Men and ice cream

This is one of the missing bits of 'I quit', which was meant to appear during our stay in Britain. Instead, it disappeared, like some other little bits. This is about relationship failures during our studies. If this appears like another round of rambling, skip it (the next part has far more drama in it again). .... :-) But if you want to find out about the title, read on.

You can read the other parts here and here.

Good times

In a way it is easy to write about all the small and big catastrophes that happen. But what do you write about the good times? Well, they are good. That’s it? Hey, there were many good months Amy and I had when we lived in our little flat. But right now I am not able to put all of that into words. As some of you maybe know, I sometimes express what’s going on in colours. So, there have been bright, warm colours all around us. Pick your favourites that you enjoy on a lovely summer day. We spent fantastic days and nights, discussed everything in and out and did all to stay close and were as close as can be. We have been through everything together, which is what best friends do. But one reason why we had such a good time was that we wanted to make life for the other one lovely, too. If there were problems, we solved them more or less together, or at least we were there to support each other whenever this was called for.  This worked well for some time, and we took it as long as it would last. 

Amy went on doing her studies, I had mine and was good at that, too. I even earned a little money with my new craft. Actually it was never much money, but it was more than enough for us.

On men

We had so many new things to talk about; surprise surprise - boyfriends were not one of the major topics (most of the time), although we talked about them, too. But they did not fit in, for some reason. If anything, we imagined the idealized versions of a boyfriend. But there was none, not for Amy and definitely not for me.

I had been pretty unsuccessful when it came to romantic relationships. I had tried a few times and it never worked out at all, ... like in complete failure and embarrassing mistakes. 

By now, I believe I know why everything went wrong in that department.  One big reason for it is that I find men attractive who know what they want and can communicate this clearly, too. This includes that they also know what kind of woman they want, and in addition, I like it when men are willing/able to fight for their woman. I want him masculine, strong and protective. I even like it when he can be jealous. … Then again, not too much jealousy, because I want him to have enough self-confidence to know that I am his. Well, the message is that I like the more possessive type of man, not selfish, but I love it for example when hubby shows me in no uncertain ways that I belong to him and he is the boss.

I want him to be able to overcome resistance, because that shows his strength and I want him to let me feel that I am his. I like it traditional and am not happy without submitting to my man. This does not interfere with my belief in equal rights, and ever since I was able to accept and acknowledge what kind of man and what kind of relationship I need, things have become tremendously better. Since this happened only with hubby, it is what happened last, at the end of my time at university. ...now you have me dreaming again, my knight in shining armor and his favourite weapon in hand, at that time a black riding crop. I love that one to this day! :)

Impossible mission

And now back to the catch22: in my thinking at that time, I was looking for someone who had to be strong, but I wouldn’t let him tell me anything. And I was actually extremely wary about assertive men and avoided them. One reason was that dating a man like this would leave the impression of being unemancipated, which from nowaday's point of view I consider complete rubbish. More importantly, deep within I think I was also still fighting a lot with some old very evil demons because what I understood about assertive and dominant behaviour was that men of that kind could easily infringe my distinctive physical need for safety and security. 

Amy the prosecutor

Amy, on the other side, was rather reluctant and waiting for her Mr Right. She was in no hurry at all and closely scrutinized all men around, but none made it into her bedroom. Flirting was ok, though and at times this was hilarious to watch with her. What I could not observe, I heard in greatest detail afterwards. Some of the candidates were really cute, but had no clue that Amy ticked off her internal list for finding her perfect match. Maybe I make it sound cold-hearted, which would leave the completely wrong impression, because she is not like that at all; on the contrary, she is very warm-hearted and caring. She is curious about people, and talking to her is great fun. If anything, people want to spend time with her. She is absolutely charming and in her relationship candidate cross examinations she checked his reactions and opinions, what he was interested in, future plans, what he thought about his friends, etc. . She wanted to know about his relationship with his own family, and of course, what he thought about her. Imagine that going on for one to five dates per candidate and you have the gist of it. We had a favourite bar, which we sometimes used for our dating ceremonies, too. If possible we arranged for double dates, not at the same table, but at the same time, so that we could help each other in times of need, e.g. when one of us wanted to leave unexpectedly. And once again, there was nothing mean behind this, but we wanted to make sure that we could get out of situations. Besides, the men have all remained on friendly terms with Amy, maybe some were disappointed that nothing more came out of dating her, but I think that even when she turned somebody down, she did it with great charm, so that he could still feel cherished and appreciated.

All in all, finding Mr. Right went rather quickly for her, though, once hubby had found me … incredibly irresistible (I cannot resist such a line now and then!).

Hey, I can hear what you think now, but you are wrong! If Amy had found her future husband earlier, she would have grabbed her chance!

Amy  the best friend

Throughout most of our university years, she also did a great job at collecting what was left of me, when another short relationship (I do not really consider them that; they are more like flirts turned bad) went wrong and I was shattered again. I was only looking for Mr. Perfect and he was not in sight. So, these few attempts of mine were short lived and stupid. And they left me at a loss. I did not know what was missing. They were nice, friendly, very adventurous and I think most women’s dreams, too.  If only one of them had had more knowledge about spanking, who knows. :) But after some failed attempts I had no deeper interest in men left at all. But I was still hoping for Prince Charming, without much energy, though.

Anyway, Amy was there, with ice cream, chocolate and her open heart for me and built me up again from scratch each and every time. She has such a practical attitude and put that to best use in such moments. --> Whenever I had started dating someone, she stocked up on ice cream, chocolate and hankies. At the same time, mysteriously, she showed interest in another love movie we should watch … soon. 
I did not notice that, well, in fact it took me much longer than the time we lived together to figure out her ice-cream and movie break-up emergency procedure. And when 'it' finally had happened, we did watch a sad love movie. I bawled because there were sad and happy scenes that reminded me of an ex, and she did the same because she cries easily in love stories and immediately when her best friend cries and is miserable. And two days later we went to the zoo. Always. And I still know some of the elephants’ names, because I have seen them too often. 

 

This is emergency equipment!