Steven Hunley
06-25-2015, 10:17 PM
Triangles
A triangle is a three-person relationship system. It is considered the building block or “molecule” of larger emotional systems because a triangle is the smallest stable relationship system. A two-person system is unstable because it tolerates little tension before involving a third person. A triangle can contain much more tension without involving another person because the tension can shift around three relationships.-Murray Bowen
When you get a tap on your shoulder at three AM and it isn’t for hot monkey love, you know you got trouble.
“Which one of us were you most attracted to at the very beginning? Me… or that witch?”
“What?”
I said it all stupid-like, as if I were Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies. Drew the vowel sounds out for all they were worth. I didn’t need to squint my eyes, I already couldn’t see sh*t-like I said, it was three AM.
“What was I wearing when you first met me?”
Again, the ‘what?”
“I mean, she was wearing high heels and a blue dress.”
This is getting stranger by the minute. Madam X, who we now label with a more appropriate name-Venom, was wearing a blue dress when we met, and high heels, but I’m so sleepy it doesn’t dawn on me yet that we’ve never discussed it.
At this point I don’t know what this is about, but I decide to be honest. I know my true-love woman likes me to be honest, so I say,
“I don’t remember what you were wearing.”
She was sitting on the bed up to this point… but now she gets up.
“I knew it, I just knew it. I’ve had it,” and gives out a great huff, like the Big Bad Wolf in The Three Little Pigs.
The words are confused but the tone is quite clear. She’s pissed about something.
“What’s the matter?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went in the kitchen, made Chai tea and opened a box of animal crackers. Then I sat on the leather couch and went on Litnet to read some of your stories. You can find out a lot about a person by reading their stories."
“Oh, Jeez,” I’m thinkin’. “This is the part when the sh*t hits the fan. I can smell it coming.”
“And the bath. The tea-candles all around the tub. None of it was genuine, nothing, nothing new.”
“You read “The Bath” and what else?”
“Everything else. "Close Encounter” too.”
“The train-ride north, no one was there, it was dark out, poor dear! The she appears in a puff of exhaust. “Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with the blue dress on. The one with the plunging cleavage."
“Darling, she was really flat as a tortilla. I inflated her topography to voluptuous curves. Only you have the cleavage I crave.”
Now I’m getting uncomfortable. I didn’t plan to have it happen this way. She’s looking on my Litnet back pages and finding old stories. I’m in an awkward position and my past is about to haunt me, and bite me on my bottom. And to make it worse, she looks sad.
“I mean, I go on Litnet to read a few stories and I find these. I can’t do this anymore.”
This sounds ominous. I don’t like the direction this conversation is going.
“With me the beginning was slow, a spark became an ember, then a fire, but with her it was like this!”
My celestial partner snapped her fingers, “Right off!”
“Uh-oh,” I figure, “This is going to get ugly.''
“But I explained she was a long-distance relationship. The seriousness of the situation was magnified with all the comings and goings. I was more in love with love than in love with her.”
“That’s just an excuse. I can’t sleep and decide to have a reading adventure and it turns into an S and M experience. I can’t do this anymore.”
Nothing I say is right. Nothing will please her. So I get defensive and jump out of bed and begin pacing. Offence is the best defense in cases like this.
“You’re the one looking for an excuse to bail out of this relationship,” I wail.
She ignores me. I hate it when she ignores me. I learned how to be a hater from her, the dramatic fool. Sometimes I want to bite off her head. She acts as if she’s on a different track.
“Why are you such a liar? You even lie to yourself.”
I’m nervous as all get-out and she’s agitated like crazy. The tension builds and builds, events coil tighter and tighter. At this point you need a rock-saw to slice it.
“And the name Babygirl. You called her Babygirl, too. How many times did you call her Babygirl? I told you my father called me Babygirl.”
