Being In Love Vs. Loving And Other Very Fine Lines

Being In Love/Loving

I fell in love with Snickers bars once. I bought and ate one every day for a month straight — then eventually my feelings faded. The chocolate, caramel, nougat and nuts were growing boring – and almost made me feel sick. One day I decided I didn’t want them anymore. I was over my Snickers phase. Butterfingers I love. Always have, always will. That’ll never change – no matter how many I eat. Obviously candy isn’t the same as actual people – but edibles are something I’m passionate about, so I used them as an example.

Being “in love” with a person means that you can fall out of love with them. We can grow impatient and sick of their ways, resulting in us wanting something new. Then there are those who we love. The people who will push our buttons, aggravate us and we’ll even have serious conflict with – but at the end of the day, we love them. Consider an argument with your sibling, parents – or someone you genuinely, unconditionally love. No heated exchange or conflict is going to alter your deepest feelings. Maybe in a moment you’re dissatisfied with them, but the love remains. With love, we can be in and fall out — but once we really do, we always will.

Having A Boyfriend Or Girlfriend/Having A Boy Friend or Girl Friend

This is a touchy topic for many couples, because nobody wants to come off as jealous or paranoid – but it’s not always comfortable seeing your significant other so close to a member of the opposite sex. It probably has something to do with assumptions and the preconceived notion that every female and male friendship is full of sexual tension, or the two have ulterior motives and secretly want (or are having) each other.

In a perfect world, we trust our lover and have enough faith in them to know that their friendship is platonic. We don’t live in a perfect world. On this chaotic mess of a planet full of untrustworthy, deceitful cheaters – trust is hard to come by. After you’ve witnessed a significant amount of dishonesty and betrayal, it’s natural to proceed with caution when your man or woman is close to a person the other gender.

Exaggerators/Liars

Pretty much everyone with a functioning voice box has spoken words that are complete overstatements. For the sake of story telling, these hyperboles provide a more intriguing visual, and often make things sound cooler. Typically here’s how it goes for me:

I see five or six dudes get into a scuffle at the bar. They have a shoving match, one or two punches are thrown, they wrestle momentarily, bouncers separate them and that’s it. But when someone asks me what happened…

I say “Oh my, God – it was cuh-ray-zee! It looked like a WWE Royal Rumble. At least ten guys were going at it; punches to the face, kicks to the chest, steel chairs to the head — it was insane!”

It’s almost natural to make slight exaggerations from time to time – but that’s far different from being a full-blown liar. Compulsive fibbers make things up continuously — doing so when it’s unnecessary. Not white lies or fabrications for the sake of others’ feelings – we’re talking pathological individuals who lie about what they own, what they’ve done, where they’ve been and where they’re going. There’s no need to say that you’ve flown on a buddies’ private jet for a fancy dinner in France – not only is it farfetched but when everyone knows you’re lying, it’s just uncomfortably awkward.

Confident/Cocky

Being poised and sure of oneself is what most are striving for. Low self-esteem isn’t typically appealing, and we’d all like to be the cool, self-assured type. There’s something admirable about a person who is comfortable in his or her own skin — that being said, there’s a point where it surpasses confidence, and wanders into the land of cockiness. When a person treats others as subpar human beings and vocalizes how magnificent they are at life, it becomes an ugly characteristic to possess. It’s important to believe in yourself, but don’t believe your own hype.

Competitive/Poor Sport

Those who take pleasure in competing can be very spirited individuals. The walk to the car is a race, throwing trash away turns into a paper ball wastebasket shooting competition, etc. It’s fine and dandy to want to win at stuff, but when you make everything a competition, you’ve got to be prepared to lose occasionally. Don’t be that person who sucks the pleasure out of a friendly game of basketball by angrily throwing the ball, or ruins bowling night, cursing out the pins – then tries to justify it by claiming you’re just “being competitive.” That’s better known as a sore loser. In all likelihood, you turned it into a serious challenge to begin with, instead of enjoying a casual game – so take your losses in stride. Not only do poor sports reek of immaturity – but they’re challenging to have a good time around.  Trust me, I’ve been guilty of poor sportsmanship on numerous occasions. Everything from angrily dropping (not throwing — dropping) videogame controllers to questioning the integrity (not whining and calling them ‘cheaters’ – questioning the integrity) of opponents who defeated me.