Have you ever seen the Youtube video of two otters holding hands? Kinda cute. But if you listen to the crowd of idiots watching these two otters, it reminds me of how other people are always getting involved in my relationships. Seems like you can’t show any bit of attention to anyone else without it attracting the attention of crowds of onlookers.
For example, I was friends with this girl at work and I would go visit her from time to time to see how she’s doing. And the previous time I saw her, she mentioned how I was going to get her in trouble. So I asked her what she meant. Apparently, after I left once, her boss walked in and asked if I was bothering her. When she said no, that we were friends, the boss then proceeded to dig away to see what the latest gossip was. Basically, she wanted to see if I was dating her or what the deal was. The problem was, there was no deal. So then when I came by to visit after that, this boss would be looking for her fresh bowl of steaming gossip. This has started to effect the working relationship between this girl and her boss. So I have stopped visiting my friend. Now, I almost never talk to this girl.
Before that, I was dating a girl who was very worried about this same situation occurring. So every time I would try to visit her during work, she would basically sweep me out of her cube with a broom. She and I are no longer together. And before that, back in my early post-college years, I dated a girl where the entire group of friends was completely invested in the latest gossip of our relationship. It was like a weekly episode of Friends for them. There was drama, jealousy, “he said, she said” crap, there was lots of misinterpretation of comments, and even though I was the most loyal and sensitive person in the world, I was still accused of looking around at another girl when someone wanted to make crap up who didn’t like me. Eventually she and I broke up and it was largely due to the interference of our friends. In the end, I exhaled a sigh of relief when it ended. I couldn’t stand having my love life be the center of attention anymore.
This pattern has repeated for the entire length of my early and current adulthood. At this point, I feel that if I am friends with someone of the opposite sex, someone else will have something to say about it. So my question is, does this happen to everyone? Why does everyone want to know what’s going on with my relationships? Why do they care? I don’t care about their relationships and I honestly don’t think it’s any of my business. And, if this happens to everyone, why didn’t my parents warn me about this? I feel like there was so much that my parents didn’t teach me about life, basic stuff, and this was just one of the things I would have liked to have been warned about. It doesn’t make sense. It almost seems like my mom and dad have been intentionally setting me up to fail so that I would stay home and keep them company.
So during my most recent relationship, I was like a spy working under deep cover. I spread misinformation, I remained silent to everyone, and I never let on that I was dating someone. It worked! She and I broke up for our own reasons. And no one at work or in my personal life needed to know a thing.
This video is an analogy for every one of my relationships.
