still kickin'

so, i might've left baltimore (but never in spirit), but they're still running my column. which is, to say the very least, awesome. so...

Bending the Rules

"Look," my roommate Hilary said to me while unpacking a box, "the Bible!" She held up a copy of a book everyone's read, whether they admit it or not, a book that women and gay guys either swear by or love to hate: He's Just Not That Into You.

"Do you honestly believe what that guy says?" asked our friend Amanda. "I mean, do you follow the advice he gives you? I read it and it just seemed awfully…I don't know, simple."

"All I know," Hilary responded, "is that it inspired me to completely change how I look at dating. I now have a very strict 'No Bullshit' clause when it comes to relationships. And you know how much bullshit I've had to put up with since I instated it? None."

A few seconds passed as I went about the task of unpacking books and cd's and knickknacks that I should've thrown away, but instead had chosen to bring with me to New York wrapped in pages torn from Out magazine. "Then again," Hilary said, smiling, "one side-effect of the No Bullshit clause is that it means that I haven't been out on a date in two months."
Hilary isn’t perennially single by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that, to put it mildly, she hasn't been offered the cream of the crop to choose from. And with the added factor of the No Bullshit rule, well, the pickin's get awfully slim indeed.

Our conversation made me wonder, though, when it comes to relationships, what’s actually bull—the unreturned phone calls, for instance, or the guy who takes you out to dinner and leaves his wallet at home—and what are valid concerns? I guess my question is: when do issues become mere excuses? Is there a difference between deadbeats and guys who are commitment-phobic? Guys with abandonment issues and guys that just aren’t worth it? And, more importantly, to what extent is it ok to make concessions?

I think that I--and my friends who've seen me through a few long-term relationships would probably back me up on this, though I'm not giving you any of their phone numbers because you don't want to know the stories they could tell—have a relatively high threshold for guys with issues. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt more than most people. Of course, this has led me to more than my fair share of strange relationships. I've pretty much done it all: chasing after the impossible catch, grasping at straws for affection, the thwarted move-in, the finally-standing-up-for-myself breakup.

Even as I type this, I'm thinking to myself, God, Robert, what a doormat. I don't honestly think, though, that’s true. For the most part I've gotten what I wanted out of these relationships, even the ones in which I had to put up with the most.

Why, then, am I willing to make these sacrifices? Why will I put up with more than Hilary will? I'm a far cry from being a hopeless romantic: I don't necessarily believe that there are soulmates, or that finding one person is possible. I don't know if I believe that I'll ever get married (or gaymarried, as I've grown fond of calling it) or adopt children. Yet something tells me, no matter how jaded I've become, no matter how many times my belief in true love has been tested, that part of me wants all those things: the gaywedding, the kids, the soulmate. And so I go on, refusing to follow the No Bullshit clause, the rule that's saved Hilary from so many pains in her ass.

It's not that I'm more patient than she is or more of a pushover. It's just that I feel like to get to something good, you often have to make a few allowances. That to find something worth while, you've got to wade through a few feet of bullshit.