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  • Army wives

    I was very nearly an army girlfriend. Thankfully – and I don’t say that to belittle those who are, it’s just not a lifestyle I want for myself – T chose not to continue down that path.

    But the army still holds a sort of fascination for me. I often come across blogs written by army wives/girlfriends and devour them for reasons I can’t quite articulate. I guess I admire them, while thinking “I’m glad that’s not me”, because I couldn’t handle the separation. I recently dealt with one of the defence spokespeople regarding a feature we were running on NZ troops in Afghanistan. He was pleased to hear about it; he said there were a lot of army families out there who were “hungry for news”.

    I know there are many people out there in relationships with soldiers. I can’t imagine how hard it must be.

    I can’t imagine being apart for months at a time, with only the occasional letter, and having to hear about events through the mainstream media. When T was down in Waiouru, and then Christchurch, I got letters from him basically every week. That wasn’t too bad. Being stationed in a whole other country though… it just wouldn’t be that simple.

    We had been together for about two months before he left. He was in training for six months. I went down to visit him a few times, and it was always so horrendously awkward. I didn’t know how to act around him, having not seen him in so long, and having his family around whom I barely knew.

    I loved his letters. It was like an old fashioned courtship. I still have every single one, including most of the envelopes they came in, because he often wrote little quotes and sayings on the back of them. He also misspelled my name on lots of the early ones, which is sort of endearing. Sort of.

    It sounds stupid to say, but I became extremely emotional during that time. I don’t really know why; maybe it was the isolation, who knows? I never used to cry at soppy ads or tragic movie endings. Now I find myself leaking tears at any remotely sad TV show. And when I watched The Perfect Storm? Or the Green Mile? I bawled for about twenty minutes straight.

    Shortly after he was first approved for unemployment, WINZ tried to send him on a short army course. (I think it’s pretty much what the TF [territorial forces] goes through for their training). He explained he’d already been through much, much more than that. Which of course begs the question – why leave?

    For me, I would’ve said (aside from obviously despising the regimented routine) not wanting to die in the line of duty. For him, it was more like not wanting to be trained and paid to kill others.

    His stint in the army still provides endless conversation fodder for him. And sometimes it is tempting – cheap housing, albeit in the middle of nowhere, generous retirement, steady job.

    But the army life isn’t something I want, and I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to make that choice. I remember how hard it was for T to readjust to civilian life when he came back to Auckland. Not just in terms of the weather, and clothing, but being around people – SO many more people – and living daily life. The stress manifested itself physically, and it was weeks if not months before he got used to the routine and could sleep and go out normally again.

  • Looking on the bright side

    I caught up with a friend the other day. We mostly talked about me, I’m ashamed to say. And now that I think back on it, I think he might have needed to get something off his chest. Two or three times, he brought up the fact that I was really lucky to be “sorted” in the relationship department.

    Recently I’ve been focusing on all the bad things about relationships and how hard they can be to maintain, so today I’m making a list of all the great things about them!

    1. Someone to share the cooking with. I fed myself and myself only for over a year, and I don’t really know WHAT I was eating. I remember surviving on jam sandwiches for lunches (can’t touch the stuff now) as I was living on a shoestring. About $30 a week kept me fed – half of what I spend today, four years later. I assume I ate a lot of pasta and stirfry… and eventually learned to give up on looking for packages of meat small enough for one, and just buy larger packs and freeze half of it.

    In Whakatane, I didn’t eat a lot – mainly because our days were so busy, I barely had time to eat my fruit, muesli bar and sandwiches. I did not cook once my entire time there. The first night I was nervous, the second I was anxious due to having a bad first day, so all I ate was a tiny salad. The other nights we either went out or cooked group dinners. Cooking for one was just not appealing.

    2. Hugs and cuddles when you need them…! And someone to warm the bed.

    3. Someone to look after you when you’re sick. Who wants to make their own soup, get up to turn the light off, have a shower, change the channel, etc? And, in cases like today, take me home, make me a saltwater mouthwash and conjure up lunch after I got THE most heinous mouthache after eating half a Moro Gold while grocery shopping. (No, I didn’t eat before paying. Shell was doing $1 chocolate bars when we stopped to gas up.)

    4. In my case – someone to drive me around 😀

    5. Someone to bounce stuff off. I imagine it’d be pretty lonely living alone (or with crappy flatmates) and not having someone on hand to constantly  act as your sounding board on dramas and dilemmas of all kinds.

    6. Someone who’ll do all the fun chores, like change lightbulbs and take out the bins.

    7. And last but not least, someone to take turns at getting out of bed and retrieving late night snacks from the kitchen …

  • Sad money tales

    You read some bizarre tales on the MSN money boards. You really do. You even get attached to the posters, and hope they make the right choice and do the smart thing with their finances. Whether it’s to do with houses, cars, children, relationships.

