social – Protect the Innocent

I often have a hard time getting to know people. I’ve noticed that I tend to be very passive in my relationships with others. I am not great at coming up with good, open-ended questions to ask, nor am I forthcoming with my own personal information. For these reasons, I get along best with people who are very outgoing. The people that know me best are the ones that ask me a lot of questions. The people I know best are those that talk freely and openly about themselves, their likes/dislikes, their hopes and desires, their values, etc. Unless someone offers that information to me, I basically never find out. And if I’m not asked something directly, I don’t volunteer it.

I haven’t given this aspect of my social life much thought. However, now that I am dating someone who is extremely similar to me in values as well as behavior, I find myself in a strange spot. I desperately want to those conversations where you really get a good sense of who someone is at their core, but I don’t know how to initiate such conversations. Part of me is extremely frustrated by this. I want to pout or pull away from the relationship all together. But I’m tired of only doing what’s easy in a relationship. I think it’s time for me to be mature and put in the work. Besides it could be fun to learn how to get someone to open up as well as learn how to express my genuine self without waiting for others to pull it out of me.

So here is a list of questions I’ve been coming up with that will help me to discover the things I really want to know about someone:

How would you describe yourself to someone who’s never met you?
How do you think a friend would describe you to someone else?
How would you like for the world to see you/who do you aspire to be?
What about yourself (qualities, accomplishments, etc.) are you most proud of?
What are 5 values that are important to you?
What are 5 memories that you cherish?
In what ways do you think you have grown and changed since childhood/high school?
When you are upset how do you like to be comforted?
Who are three people (famous or otherwise) that you admire? Why?
What is one of your biggest regrets?
What is one experience in your childhood/youth that you believe impacted who you are as a person? How did it change you?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What qualities do you enjoy most in friends/partners?
What does your inner voice sound like? What are some common phrases you say to yourself?

These are just a few of the questions that I’d eventually like to ask my boyfriend so that I can get a better sense of who he really is. I may end up just giving him the full list one day and maybe we can both answer the questions for one another. Even if it feels gross and artificial at first, I want to make an effort to step outside of my comfort zone in my relationships this year. I’ve always been a curious person, but I’ve never had the confidence or skill to allow that curiosity to guide me when it comes to people. My natural inquisitive nature is stifled by my social anxiety. I know with practice, though, I will overcome that and hopefully discover even more things that will bring me closer to the people in my life.

6 Polite Ways to End a Conversation | Southern Living

I truly wish that as a culture we would change the way that monogamy and cheating are portrayed in the media. I’ve written a lot about Polyamory on this blog. While I am currently in a monogamous relationship, I still think as human beings we are naturally polyamorous. There is a lot of social and biological evidence to support this theory, but I won’t get into that now. Today I just wanted to discuss the harmful effects of the way monogamy is represented in TV shows and movies.

The other day I was watching Doctor Foster on Netflix. It was a very good series, but I couldn’t seem to get past one huge problem in the plot. Ultimately the show revolved around a doctor whose husband had been cheating on her. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that if someone is cheating they are inherently a monster, a liar, and incapable of true love. Viewing things in such black and white terms is unhealthy for everyone involved, in my opinion.

Now I’m not saying that cheating on a partner that you’ve agreed to be monogamous with is okay, but demonizing someone for cheating doesn’t make the situation any better for anyone. All this does is make the person who has cheated think they are a hopelessly flawed person, selfish, heartless even, when in reality it may be that they are just unable to conform and live up to society’s unrealistic relationship standards. In the end, monogamy is going against our nature and some people, despite having the best intentions, simply aren’t able to do it. After all cheating would not be so insanely common if humans were truly monogamous biologically. But does this mean people who cheat are awful and unable to love? Of course not!

I understand that a lot of you out there may not be too eager to have sympathy for cheaters. Especially if you have been cheated on in the past. However, take a moment to consider the way this perception of cheating and monogamy also harm the person who gets cheated on. I doubt being cheated on would be so devastating and painful were it not framed in such a light. Just because your partner has cheated, it is assumed that they never cared about you at all. Your whole relationship must have been a lie. They must not have ever really loved you, otherwise they wouldn’t have cheated, right? Wrong. I can say from personal experience as someone who has made the mistake of cheating in the past, that I never for one moment stopped loving my partner. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough or that he couldn’t make me happy. The fact is I just fell in love with someone else at the same time. It didn’t have anything to do with the way I felt about my partner. There is no need for people that have been cheated on to doubt themselves, their love, or their worth as a partner.

The idea that we are only able to love one person at a time is ridiculous to me. There are all different types of love. We are able to experience many different forms of them at the same time. If we can love multiple children, multiple friends, multiple family members, why would we be incapable of loving multiple people romantically at the same time? Once again, this still isn’t a defense of cheating. It is completely unacceptable to break a partners trust in such a way. My problem is more with the culture surrounding romantic relationships in general. It is unnecessarily toxic and harmful, causing immense amounts of heartbreak for no reason.

I am hopeful though. A few years ago when I first heard the term polyamory, I had no idea what it was. Now it seems to be a widely understood concept. It is becoming more and more accepted among the younger generations. I am quite excited to see how this shift effects society as a whole. I believe a shift toward polyamory can only benefit humanity as well as individual mental health.