‘s Just Casual

Casual arrangements are great – at least in theory. In theory, you have an understanding, maybe even rules. In theory, communication flows freely.

Unfortunately, the theory is all in your mind and in reality, these arrangements don’t always run so smoothly. Emotions, baggage and life swirl around them and before you know it, you’re placing a late night phone call in a pre-menstrual fit, defying your own logical thought process, and saying something like, “Um, could you just never blow me off like that again?”

REALLY? WHO SAYS THAT!?

You couldn’t help yourself, though – it’s as close as you may have ever had to an out of body experience; you watched yourself helplessly fumbling for words that you would never use – phrases that made you sound like one of those girls. Maybe you realized how crazy you sounded and cry a little bit after you hang up the phone.

The emotional wave having crested and crashed, you hear that little bit of logic in the back of your mind, “Pull yourself together and for crying out loud wash that damn makeup off your face!”

You catch your breath, you wash your face, you get a grip. You cut your feelings into tiny little pieces and rearrange them before you so that you can make some sense of them:

There’s disappointment. You enjoy visits from a lover – your brain releases a whole cocktail of chemicals during these trysts and you crave it with an instinctual hunger – its natural to be disappointed, hell, you shaved your legs.

Next, there’s the ego factor. Wounded pride is never pretty, I’m not going to even get into what self-depreciating thoughts might be set loose on your mind.

There’s anger. Disappointment + Bruised Ego = Anger *E. How you deal with anger is related directly to E, the emotional baggage constant. Some get angry and lash out – they send pages of emotionally-charged text messages and leave voicemails riddled with sobs. Some get angry and sink into passive-aggressive ways of lashing out, posting something vague on Facebook or radiating snide remarks. The absolute worst (and best) thing you can do to these people is ignore them. They are begging for a reaction, continuously dousing “the other” in gasoline and begging them to light a match.

I peace out. I throw up some walls, and shut down. Everything screams “run away – leave before you are left.” I secretly hope for “the other” to take note and show up with a figurative bulldozer to tear down my walls. If I don’t get a reaction, I take comfort in the fact that I never begged for one and I keep on running. I know my walls will only go up faster and stronger in the future.

Sometimes, something hurts – yuck. If there is any hurt, you tuck that one away into a dark corner. You don’t want to deal with it. Hurt does not belong here.

With all of your emotions cut into clean squares and dissected, you can continue to use logic to slice and dice them into small inconsequential bits.

Your disappointment becomes a laughable fit of hormones – curse that time of the month!

Your hurt ego bows out gracefully (for once) – you know there really is nothing wrong with you. You rub your hand down your smooth leg to your perfectly pedicured toes – you know you’re sexy.

Most of the anger dissipates into a laughable wave of PMS. But a small amount still lingers….a small wall stays up.

You decide no one should be expected to read your mind. In a valiant effort to improve communications, you make that aforementioned late night phone call. You hang up feeling like a cliched “Shit Girls Say” video.

You let it go.

No big deal – ‘s just casual, after all.