you know, i`m good at math. i`m good at applied math. but one thing i suck at is emotional math.
why do they call it a love triangle anyway? i understand that it’s about three people who are linked together, with not all necessarily equal parts. but nobody ever talks about love trapezoids or love hexagons. doesn’t it just get worse? what about love algebra: spontenatity(x)=irresponsiblity, solve for x. (x would equal hate or relationship problems, because everything you love about someone when the relationship is new is everything you hate about them later.) do people just look at potential girl/boyfriends with y =mx + b on their minds? what about when it gets into love calculus? how do you find the derivative of a bad relationship? is it hate? is it love? is it indifference? can someone seriously tell me the intergral of “i`m dating a stupid bitch/jackass, and i want her/him out of my life?” and i shudder to think of a love fractal. it might warp my fragile little mind.
please believe that in saying that, i am admitting guilt. everyone’s done it. i`m especially bad for trying to be in love with more than one person at a time. and sometimes, i just think it will work, but i didn’t take my variables into account, or i don’t show my work, or i just don’t understand the expression. i’ve done and said some fucked up shit, when i`m trying to do my love math homework. i’ve told people that i`m only with them because i couldn’t get what i wanted. i’ve told people that i loved them just so i could get laid. i’ve told people that i didn’t love them when all i really wanted was to be with them. i’ve tried to have two separate relationships at the same time, and was shocked when everyone couldn’t play nice. i’ve dumped people i truly loved, just for a chance with someone i really lusted (or loved, depending on which way the story’s told) after, only to find out that they only seem to want me when i`m unattainable. i have refused to believe my friends when they ask me, “hey, are you sure this is where you want to be?” sometimes, they even tell me, “dude, run, this really isn’t where you want to be.” and, of course, i don’t do it.
one theorem i know for a fact, when it comes to this nasty love math stuff, is this: if one or two of your friends don’t like your partner/siginificant other/girlfriend/husband/fuck buddy, it’s probably something that has nothing to do with you. when all of your friends don’t like them, you might want to take careful note of the situation.
another one i`m sure about, hate is not the opposite of love. both are passionate responses to the same stimuli, it’s just that one’s emotionally positive and the other is not. i`m deliberately not assigning a “word”, as the case may be, to either the positive or the negative. depending on the situation, either one can be good or bad. i really think that the true opposite of love is indifference. that being said, you’re not really over someone until you just don’t care–no, wait, i won’t go that far. you’re not really over someone until you can think about them, good and bad, and say that whatever happened between you two (or three, or eight. some people are enterprising.) happened for a reason, and the best possible solution was whatever happened. and it doesn’t count if you can say it to other people. it only counts if you believe it for yourself. after all, you’re the one who has to live with it.
i don’t think it should be love math at all. that’s too snarky. emotions are so much more than three-dimensonal, but i don’t forsee any love tesseracts. if there were, there would be a lot more love time travel. you know, when you wake up next to someone that you (supposedly) love and feel a burning desire to…
stab them in the eye with a rusty fork…
it’s time to bail. if there were love tesseracts, people would go back in time and leave before that ever happened.
i should know. i used to be notorious for dating people for 6 months. the longest relationship i’ve had (not counting my current one) was 3 years, and those weren’t continuous. and it was only that long because i was too lazy to dump the asshole. i actually had a countdown of “days until i can dump kim” when we got close to 180 days together, because my relationships typically reach critical mass and go nuclear around the six month mark. then she got me tickets to the sting/annie lennox concert (which was fucking awesome), and i couldn’t leave her. maybe that’s her plan–keep taking me to concerts and i`ll never leave nor forsake her. kd lang was sweet, ani difranco rocked, and she’s taking me to see tori amos and imogene heap in august, so it must be working.
i`m completely sure of another thing: everything has to be tailored to accomodate everyone’s needs, wants, and greed. if you know you’re dating a sex fiend that occasionally has a thing for, say, for getting marshmellow peeps melted on their skin so you can lick it off, you can’t really deny them that. if you’re dating someone, and you know you can’t be faithful, then break it off, or drop the expectation of fidelity. i`m the type of person that can have a one night stand that doesn’t mean shit, especially if i`m dating someone i love, and the “victim” (for lack of a better term) of my horniness is nothing but a means to an end. but at the same time, i can’t kiss, or really hang out with someone i’ve got more than a physical thing for or with, with all other things considered as equal. some people have to have that expectation of fidelity, because that’s all they know. other people, they`ll pick loyalty over fidelity every time. it’s all about what works for everyone. now that i’ve been in a relationship that doesn’t expect 100 percent pure fidelity, i see that maybe that’s what my problem was. it’s not that i love kim more, or that i loved everyone else less; it’s just that i simply didn’t have the willpower to say no to something that i knew would be wrong. call it implusive, sabotage, or whatever you want to call it. i call it effective.
now that i think about it, it’s definitely not love math. more of a love poltics thing. think about it: what if you’re trying to hook up with someone you don’t think you have a chance with? if you send your friends to talk you up , it’s lobbying. if you try to buy your way in, it’s bribery. trying to be something you’re not is treachery. telling them something you don’t really believe is lying. not listening to your friends for crucial advice is prideful. and sending in your friends to get back at them after they fuck you over is called war. holy fucking republican, man! my love life is fahrenheit 9/11?! now i get it!
