Justin

You have written that you and your former flame are students. I have no idea in which school you are matriculated, but you are clearly learning your most valuable lessons in the “school of life.” Your most recent experience in the “laboratory of love” did not go well, but don’t worry. You are both very young. Your experiments in creating stable relationships are bound to go awry from time to time, but your missteps are what will teach you the concepts you need to know in order to avoid common relationship pitfalls in the future. Be grateful for the failed love experiments of your youth, and don’t be too hard on your former “lab partner”. Neither of you has earned a Ph.D. in the study of relationships quite yet. Both of you made mistakes this time around the block, but you have to be prepared to make mistakes when you are as inexperienced and untrained as you and your former flame are due to no fault of your own. You and your former flame are, however, capable of one day making the “dean’s list” at the “school of love” if you apply yourselves and master rudimentary interpersonal relationship skills. It’s time for you to enroll in my fictitious course “Relationships 101”.

If you want to experience a healthy, stable relationship, do not “fall in love” as you and your former flame did in just a few short weeks. Take the time to “grow in love” instead. In order to be in love with a guy, you need to develop an in-depth understanding of who he really is. You need to thoroughly know the makeup of his character before you can consider yourself to be in love with him. Ask yourself two very important questions. On an emotional, moral, and spiritual level, what are a guy’s strengths and weaknesses? How will he comport himself not just when life is going smoothly, but when life throws him a difficult curve ball that challenges his character as well? Do not fall into the trap of over idealizing a guy you just met because he is cute. No one is perfect, not even attractive guys. The lust you feel for a guy in the incipient stages of a relationship will surely fade away, and you could very well be left one day with an attractive jerk if you haven’t taken the time to understand the personality traits that define a guy’s character. A guy’s essential character traits will not be revealed through his words or in the course of just a few short weeks. A guy’s essential character traits will only be revealed through his actions over a considerable amount of time. All guys’ words are meaningless when they are compared to his actions. Terms of endearment like Baby and Love are pleasing to the ear. They can certainly make you swoon, but don’t give them any credence when a guy showers you with them early in a romance. They are not indicative of who a guy really is. The only time you should give any weight to a guy’s flowery language is when you are still hearing it delivered with heartfelt sincerity years into a relationship. In your next relationship, do not fall in love. Be sure that you and your next flame give yourselves plenty of time to grow in love before you start talking about how much you love one another and about building a life together.

A semester in my fictitious course “Relationships 101” would also help you understand that one of the most egregious mistakes you made in your last relationship was telling your former flame, “I will do anything to make you mine.” The most obvious danger of those words is that they are dripping with desperation that is deadly to the development of a stable relationship. When I read them, I immediately began having flashbacks of a frightening Glenn Close, who stalked and terrorized Michael Douglas and Anne Archer in the horrifying psychological thriller Fatal Attraction. Close’s character in that movie was desperate enough to literally do anything to make Michael Douglas hers. Telling a guy that you are willing to do anything to make him yours sends powerful signals that would understandably be a turnoff to him. It signals that you have such a poor sense of self that you would be willing to accept a relationship without any boundaries to define what behavior is expected and acceptable within the context of the relationship. You would learn in a real life course called “Politics 101” that no sovereign nation can survive without boundaries. Two heavily stressed concepts in my fictitious course “Relationships 101” would be that all healthy relationships are like the world’s sovereign nations in that they also require boundaries to survive and that people with a strong sense of self conduct themselves in accordance with that principle. Telling a guy that you are willing to do anything to make him yours is also a red flag to him because it sends a loud and clear signal that while you are capable of giving much, you don’t give freely. Someone who gives too much to a guy is often times motivated to then turn around and make that guy feel guilty and obligated by becoming a martyr who uses all that he has given as an emotional weapon of guilt. If you want to send a guy running in the opposition direction from you, threaten him with the prospect of a life together that is spent being obligating to you out of guilt for all that you have done for him and all that you intend to do for him in the future. Your young man’s reaction to your overblown oath of love cogently proves that point. In our society, gay men are acculturated to nurture their male partners to the point of overkill even though that behavior is the kiss of death to the development and maintenance of stable relationships. It will be difficult for you to overcome your having been programmed to improperly nurture males who are your partner to the point of their emotional exhaustion; but I am confident that with a conscientious effort you can retrain yourself to give to a guy simply for the pleasurable sake of giving, not because you want something in return from him and are willing to manipulate him into giving you what you want by deploying the emotional weapon of a guilt trip against him.

A final lesson to be learned from your experience with your former flame is that it takes much more than just love to sustain a stable relationship with a guy. A lasting stable relationship must also be built upon the qualities of friendship, loyalty, trust, empathy, compromise, hard work, generosity, honesty, and a plethora of other estimable qualities that require ample time for you to be able to see in a partner. When it comes to building and maintaining a stable relationship, forget the overly romanticized cliché that “all you need is love.” It’s simply not true.

A promising relationship with a fine young man has unexpectedly soured, and now all you can focus on is the bad taste that has been left in your mouth. Don’t despair. Time will remove the bad taste from your mouth. One day you will come to realize that your painful, short lived relationship with this young gentleman has been a blessing in disguise. You survived it, and now you are stronger and wiser than you were before. As a result of your this relationship, you have also acquired new insight into your own behavior and gained valuable skills that will serve you well in all your future relationships with men.

I wish you fair winds and following seas.