Sometimes I wish I was on Wordpress so I could make blogposts private.
Then again this blogpost is going to be so long and boring for an outsider I am pretty sure no one will read it entirely so… I win!
I have always had a pretty weird approach to relationships. Blame it on seeing my older sister cry over one guy after the other but my view has always been the same: proceed with caution.
I was always there holding her hand when the new scumbag of the week made his entrance, but the ones that hurt her the most where the ones she loved. I don’t know if it was just my sister’s bad luck but her important relationships never ended with a “Let’s be friends!”. Nope. It usually was “So he cheated on me” or “He said he can’t love me anymore”. Nothing too joyous as you can see.
Keep in mind that my sister and I have 10 years between each other so from the age of 6 maybe I have been hearing about all the different ways guys managed to hurt her. Anyway like I said this has defined the way I have approached all of my relationships and much more in my life. I have had boyfriends in the past, flings, guys, flirts whatever you want to call it but nothing really serious. I guess I always saw, early on in the relationship, in what way the person could hurt me and detached myself quickly, I dunno.
And wow I just re-read that and it sounds kinda emo doesn’t it? Don’t get me wrong I am not one of those frigid stout matrons or feminists or whatever you want to call it! If you have met me or even just read that blog for a while you know I am far from that… I flirt, I laugh, I tease, I play, I live, and I enjoy life and all that! Just when it comes to things close to my heart I have learned, from years of observing the intricate ballet of dating my sister has gone through, to keep things light. And after all I am only 21, I don’t need to pledge my heart to the first comer right? It’s not like love has an end date…
So yes proceed with caution, have fun, meet and tease but keep things light… Unless you know you can trust the person.
And that is the way I proceed with everyone actually, just not guys. If you meet me you will probably think “What a goofball!” and it’s true that’s what I am. However if I learn to trust you I will probably introduce you to the other sides of Laleeta, the ones you didn’t know existed.
So enters Second Life. If you have read my blog for a while now you know one of the first things that surprised me (like a lot of girls in SL) was the lack of guys around. I came from World of Warcraft and guys had to be beaten off with a stick when you were a girl in there. So yes I was wondering where were the dudes at, but not because I wanted SLove and the whole package... Just because I have always been used to having guy friends. Girls you all are fun but let’s be frank too many girls together can quickly turn bitchy… That’s what makes us girls fun though!
SL or not my approach to relationships remained the same. In the one year I have been in world now I have had the chance to “hook up” with someone more than once. I just didn’t grab those chances; I didn’t see the point to. If anything, from what I had observed, SLrelationships seemed even more intense than RL ones. What was the point of getting a heartache over someone I could see from the start I would never fit with? Not that I am saying that every relationships should work perfectly from the start, just that sometime people fool themselves into thinking that something could work with time when there is never really any hope for it.
So that’s where I stood when out of the blue a friend from a friend IMed me one day. I didn’t know much about him except that he was my friend’s friend and… well that’s it actually. It was kinda weird to receive an IM from him but I saw from the start that he was my kind of person: funny and interesting. He was a flirt too, threw a line or two my way that I picked up, looked at and sent back to him. My first impression was that he was a nice guy, funny but a charmer and was probably just playing with me, which suited me fine.
But (ah yes you were waiting for that but weren’t you?) somewhere along the way, and I can’t really tell when actually, things kinda shifted. I am not really sure how and when it happened but I didn’t see him just as this charming guy and funny guy anymore, I saw him as someone I could care for. For so many reasons. Of course bells went off in my head as soon as I realized that. I immediately put up my defenses, showed him just how crazy and childish I could be (read: a lot) and waited for us to become just good friends as I thought we would be at first and as with all the previous guys I had met in the past.
Well that plan didn’t work.
Turns out he likes my weirdness and goofy act. And a lot of other things about me I am slowly revealing to him. And down the rabbit hole we fall.
I won’t be writing in here about what he makes me feel or the way he feels for me, because it’s too personal even for this small blog, too raw and in his case it’s not my place. Just that I care for him. A lot. And like I said for so many different reasons.
One thing I did learn on SLrelationships is that they are exactly what I thought: intense. I am not sure why, maybe because we don’t embarrass ourselves with all the normal social rules and go directly at the core? Maybe because we don’t play any of the normal games and just presents ourselves exactly as we are? Maybe because SLrelationships can’t be based on the physical aspect only because… well it’s just pixels so if you fall in love with an avatar face you will quickly get bored…? Or maybe SLrelationships are not that intense it’s just the result of the two right people meeting each others? I don’t know and I can’t know. All I know is what I feel.
But Laleeta, what about all your rules about not letting people too close you say? I didn’t forget about those. It’s just that I know he is one person I can allow on the other side of my walls safely, he is one person I can trust. Of course to someone from the outside who is just reading about him for the first time you might shrug and think I am just silly, but it wasn’t just a decision I reached from one day to the other. Just because I blog about him only now also doesn't mean I only met him yesterday. It’s a string of events that are part of our history and have lead us to where we are now and will keep on leading us to… I don’t know where yet.
This is not a “My boyfriend is wonderful, I love him, he is so awesome and life is beautiful” blogpost. Jensen (oh yeah that’s his name by the way ha ha!) is not perfect, neither am I and neither are you reading this. Our relationship has not been only rainbows and puppies either; we had our ups and downs just like everyone else. I am not saying he is the love of my life and that we will run off and get married either. I am just saying what I feel at the moment.
This is not a “do as I say” blogpost either. What works for me certainly won’t work for someone else and the way our relationship is might not be the way you see yours. To be fair this blogpost has no real aim whatsoever except to help me put down all my thoughts about what has been happening to me. If, however, by some chance someone reads this and has the same approach to relationships than me, keep in mind: walls are good but don’t forget to let people in from time to time, because otherwise they will just barge in there anyway.
Anyway I don’t know much about what’s happening next. What I do know however is that I am happy. Incredibly so. More than I ever thought possible to be with someone. And there really isn’t anything else to think about apart from that isn’t there?
P.S: Oh and by the way, my sister is giving birth to her first child in January.
