Yesterday, during my lunch break, I decided to actually take a break (one of those rare days without deadlines), and go to the Madison Square Park to do some reading. I am currently reading "Women Who Run with the Wolves", and strongly recommend everyone to read it. As I was sitting and reading and thinking over what I'd just read, a stranger sat next to me, and in the most natural way asked me "How is the run with the wolves going?"
My almost instant New York reaction was to shoot him a I-don't-talk-to-strangers look but my righteous self took over and I replied "It's women that are wolves..." And so we embarked on an intellectual and honest conversation we often have with an accidental stranger who shares similar points of view.
As it turned out, David is a writer/musician who just came from a year-long trip to France where he was writing his first fiction book. Just to support that it indeed was an intellectual and insightful conversation we had. Since the book that initiated our conversation is about female power, our discussion mainly revolved around women, men and power struggle. Luckily for me, David was a strong supporter of female power, and we agreed on many things. Most importantly, we agreed that the world would be a better place were women to hold more power than men. He even cited statistics that more women than men these days held high level degrees.
I was happy to hear this and eventually (almost inevitably) we moved to discussing relationships and love. Do I have to remind you the name of my blog? Though curious about many things, love and relationships are my favorite. Since we already discussed that women are smarter than men and would be better leaders, we followed the same logic in love and relationships. We definitely agreed that women are more likely to give themselves away in a relationship and thus suffer the most. They are more likely to abandon their own desires and dreams for their partners', and thus sacrifice their own development in the name of love. Etc..
However, our views diverged on monogamy. Not only had David disagreed with my view that "Men are Not monogamous by nature", but he was sincerely shocked that I was so set in my opinion on this.
He tried to ask me the same question in different ways to (I assume) get a different answer. "You don't believe there are men that are faithful?" "You don't believe that Love could last forever and ever?" "You don't believe that some men are more giving and loving than some women?" and so on and so on. My answer remained the same: "No, not by nature."
In the end, he said something that got me thinking about myself and my views. He said: "It's very pessimistic of you, Sasha, considering that you're writing a blog about love and yourself looking for true love".
No one had ever found me pessimistic before, in fact I had been consistently accused of being an unwavering optimist. So imagine my surprise. I even felt flattered to have finally been labeled pessimistic.
And then again, I thought about it and realized, No, I am not a pessimist, have never been and probably will never be. I simply found my Realistic Self. So Yes, Men are Not monogamous by nature. That's the truth and I accept it, not condemn it or complain about it. Men are not meant for "One and Only", and I acknowledge it. Doesn't mean I wish they were, but you can never go against the nature. Best accept it and use it to your benefit.
Being realistic about men might not be as romantic and hopeful as my Optimistic Self would believe but it certainly is wiser. And for many reasons. It will have me prepared and grounded if I am ever faced with infidelity in my life. It won't let me set unrealistic expectations of my partner and be crashed if they are not met. It won't let me stop working on my own growth and abandon myself for the partner that might walk out one day, and I would be left with nothing. It won't let me sacrifice my own desires and dreams and solely rely on him to make me happy. And most importantly it will never let me make him more important than my relationship with God. And that's how I know that no matter what happens in life, I will always be able to stand strong and with grace.
My almost instant New York reaction was to shoot him a I-don't-talk-to-strangers look but my righteous self took over and I replied "It's women that are wolves..." And so we embarked on an intellectual and honest conversation we often have with an accidental stranger who shares similar points of view.
As it turned out, David is a writer/musician who just came from a year-long trip to France where he was writing his first fiction book. Just to support that it indeed was an intellectual and insightful conversation we had. Since the book that initiated our conversation is about female power, our discussion mainly revolved around women, men and power struggle. Luckily for me, David was a strong supporter of female power, and we agreed on many things. Most importantly, we agreed that the world would be a better place were women to hold more power than men. He even cited statistics that more women than men these days held high level degrees.
I was happy to hear this and eventually (almost inevitably) we moved to discussing relationships and love. Do I have to remind you the name of my blog? Though curious about many things, love and relationships are my favorite. Since we already discussed that women are smarter than men and would be better leaders, we followed the same logic in love and relationships. We definitely agreed that women are more likely to give themselves away in a relationship and thus suffer the most. They are more likely to abandon their own desires and dreams for their partners', and thus sacrifice their own development in the name of love. Etc..
However, our views diverged on monogamy. Not only had David disagreed with my view that "Men are Not monogamous by nature", but he was sincerely shocked that I was so set in my opinion on this.
He tried to ask me the same question in different ways to (I assume) get a different answer. "You don't believe there are men that are faithful?" "You don't believe that Love could last forever and ever?" "You don't believe that some men are more giving and loving than some women?" and so on and so on. My answer remained the same: "No, not by nature."
In the end, he said something that got me thinking about myself and my views. He said: "It's very pessimistic of you, Sasha, considering that you're writing a blog about love and yourself looking for true love".
No one had ever found me pessimistic before, in fact I had been consistently accused of being an unwavering optimist. So imagine my surprise. I even felt flattered to have finally been labeled pessimistic.
And then again, I thought about it and realized, No, I am not a pessimist, have never been and probably will never be. I simply found my Realistic Self. So Yes, Men are Not monogamous by nature. That's the truth and I accept it, not condemn it or complain about it. Men are not meant for "One and Only", and I acknowledge it. Doesn't mean I wish they were, but you can never go against the nature. Best accept it and use it to your benefit.
Being realistic about men might not be as romantic and hopeful as my Optimistic Self would believe but it certainly is wiser. And for many reasons. It will have me prepared and grounded if I am ever faced with infidelity in my life. It won't let me set unrealistic expectations of my partner and be crashed if they are not met. It won't let me stop working on my own growth and abandon myself for the partner that might walk out one day, and I would be left with nothing. It won't let me sacrifice my own desires and dreams and solely rely on him to make me happy. And most importantly it will never let me make him more important than my relationship with God. And that's how I know that no matter what happens in life, I will always be able to stand strong and with grace. I might still make mistakes and fall victim to my optimistic beliefs but my newly found Realistic Self is the one who runs with the wolves, and I can always rely on her to pick me up and set me free again.
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