    This was one was a real doozy. Basic story – deadbeat BF, didn’t want to take the steps to deal with the fact that someone had stolen his credit identity. (Possibly his own mother). Wanted to take on a car payment which would take half of his income. He was 20. A mechanic. Yet he wanted to sell his car which kept breaking, for a new one. It was only a couple grand worth of repairs, and a fairly new car at that.

    We didn’t know how old she was, but she was still studying, and presumably they were about the same age. But they’d been together SEVEN years. And somehow in that time, he’d cost her $25k. On what, who knows…but 25k? It’s amazing that someone so young would a) have that much, and b) fritter it on a boyfriend. A boyfriend who wouldn’t help out when she needed it but held out an open hand when the tables turned. A boyfriend she no longer loved but wasn’t ready to break up with.

  • X and Y

    Krystal‘s post the other day about losing one of her best male friends touched a nerve with me.

    I have a group of girlfriends – whom i love DEARLY – but don’t see all that often. My go-to friends are all guys. They’re the ones I hang out with, the ones I call my best friends. (Some of them, I found out, originally got to know me because they had a bit of a thing for me. Which was weird, but you know, it’s all in the past) We’ve never had a problem with them and girlfriends, but what about when we get round to the marriage stage? Is that going to change things? I hope not. I don’t think it will, but I suppose you never know.

    I honestly believe men and women can be friends. It’s really not that hard.

    That being said, I learned that the hard way. One of my best friends growing up was a boy we’ll call C; at one point we “went out” for about six months in which absolutely nothing happened, and I mean nothing. We “broke up”, I got a real boyfriend, he tried to get me to break up with him. Anyway….some things happened, I had to essentially choose between them, and I chose the boyf. (That relationship lasted just over a year. Both guys turned into completely different people and I’m happy to have neither of them in my life today) Looking back, I don’t really know if it was the best choice. Probably, as they both became …. I don’t know, *insert word of choice here*. I learned a lot from that year – my first serious relationship – and god knows where’d I’d be today otherwise, in fact.

    Sometimes I wonder, what if we were still buddies? What if, what if? I was really sad to lose him as a friend. But now I think that just ran its course – he was a part of that period of my life, and that part only – and now I’m surrounded by people more appropriate for the now. I hope I’m not going to lose them to jealous partners someday. T knows he has absolutely nothing to worry about, and I hope my friends’ future gfs will be able to understand us better as to not feel threatened by our friendships.

  • Field trip and missed skiing opportunity

    I’m down in Whakatane for a week, from Sunday.new_desktop_f13

    Why? Well, my internship is now over, and part of second semester involves going on a field trip and spending  a week working on the regional papers.

    I get back on the Friday – the same Friday a group of friends are going down to the snow for four days. Obviously we won’t be going. We don’t have a grand lying around to blow, I’m not sure about driving down there, I will still be away on the Friday, and after a week away from home I would just want to spend the weekend at home, regrouping. And to be honest, I’m glad. Even if it was an option, I don’t want to go with the people who are going. Two of them are a couple, who are good friends of ours (although not so much since a certain drama at the start of the year. Awkward). Most of the rest are friends of the couple and by default BF and to a much, MUCH lesser extent me. They’re all lovely! Don’t get me wrong. It’s just there are a couple of other people (okay, girls. Man I sound like such a woman hater, especially after that recent post about bitchy so called friends) who I’m not really friends with and not super keen to spend time with. They’re just not my kind of people – nothing personal – and four days is a long time.

    Very proud of BF, though. First he was all, “We need to find a grand in the next month!” Something he knows we can’t do. His friend jokingly suggested selling the car. Guess what BF responded with?

    “Ah, but that would need to go towards paying off the old car.”

    OMG!!! LIGHTS! APPLAUSE!

    That’s the most PF-y thing he’s ever said! The boy is learning. I’m so proud of him.

    He added “It’s nearly paid off.” Which is true, I suppose. Less than $2k to go, from just over 4k.

  • True love

    Do you believe in it?

    I used to be a romantic at heart. I think I read too much. Honestly.I used to think we all had one soul mate in the world and we would be destined to meet, etc, etc.

    Now I tend towards believing there are many possible soulmates for us out there. After all, it’s the only realistic possibility. We can’t all have just the one – we’d never meet “the one for us”. The world’s just too enormous. I guess I could go one step further and say soulmates don’t exist, just “the right people at the right time in your life”…but I’m not quite ready to be that cynical.

    I bring this up because one of my friends is considering getting married. She went overseas to work for a few months and fell for a guy. He’s seven years older, doesn’t speak all that much English….but they connected.

