... And Let The Reason Be Love

Part Two

Now, with all that background information out of the way, the next question is, how do we utilize it?

And here’s the bit of reasoning and extrapolation that I’m proud of. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, the secret method of utilizing this information, lies in… DOTA.

Yes you heard me right. DOTA.

DOTA, Defense of the Ancients, the Warcraft game that’s the bane of all you poor girlfriends out there. *patpat*

Look, just think about it. You call your boyboy when he’s playing DOTA, and he’s a million miles away from you. There’s nothing you can do to reach out to him, to connect to him. You could walk right up and flash your boobs at him, and he’ll just wave you aside and shout, “Argh I need the money to buy Eul’s Scepter! Don’t disturb me!”

And that’s pretty hard for you to accept, yes? You think of that special moment he confessed his feelings for you, when he said he needed nothing else in this world except you. Your own love for him may give him a certain leeway in playing DOTA, but it often reaches a point when he almost seems like a different person to you.

ITS. THE. CHEMICALS.

DOTA INHIBITS THE CHEMICALS.

When he’s playing DOTA, you’re a girlfriend to him. You have certain strengths, certain weaknesses. You bring enumerated joys to his life, you are important to him in specific ways. You are human, only human.

When he’s NOT playing DOTA, you’re a goddess to him. You’re the sun, the moon, the stars. You’re on such a high pedestal he’s confident of fashioning huge monuments of love from your, er, waste. You know the feeling.

How do you utilize this? Simple. Assuming he’s wholehearted about this reflection process, you give him a list of questions to answer HALFWAY through a DOTA game. Stress that he’s not answering the questions to please you, but to give himself a chance to think about the whole thing properly.

The questions can include:
1. Why me?
2. What do we bring to each other’s lives?
3. What are the obstacles we face?
4. Are the obstacles worth surmounting? Do the efforts outweigh the benefits?
5. Is staying with me now worth it, or should we both look elsewhere first?

For you, the girlfriends of all the DOTA boys out there… I can’t think of any equivalent method by which you can really distance yourself from the relationship, for those few minutes of lucidity. Perhaps, perhaps you could try those quiet nights when he’s busy with DOTA, or you could also go to a soulful, restful place like a church to think about things?

Before I end, this post honestly won’t reach out to many of you. There are just so many different approaches taken towards relationships – some of us want relationships for the long term, some of us want them for the immediate benefits they bring.

Some of us really don’t mind taking the wait-and-see approach, and see no problem with just living the present to the fullest. Why be so fatalistic, Hanting? Why worry so much about making the wrong choices sometimes, why be so fearful of getting hurt? We’re all young, there’s so much to explore!

Maybe it’s just because I feel that blind, indiscriminate love tends to dilute the meaning in every relationship I have had. If I love you, it’s not because of the chemicals in my brain or the headiness of the moment, it’s because… you’ve earned it, by being the person you are.

And if you happen to be similar to me, the sort who prefers to parcel out love in controlled limited-edition quantities, the sort who wants to give his all to a relationship grounded in sturdy, rational foundations, then it would be good if you could just take a short 5 minutes to think about all this yourself.

Wouldn’t you rather have someone learn to love you over a period of time, than to have them love you completely, irrationally right from the start?

Love Me For A Reason...

Part One

A little background is necessary. What is love?

Love, without resort to dictionary reference, is basically the desire to do things for another. You want to care for that person, make that person happy, watch out for him / her. This often comes at significant personal cost, and is irrational to boot.

But then, the more important question remains. HOW does love arise?

This is the very tricky part. You often love someone for a variety of reasons, and try as you will, you just can’t narrow it down to a few key qualities. You say you love someone for their capacity to care, or their sociability, or their reliability.

But wouldn’t other people have equal or greater quantities of that quality? In those mixes too? Why do you recognize those qualities in your friends, yet never feel any inclination to pursue a relationship with them?

When pressed, people end up admitting that they can’t quite explain exactly why they want someone, at least at first. They put it down to a whimsical caprice of the human heart, or “chemistry”, if you will.

And that’s when the revelation struck! We humans keep searching for that elusive ingredient, that special thing, and the answer, the answer simply is… chemicals.

Chemicals! Secreted by your brain! Hormones! I have no wish to be cynical and dismissive of the great phenomenon that is Love, but I don’t doubt our body processes have something to do with it too!

Many of us may have read about it before, but I had no idea scientists had already shed light on so many intricacies of the chemical processes. You can read the quite thorough scientific explanations for love, right here. It’s really worth the click.

And the simple summary is this: There are two phases of Love, (1) the Attraction / Lust Phase, and (2) the Attachment Phase. The first Phase is powered by chemicals, the second by true mutual understanding and acknowledgement of qualities.

If the significance of this has not hit you yet, it is this. These sneaky chemicals do the following: they make you obsess about someone, they prevent you from assessing the other person’s qualities rationally, and they can also turn you into a love junkie, someone addicted to relationships for that natural high at the start.

