking to a I found out that our landlord is looking to sell the place! oof, we have no idea when but apparently he's been trying for a little while already. annoying because no one told us and while neither of us forever loves this place moving is FUCKING TERRIBLE.

anyway, the rest of it has also been difficult. the first month or was really hard. not gonna lie, I cried a couple times with him in the other room. July has been better. we finally got an AC unit, we've adapted to sleeping by together in a full sized bed together, settled into the apartment and each other. will August be even better? lol, no, probably not but whatever since we're going to Mexico City for a week!

moving [descriptive]

we did it! we moved in together! and what a fucking process it was, sheesh. i don't ever want to move again. you look around and think "i don't have that much stuff" and multiple people tell you the same thing. then you start packing it and realize you need way more boxes than you originally thought. then you have to walk it to the car, drive it across town, and carry it up a flight of stairs, and have to repeat that a few times until you get to the heavy or bulky stuff like mattresses and chairs and bikes and desks and think "i have too much fucking stuff!" then realize you have to help your boyfriend move HIS stuff and for a split second you consider texting him and say that you've changed your mind and that you no longer want to move in together but since my stuff is already here and some of yours also so I'll pay you for your stuff even though i don't want it unless you wanna come get it yourself cause there's no way in bloody hell I'm moving your stuff for you because that was the problem to begin with! of course you do no such thing, and you just help him cause he helped you and you're not a selfish bitch. but you still wonder every 20 minutes or so if he would even notice if you "lost" a box of his until you realize that you'd have to trash it in your work dumpster since both your and his trash cans are full of discarded stuff, which requires you to drive to work which is across town and pick up the box and raise it over your shoulders to tip into the dumpster and you think again about that original scenario but again you don't because you're no bitch. 

at night, even though you're exhausted and unsatisfied from dinner of your 3rd straight day of the pizza from days ago, you can't sleep because you're stressing about the stuff you still haven't moved yet and now you're RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

and so it goes. physically tiring days and mentally tiring nights, until you're FINALLY done moving in! but your, OUR, apartment is a fucking mess and you feel a bit resentful of each other for all the stuff they made you move or throw away and wonder why you ever thought this was a good idea, moving in together.

then you immediately leave to China for a week and a half and are actually a little relieved you can finally decompress and don't have to deal with the settling in. until he tells you he bought a shelf and a clothes rack and you get a little worried he's bought something ugly but it'll be too late to say no to when you're finally home again, but also very guilty you left him to clean and settle in so of course he's entitled to buy things you hate and you wonder how long you have to fake being accommodating and grateful before you can be your petty self and belatedly veto that table or chair or whatever.

shacking up

when I found out my landlord was selling our apartment, I thought "I guess the universe really wants me to move in with j." lol, it's funny cause we had been talking about it anyway, but not really seriously, more of a "if somewhere nice opens up..." he'd been wanting to move out of his place anyway. and I really love my place, even with k as a roommate. then I got the news of the intended sale.

it's funny cause many many months ago i'd actually told him that us moving in together wouldn't be me suddenly wanting to. there would have to be another impetus. my apartment becoming unlivable, him finding us somewhere really awesome, I dunno what, but it wouldn't be me. lol, the universe intervenes in some pretty weird ways sometimes.

spain

they say you never really know someone until you live with them. or travel with them. which, if the trip is long enough, can be akin to living with them.

