Hardball

     I think today we grow up with unrealistic expectations about life. I relate this back to the Great Depression when people would escape to the movies in order to forget about the hardships happening to and around them. Except we don't just escape, we bring it back with us and that is why movies have ruined our expectations. 
     They are a vision of a perfect situation. The meet-cute. The courtship. And ultimately, the happily ever after. We idealize it. Boys are supposed to be romantic, remembering our favorite flower and our half-birthday. Girls are supposed to be bubbly, never too mad and don't poop. 
      Well, NEWSFLASH - girls do poop and boys only know roses and daisies. This is not just me being pessimistic, just realistic. 


All of this has lead to a very vicious cycle. 

• Girl likes boy
• Boy thinks girl is ok
• They date
• Boy watches too much ESPN
• Girl gets too emotional 
• They argue 
• Both blame each other
• They break up

     They key problem here is "both blame each other." Neither party is willing to admit guilt. All because the cute romantic comedy showed us how perfect it could be. 

     

     Something I don't think we realize until it's over was the take and take exchange between the parties. This is what I refer to as "hardball." 

    Playing hardball becomes the foundation of day to day interactions. It feeds of the resentment you have been harboring since the beginning and it happens with such ease you don't even see it coming. 

      First, he's late picking you up for the third time that week. In return, you "accidentally" use all the hot water in the shower so his shower is cold. Next, he misses your grandmothers birthday party and you let it slip to his friends that he loves getting his nails done. And before you know it he's no longer doing anything nice for you and you are no longer doing him. Deadlock. Hardball.

      Whether it be love or comfort or habit that keeps you together you stay together and the game continues. Both too full of pride and resentment to be the first one to give and so the days play on and hardball continues. This is what our relationships have become - petty hardball sets in the greater match of the relationship. We've come to accept this behavior and worse to expect it. I don't even know how to take a compliment from a boy because it's been so long since I've heard a sincere one. 

       That's my point - there should be nothing "hard" about love. It shouldn't be "take and take" it should be "give and take." Both wanting nothing and yet giving everything. That's a real relationship. 

       It doesn't need a meet-cute or some fantasy movie date. It only needs two people, mutual weirdness and a sense of personal responsibility.  Happily ever after may not really exists in reality, but I think we can settle on a more real sense of happy. 

                                  Stay Sassy, A.