In other words, these chemicals emulate the feelings of True Love.

The evolutionary explanation for these chemical processes is simple. This Chemical Love is the springboard which propels people together, which gives them the confidence to overlook their most immediate differences. Once together, they then have that opportunity to work things out. After all, very few people are matches made in heaven, and great amounts of give-and-take are often required.

This, is the Attraction / Lust Phase of Love.

Then, as your bodies build up resistance to the chemicals, the early passions fade away. By now, you would have already seen all that your partner is good for, and your feelings are truly grounded in rational reasons. There won’t be fireworks, but you’ll get the contented, stable, fulfilling Love older couples experience.

This, is the Attachment Phase of Love.

So why is this information important? It’s because I’ve witnessed too many friends, both male and female, rush into a relationship thinking they may just have found their one perfect mate in life. And it’s only later that they look back and wonder, what the hell were they thinking?

If you had an opportunity to learn how your own brain worked, which would add an extra dimension to the way you approach Love, wouldn’t you take it? My suggestion is, don’t scoff at all this too quickly.

Bookmark the links to read later. This isn’t silly information on how heavy Britney is today, or how many times Snoop Dogg got arrested this month. This WILL affect you in an intricate way someday.

(Part Two will go live in a short while! Otherwise the whole thing would have been so long as to put people off, and for some reason I feel like I reallllllly want to share this with you!)

Provision Shops

AMK Hub opened recently, and it houses one really mega NTUC Hypermart. And since then I've been telling my mum, please shop there, it offers so much more than the dingy little Shop N' Save (SNS) around the corner does. But she refuses, then smiles, then continues on her routine pilgrimages, a loyal SNS devotee to the end.

Back then I just couldn't understand her. I had been to both places, and the contrast is truly startling, so much so that I found it hard pressed to see just how SNS could be the more attractive option.

Look at NTUC. The variety of goods there is astounding. You can get anything you want, from groceries to clothes to Xboxes. The thrill alone of seeing so many things at your fingertips is enough to entice even the most jaded of shoppers.

Compare that with SNS. It’s cosy, I grant you that, but you can’t really get more than the basic groceries you need. Sure, every once in a while you get special sales of clothes or other household items, but that’s about it really.

Before you conclude that I’m a dolt for not recognizing the million other factors involved, allow me to explain. I noticed too that occasionally my mum would pop by NTUC, or other shops for that matter, to get whatever else she could not find from SNS.

That led me to think, which provision shop ever provides you with all you need? Beyond the tangible physical goods on sale, there are the intangible considerations like convenience, or familiarity with the place, or the shopping experience, things like that. No one shop has it all, and that’s why shoppers frequent different places to satisfy all their needs.

Then it hit me – people are like that too. We’re all provision shops in our own right.

I mean, we all have qualities for sale. It just varies from person to person, the exact composition of our inventory on display. Our personalities and circumstances make up the rest of the equation, the intangible aspects like how approachable we are, how trustworthy, how… convenient.

Just like shops, it’s really quite impossible to imagine finding all that you need in a single person. Emotionally, many times, it seems that way, but the reality is that you do need to find other people too, for different things, to satisfy different needs. You can frequent a certain shop and call yourself a die-hard loyal customer, that’s fine, but you’ll amaze me if you did not need to shop at anywhere else for other things.

I’m sure you have noticed as well, that the strongest romantic relationships are those buoyed with multiple kinships with other people. We might find that our significant other fulfills almost all of our needs in life, but hey, the key word is ‘almost’.

It makes you wonder, does it not, what type of shop you want to be. Which slice of the demographic you want to appeal to, how much effort you will expend in keeping yourself well-stocked, how much different or enticing do you want your customer reward system to be…

And those are just the basic questions. What about the business motivations? Are you opening a shop only for the money? Is it profits-driven (think McDonalds / Walmart) or is it interest-driven, where you want to reach out to customers with the same passions (think hobby shops, or specialty food shops). Are you operating a shop merely because it is a means of survival, or because the business itself is your life?

And just as people are shops in their own way, so too are we shoppers, customers. The teenaged Hanting would settle for nothing less than Borders even if he already had a specific book in mind (the hip factor then was undeniable), but now, now if the NUS Coop had it, it would do just fine. Our priorities change in life, and it may take some time before we figure out exactly what we want when we go shopping, but we will eventually.

Just like my mum did, I guess. For all the bells and whistles NTUC has, SNS is good enough. For the time being.

SEXY

Within 10 minutes of talking to this new female friend, I could see it written all over her forehead.

"Professional Heart-Breaker", it said.

And as one expert to another, I had to salute her. Her mastery of the art was impressive for a Padawan so young.

Before you get it wrong, she wasn’t trying to charm me. Quite the opposite, in fact. She was trying her best to be warm and friendly, yet indicated very clearly at the same time that she wasn’t interested in anything else. That way, she could be bubbly and spirited and endearing, without causing any complications.