anyway, j and i went to spain for his spring break. fully 6 months ago we looked for cheap flights, with no specific destination in mind, and barcelona came up for his free week. which happened to also be our one year (the day we flew out) and my birthday (our first full day in spain). i was very nervous booking the flight. we were only 6 months in, making plans for 6 months later. crazy! but i figured that even if we split up, i'd go to spain anyway. i also forecasted that if we broke up, it wouldn't be an angry someone fucked up thing. it would be a sad we just couldn't make it work thing. so we'd still be friends. and anyway, i'm used to traveling alone. (tho it would've been a hell of a lot harder since i don't speak any useful spanish, save el baño and uno cervesa por favor tho i don't even like beer, lol)

so what do i know now? i learned that we stress about different things, which is good. i stress about timing, he about food and crowds. and we don't rile each other up, which is important. overall, we're both chill, which is really good. we compliment each other. i planned our itinerary, but he was the one who pushed to book hotels and get tickets. i got maps, locations, opening times, and he got a phone card and currency. we both brought plenty of snacks and to-be-thrown-away travel clothes.

in some ways i knew we would be fine. we haven't fought our whole time together. and i've tried hard to apply what i've learned, not only from my previous relationships, but from those of my friends and parents, even.

what else did i learn from this trip? to not depend too much on others. i don't mean that in the way it sounds. but once we were in spain i took a step back from everything. he did all the ordering, talking to strangers, figuring stuff out, etc. yes, he speaks spanish but i could've done more. halfway thru our trip i happened to see him google something like "why is my relationship so ___." i didn't catch the last word but i immediately started freaking out (to myself). you don't google good things, you know? but he knows me well enough to recognize that i was freaking and called me out on it and told me what he was thinking about. (turns out i had read the search wrong) but he was stressed. from school, work, his accident a week prior that he was still injured from. we talked a bit and he said he felt much better. not knowing how to actually help I tried to be more helpful on the trip. i screenshot maps when i had wifi and just tried to pull a bit more weight. i dunno if it did anything, maybe i was relieving some of his stress? he said after our talk he finally got into the vacation mind frame. so maybe i did nothing. either way, I shouldn't have burdened him with all the work.

next time we should go somewhere neither of us knows the language. where we're on a more level playing ground. that being said, I've definitely taken a back seat in this relationship. more than I have with anyone in any relationship, I think. i'm not necessarily aggressive, but I do have ideas on what I want. this time I feel like i'm very content to let him lead us. he seems so capable in his own life, I guess I feel more secure? whatever. all I know is that i'm happy. and that we're still together. and that after a full 9 days together we saw each other again Monday night, and it didn't feel like too much.

like my shit!

The New Dating Requirement: Consuming All of Your Partner’s #Content

wow. luckily for us I guess, j isn't big on social media. he has a fb and an insta; he never posts to fb and rarely to insta. I don't think he ever updates his stories. I have fb, twitter, insta, snapchat, and this blog and differently to each. he and I always (I think?) like each other's stuff on insta. and he reads my blog occasionally too but I don't think we have the expectation that the other HAS TO like our stuff. sometimes you miss things. tho I will say that insta always puts his new posts first on my feed, and also lists his likes separately than the group ones per photo. I guess Instagram knows we're together even tho we're not Instagram official? creepy. speaking to insta's stories tho; I almost never watch them. anyone's. I hate how they stole the feature from snapchat. I do post on my snapchat stories but frequently do not look to see who watched them. who cares? ugh. it's probably because I do the social media for work that I feel like having personal social media accounts can feel a bit of a chore these days. and now we're expected to monitor our significant other's stuff and take note of how often they interact with our stuff? it's too much!! and what if you honestly don't like their post? like, it's a bad photo of mediocre food or a super sexy photo of him with someone else? I don't like that and I'm not going to "like" it either your stupid little ego be damned.

ps I did notice that he likes my work instagrams sometimes and that always makes me smile, lol.

why are you __?