    I don’t know. I haven’t met him, though if he comes over at Christmas like she wants, I guess I will. She says she wants us to all tell her what we honestly think of him – but I doubt she’ll listen. I want to like him, but from what we all know, they just sound too different. All us girls are sceptical, and we don’t trust the sounds of this. I don’t think her parents are too thrilled either, but are starting to sound more resigned to the possibility.

    She’s just a hopeless romantic. And I think that she is somewhat afraid to let go, because she wants to settle down young and have a family, and thinks she might not find another person? But then again, she says she’s also holding back a little because she isn’t sure what the future holds – what if she finds her real soulmate in a few years?

  • Money matters (for couples)

    We all know how important it is to be on the same page financially with your other half. However you choose to do that – whether it’s combined, separate or something in between finances, with one person taking care of most of the details or both being equally involved – isn’t as important as actually heading in the same direction, together.

    But how far would you go to help out your significant other? How much would you lend him/her? (I don’t mean for frivolities, I mean for unexpected expenses, or other expenses they might not be able to cover at the time). Would you ever gift them money, if you were in such a position? Would you be willing to help them towards any debt he/she might have? And how does that change whether you are seriously committed, cohabiting or married?

  • Watching the Bachelor = like watching a train wreck

    23792_jason-mesnick2I find it really hard to understand how the girls on the Bachelor can fall so fast in a matter of weeks….and I find it hard to believe that real relationships can be forged in front of a TV camera. I know I personally could not be myself if I was being filmed, let alone be comfortable alone with a guy, out on dates and stuff. It’s almost painful to see the rejected girl/s going home in the limo, trying not to cry and ruin their makeup, saying things like “I really thought he was the one. I’m ready to settle down. My heart is broken. I just think I’m better off alone.”

    Other things I HATE about the show:

    That dude coming out every time just before the final rose is presented, just to remind everyone that it’s the last rose of the night and someone will be going home.

    That dude having man-to-man talks with the Bachelor before the ceremony and asking inane questions about his state of mind and how his dates have gone.

    The girls standing there clutching their roses with beatific smiles, waiting for him to walk out the rejected girl/s and return to them.

    Group dates!!!! Enough said.

    I also thought it was REALLY weird that he went out and met all of their families when there were still FOUR girls left in the running – I thought they usually did that for the last two? That would make more sense. The point of meeting the family is when you’re getting serious, and if you have that many girls to choose from, how serious can you be?

    It got me thinking, though, about just how much of a role families play in romantic relationships. One of the girls’ parents didn’t want to meet the Bachelor – they weren’t comfortable with the “publicness” of it all. (You know what? I don’t think I would be either, personally. I felt bad for the chick, but I totally sympathise with her family. Some people are very private, and if they don’t want to meet their prospective son-in-law and have it broadcast on TV, fair enough!) It seemed like a really big deal for both of them, to not be able to introduce him to the family. He asked her friends all about her parents, and thought it was really strange that they’d never met them and dind’t know anything about them (hey, my friends and parents are totally separate! Does anyone else think it’s more unusual to have your friends and parents be close? Or is it just me?)

    BF’s never met my parents, officially. Once when we ran into my mum out and about, I introduced him by name. He’s never met my dad. I’m happy to keep it that way as long as…ever? I’m not really close to them – haven’t been since I was tiny. It’s not a big deal for either of us that he hasn’t met them yet, though I know it’ll have to happen some day.

    They say you can tell a lot from someone just from meeting their family, because parents are such a huge influence on their children. I think that’s true for BF, who still lives close to his family and sees them often (sometimes even a few times a week). For me, I don’t know if that applies as much. Personality wise, I guess I resemble both parents, but in terms of my outlook and views and culture, we’re vastly different.

    I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I don’t identify that closely with my family, although they are still important to me, we’re not exactly the Brady Bunch. So it doesn’t matter to me that they don’t know BF yet despite us having been together for years, and vice versa. And I don’t think he needs to know them, in order to understand me. OTOH, it was important to BF that his family liked me, especially his mum (and thankfully she did). What do you think?

  • Suffering fools gladly

    I have very little patience for insincerity and bullshitters. The older I get, the more my tolerance wanes. I just can’t be bothered with that kind of crap.

    My social circle is kind of disparate. There are my girlfriends from school – one of whom I’ve known for ten years  – who I see every couple of months, but I’m really only close to a few of them and I probably wouldn’t hang out one-on-one with about half of them. We tend to organise mass catchups over lunch/dinner and see each other on birthdays etc, and although sometimes it’s frustrating trying to get everyone together in one place, I always have a good time with them. I have a few other random friends (uni, friends of friends), who aren’t necessarily connected to any of my other friends, and then my inner circle who I see more often. We’re a group from school who hang out sometimes as much as every weekend and are my first port of call. And they’re all guys, pretty much.  Then I suppose we have a secondary social circle (different people) which overlaps with my main circle, who I socialise with but am not close to.