It was in the choice of her words, the tact she employed, her body language… Everything about it screamed ‘control’. This clearly was someone who had played the game extensively, not a social butterfly that flits around unaware of the consequences of its flutterings, but a hawk of sorts, talons sheathed and at the ready.

See, once you know SEXY, then everything’s at your control. SEXY stands for Secrets, Electronic-media, eXchange-your-days, and boundarY-markers. Hee. I know it's stretching it, but still it’s a great abbreviation.

Every once in a while, I find friends in sticky situations of their own doing. Either they liked someone and didn’t know how to get it across, or they were on the receiving end of unwanted affection. The stakes certainly are high, for these things have a tendency of complicating perfectly happy friendships.

When you consider too that you often interact with the better halves of your guy / girl friends, all the more do you want to be sure you’re sending the right messages across.

And since we started this post with the anecdote of that new-found friend, we shall continue and explain SEXY from the perspective of someone who doesn’t want attention.

Secrets

Simply, be careful with the stories you trade. It’s all well and good to revisit old stories with a friend, but you cross the line when you start sharing stories out of the public domain.

For example, you can freely share funny stories about your schoolmates, but start telling stories about recent crushes you’ve had, or detailed accounts of past relationships…

The worst is dredging up secrets that ‘really, no one else knows about’. You see, secrets create confidences, little exclusive pockets to your friendship that the world is not privy to.

Once secrets are traded, the two of you start walking around sharing a little special thing with the other. You two laugh when cryptic references are made to it, and you feel special that someone else confided this to you.

Hence, watch the stories you share. Carefully weigh the urge to reciprocate when someone does share a secret with you, especially if you aren’t interested. Be well aware, this applies even to small groups of friends!

Electronic-media

Let’s not kid ourselves. In this day and age, we’re using electronic communication technologies that our parents never had to contend with at our age. But with this comes new sets of protocol, new rules.

Clearly, for MSN / SMSes, the frequency and speed of your replies say a lot more about you than you think. Even the effort to continue electronic conversation may be misconstrued as interest on your part!

Don’t ever be lulled into thinking the emotional distance afforded by MSN / SMSes allows you to flirt wantonly, or that it doesn’t mean anything if you’re in constant contact with someone online. This is our generation’s equivalent of note-writing, after all.

eXchange-your-days

Every day, our heads fill up with thousands of private observations of the world.

Whether you’re on your way to school, or watching TV, or going for a run, you’re still generating random thoughts. You’re thinking about how that cloud in the sky looked funny, or how you met an old friend in town, or how you wish it weren’t as stormy recently.

This is the stuff of which full-blown relationships are built of. This is exactly the sort of luxury couples are afforded, to share their little perspectives on life with each other without fear of reprisal or judgment.

And it is exactly when you begin sharing the smaller details of your days, that you no longer appear 2D to your friend. You blossom into this fully rendered 3D model in their minds, a real person who is alive every minute of the day, someone with whom they can develop an affection for.

Don’t believe me? Examine your relationship with your closest buddies, friends. You’ll find that no matter how close you are, how long you’ve known each other, how many idiosyncrasies are already revealed, you still don’t share the minutiae of each day with each other.

Seriously, there’s a difference.

boundarY-markers

And here we arrive, at the catch-all category.

Verbal markers are easier to conceptualize. Here, all you need to do is to reinforce certain key ideas by making constant reference to them, subtly of course. Doing it right means that you manage to project a certain image of yourself. For example:

“Oh, I don’t know, it depends whether the bf/gf is free I guess”
“Yea the bf/gf says that movie is good too”
“How many children do I want? I’ve not even earned my first million!”
“Nah, I don’t think much of my ex nowadays, the days are so packed!”

And so on. As simple as this sounds, listen very very carefully to what people are saying. If you know a certain someone is attached, yet never ever makes reference to their partner at all, you know something is not too right already. It’s a very powerful indication, verbal markers.

Physical markers are ironically harder to exert control over. You would think that with language your mind would be in a tangle trying to work out all the nuances, but it is in body language that we reveal the most.

Perhaps the first and most important thing to remember here is, it doesn’t matter what your intentions are in doing something. It’s how the other person is likely to perceive it.

A simple example suffices. Say you appreciate a friend’s company because she is particularly good at something, like appreciating plays or playing basketball. And you always engage in that activity with her because you want to enjoy plays with someone who can understand them, or because you want to learn a thing or two about scoring baskets.

If it continues long enough, it gets really messy, yes? How would she know what you really want her company for?

Conclusion

The above may be trite knowledge to you, but you’ll be surprised at how difficult it is to master SEXY. It’s really about being on your toes all the time, understanding the image you are projecting, overcoming tugs of the heartstrings to do what you believe is best for yourself.

Life really is complicated enough as it is.