I Spent A Week Asking Coupled-Up People Why They're In Relationships

as someone who did not except to find myself in a relationship so soon after my last one, i think this is actually an awesome question that needs to be asked more often!

personally, i'm in one, and this one specifically, because we like each other and i'm happy being with him. when i first started dating i was just looking for fun. i wanted to meet new people, do/see/eat new things,etc. when i started seeing j, i figured he would be fun for a while (maybe a couple months) before i lost interest and moved on. as i do. but a handful of dates in i realized i actually liked him and didn't want to waste my time getting to know people i would probably like less. (i didn't ask him to stop seeing others; i didn't care what he was doing.) i was going to give it a few dedicated months and move on. and here we are 10 months later... lol.

culture shock

we finally fought, lol. it wasn't much of a fight tho, honestly. firstly, we didn't disagree. secondly, he fucked up and he knew it and, more importantly, he took ownership of it. i had said before that I was curious what our first fight would reveal about us, and from this, I learned that we're going to be okay. granted, we didn't fight fight so I guess it's premature to think that we're compatible in this way, but still.

I had lunch with mike yesterday and we talked about how different j's and my family are. it'll be quite the culture shock should he ever get to really interact with mine. I will likely never randomly bring him over; I'll have to call my parents and give them some warning. my family is just so much more formal than his is. and of my childhood, I think my parents are actually middle of the road. he's never dated an Asian Asian before (his last ex was Asian but was adopted by non-Asians) and, well, you know my history. it'll be weird should any of this have to come up later. tho i am encouraged that he's pretty culinarily adventurous. that'll make things easier for sure.

still me

I gotta admit, for a little bit I thought everyone had been right all along, that it really was about being with the "right" person. then I found my head again, haha.

a couple weeks ago he asked where I saw us in a year. I carefully responded with "well, you'll still be in school and I'll almost definitely still be working at algalita. ...where do you see us?" he agreed that nothing much would change but that he would like to live together, "sooner or later." I thought about it for a week and told him that while it wasn't something I didn't want, it likely wouldn't be something I would initiate. there would need to be another catalyst, like me finally getting fed up with my roommate(s), or our apartment burning down, or him finding us the perfect place. turns out, he basically already knew this so, whew! more importantly, he seems okay with it too. I'm honestly really glad that he's comfortable with pushing me. I've known for a long time I needed a partner like that, and I feel pretty lucky that not only will he push me as needed but that he already knows this is something I need.

it's probably because I'm afraid of commitment and that I have no lifetime "relationship goals" that i am super comfortable with stagnation in my relationships. j had said that he worries that I'll one day, like a decade or two later, want out. obviously, this isn't an unfounded fear. but I hate that I did that and I have the intention to never do it again. (yup, not no intention to do it again, but an active intention *not* to) I told him that I want to have some kind of plan with him. not necessarily marriage or anything so serious, but a plan of any sort. I don't care if we take the longest scenic route to get there, but I do want to head in at least the vaguest direction of where we think we might want to end up possibly someday. Barcelona, he said. I think that's a good plan as any. here's hoping that we, and Spain itself, can hold it together thru march.

why him or her?

Why You Want Who You Want

"...four neural systems that underlie our major constellations of personality traits—the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen/oxytocin systems.

"Fisher created a 56-question survey to measure how many traits in each of these four systems a person expresses—in other words, which neural systems dominate your personality. More than 14 million people have taken the survey through Chemistry.com and Match.com. Fisher, who may be best known for imaging the brains of people in love, also used fMRI scanners to confirm that particpants' reported traits matched expected neural activity patterns.

"She found that people with dopamine-dominant personalities (curious, creative, adventurous types) tend to be drawn to fellow dopamine-influenced adventurers. Serotonin-dominant people (traditional, conscientious, and rule-following) are also drawn to people like themselves. On the other hand, testosterone-dominant people (analytical, skeptical, and tough-minded) and estrogen-dominant individuals (nurturing, contextual, imaginative) are drawn to each other, essentially to their behavioral opposites.

"We all have all four systems, and everyone has a different ratio..."

Which systems do you identify more with?

I lean toward dopamine dominant. and I'm pretty definitely testosterone dominant, lol. j is, as he "should" be, dopamine dominant, tho I'm uncertain how much he leans to either testosterone or estrogen. but certainly he's more estrogen dominant than I am!