    Sadly, within this extended group are one or two downers. And by downers, I mean shallow, selfish, insincere bitches. Charismatic, though, and fun, so most people either don’t notice, or downright embrace their antics. But that’s something I’ve had enough of, and I just ignore it entirely. I can’t escape it, but I don’t have to play along. There are enough good people in my life to surround myself with, so why bother with the bad seeds?

    Thoughts? Where did you meet most of your friends? How often do you see them? And do you have patience for fake, bitchy acquaintances?

  • Imperfectly perfect relationships

    I recently discovered SleepyJane and her refreshingly honest take on relationships. It’s not often people blog so candidly, and it got me thinking more closely about my relationship with T (I may start referring to him by initial; I’m kind of sick of typing BF out so often!)

    Lesbian_Couple_togetherness_in_bed_02We’re both the same age (I’m four months older to be exact) and have been together since Dec 05. Three and a half years. It’s a long time. We’ve lived together for basically two and a half of those. But of course, it’s not all smooth sailing. The last six months have by far been the hardest for us – if not in my entire life –  and they’ve really tested us.

    And of course, there’s the day-to-day stuff that all couples deal with…but maybe don’t like to talk about. Some are mundane, some not so much. Nobody I know is at the stage in life that we are at (living together, combined money, totally independent and away from home) so I don’t really get to discuss this kind of stuff with anyone! Luckily, I have my trusty blog 😛

    The small stuff

    T is a freak. He needs hardly any sleep at all, and is usually awake at 6 or 7 without fail. He always berates me for sleeping too much – he’s a fan of the “more you sleep, the more you NEED to sleep” theory. Poor boy, he usually has to wait a couple of hours on the weekend mornings for me to wake up. He knows if he tries to disturb me it won’t be pretty…

    He doesn’t brush his teeth often – yet NEVER gets bad breath – I’m trying to get him to brush more regularly so he doesn’t lose all his teeth before middle age.

    He hates doing the dishes and doesn’t hang up his wet towels. If I ask him to do ONE thing for me, odds are 50/50 whether he will or not. If I ask him to do two, three or more things, I’ll be lucky if he does more than one. I swear, he NEVER gets things done, and it’s incredibly frustrating. This mainly relates to housework, so it’s not exactly fun stuff, but I do expect him to pull his weight.

    We can both get incredibly annoyed, incredibly fast, over often incredibly stupid things. Although he generally handles me quite well, I find it hard to deal with him in those irrational kinds of moods (and you know, I feel like by this stage I should be able to).

    He’s a big guy. He’s rarely ever cold. I swear he runs at 20 degrees higher than me; we need some supersmart duvet which cools him while heating my poor thin body. Often it’s hard to be in bed together, because while I’m shivering, he’s literally sweating. And nothing is more irritating than him settling in under the covers, while the fan’s on – because according to him, it’s too cold out of the blanket but too hot under it…

    And the bigger stuff..

    I don’t have a particularly high libido, which is pretty much the opposite of him. Hence: friction, from time to time (especially in the mornings).

    Although he is smart, and talented, I would not describe him as particularly driven. Some people know what they want to do, where they want to be, and have it all figured out. I, at least, sort of always knew the path I’d follow…vaguely. He got started in engineering, and was great at it. He had ambitions: to get qualified, maybe even do a degree through night school, work hard, earn lots, travel with me, etc. Then that fell apart. Now he’s a bit lost. It’s almost like, if someone told him that he HAD to be in a particular industry, and do a particular thing, he would. He’d make the most of it and he’d succeed in that. I truly believe he can succeed in anything he wants to do. He’s just unfocused as to what that is. And it scares me a little; now I’m close to graduating, I’m truly in my “twenties” and I’m starting to feel that time’s marching on. Education and career wise, he’s now almost three years behind me.

    Ah, the PF angle. Our relationship has not been good for my individual finances. I don’t imagine for a second anyone would ever have recommended we merge finances. But if we hadn’t, I hate to think how dire his situation might be had he had full rein of his account, say, until we got married, or something like that. I look after our money and I do it because we’re committed to each other. In the long term, this will be better for us and I want us to get a solid footing, and to be on the same page.

    I know I have PLENTY of my own faults. Although I’d prefer to refer to them as quirks… eg, I got really upset at him for not eating the pack of salami we bought specially for him this week, which by now will be well past its use-by. What a waste! Seriously, I would have wolfed it down if he didn’t want it (I looooooove salami of all kinds). But you know, it was only $3. I should have let it go.

    People don’t change, fundamentally, and there’s no point expecting them to. I guess it’s a matter of deciding what you can and can’t put up with, and what your dealbreakers are.