Being that I live with my parents, they know whenever I'm not home, although my mother never asks me directly what I am doing (my father often in the early morning asks me what I have planned for the day, and I can't figure out if that remark is fairly innocent, a bit just to make conversation, or if he is reconfirming that if he needs me, I will be there). Despite this, if I'm leaving in the evening to go somewhere, I tell them so that if I don't come home before midnight, they know to send the sheriffs after me.
Upon returning from a date with a professional dog walker, Mom gives her comments on why I've remained single after all these years, despite the multitude of men who have circled around me. She told me that I lacked maturity to appreciate or understand other's points of view. That I was so afraid of being judged (true), that I judged first (she's referring to the quick exit I made after the professor from the University accused me through a question of being physically violent).
Truth be told, my mother married quickly after her first divorce (my parents were hitched after about eight months of living together) when she was young at twenty-one years old, and has been with the same man since, so what the fuck does she know about dating? I feel like my mother just kind of fell into her current relationship because she had a few months old child who was without a proper father, and was heartbroken, the classic rebound relationship which for reasons no one knows, turned out to be relatively successful. As Dad mentioned a few weeks back, he managed to control his affinity for punching holes in walls, and settled down appropriately (at least from his point of view). Of course, my parent's marriage has quieted over the years, becoming less heated, and more accepting. We should always be so lucky. In other words, my parents learned to get along, it wasn't innate, and it required years of hardy practice.
How do some couples stop having the same argument over and over again, and move on? And how do other couples get stuck in the same pattern, and then file for divorce? I don't think there's any magic formula because if there was, it would be the best selling nonfiction book of all time, like Men Are From Mars on steroids. Then everyone who's married would get it, and peacefully protest in private for a resolution that made sense.
Of course, I'm naturally picky, at least as far as my romantic partners go, and that has only increased with age while at the same time, not very discerning about who I fuck. I don't think it's news to anyone that people frequently get into boyfriend/girlfriend relationships with the direct intent that it's not going to last in the long term, but it's a way of biding time until someone better comes along. I've tried not to do this, although I've know frequently long before the event occurs that the pairing will end. In that sense, I haven't been picky enough.
A person could argue that with that attitude, I will spend my days alone until Jesus comes back. I've never been one to look back over my life, and wish that I hadn't broken up with someone. In the end, it's always seemed right for everyone. The only possible exception to this is the fact that I wish I spent more time with Morpheus, but that doesn't necessarily translate into wishing we never ended our relationship because frankly, despite pauses and months of unacknowledged crisis, we've never stopped. We're ongoing.
But, then, I have my regrets for other reasons.
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