I wasn’t sure what it would take, but decided my woman deserved a grand gesture to assure her she was the only woman in my life, and that she was never second best. She got this second best impression on Lit Net. She’d read all the old stories concerning Venom, our pet name for a woman I’d known earlier who lied and then dumped me…twice. They were written when I was exercising my theory that writing, as a form of communication, but without body language and gestures, was poor communication and lacking. Therefore, the writing should always be over the top.
“With you and her,” she told me, "it was like this!” She snapped her fingers, then continued.
“But with you and me, it was first a glow and then a spark and finally a conflagration. Why was she so different?”
“I exaggerated. It was a long-distance relationship with dozens of comings and goings artificially inflated with drama.”
It was a weak explanation. I was embarrassed to discuss the relationship because I was uncomfortable when admitting my lack of judgment about Venom’s true character. It was one of those “I don’t want to talk about it” things. I still hadn’t learned my lesson, which was that her dumping me was the best thing that ever happened because it led to the love of my life, my true Babygirl.
“You have to stop calling me Babygirl,” she said, while she was putting on her face and getting ready for work. In was in her personal Versailles hall of Mirrors, and I was caught with my pants down out in the open. I was putting on Wrangler shorts from Wallmart while she was applying Chanel from Neiman Markus.
“What?”
“And not just in the stories, I read in the letters you called Venom, Babygirl. You called her that in letter after letter.”
Again the Babygirl bit. It was shredding us.
“Yes, Babygirl, but I just called her that after running out of terms of endearment.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, there was Darling, Dear and Baby. Sometimes I called her Honey. I called Kristina Honey too. I like the term Honey.”
“Yeah, I know. You call me that too.”
There’s a tone in her voice and it’s leaving me puzzled. It drives me mad when she does this. Simply mad, I tell you, Victor Frankenstein mad, because I know something’s coming if I don’t nip it in the bud before it blossoms. So I get out my repair sheers and slice a sweet one but temper it with fire.
“There was Babygirl simply because I watched Criminal Minds at the time and stole it. Some agent would use when he talked to this computer-geek fat girl. It wasn’t really Venom’s name. But it really was your name, one your father used. So I’m still calling you that and you’ll have to get used to it.”
By this time I’m cinching up my imitation army web belt and pulling down the X large red T shirt from the Upper Peninsula she got me. It says, “The UP, where them that don’t survive are Eaten.” I gave her a long hard look.
“You’re worthy.”
Then I give her another long hard look and allow her to watch my wheels turn. She is worthy, supremely worthy, and Venom lacked even understanding the meaning. My woman was prettier, a better mother, more of a scholar, a harder worker who saw potential in me where Venom only saw limitations and faults. She was worthy of my service in true Cavalier fashion, and worthy once again, of my love. Her character was sterling. With her I felt better about myself and about my future.
Just now she was putting in contacts, all the better to see my potential with. She looked up.
“OK, you can still call me Babygirl,”she said demurely, and put my heart to rest. I was relieved. I had already ordered the ring.
I sighed what they referred to in penny dreadfulls as a ‘sigh of relief’. The ring would be engraved. And my pitiful rag-tag life would be engraved in platinum by this woman, once and forever, once, and for better. I adored her.
“We all make mistakes,” my good woman told me, “to err is human. Your last mistake is your greatest mentor.”
“I’m embarrassed about my lack of judgment,” I replied sheepishly.
“Don’t be ashamed. Wear it as a badge of pride-lessons learned.”
“Well, I’d like to think I’m more mature now,”
“Look at it this way. You’ve aged like fine wine and improved your taste.”
I like her attitude about this, it’s so positive and all. And besides, this is the real me talking now, the fella with boundless enthusiasm.
“I’ll be damned if I make any more mistakes.”
My good woman gave me one of her trade-mark therapist looks and gently objected.
“Oh no! You’re going to make plenty of mistakes, and when you do, you’ll be blessed. Your last mistake is your best mentor. Every mistake has hidden in it the opportunity to grow. That’s why perfectionism sucks. Perfectionism screams 'like me because I don’t like myself', but it’s a fake posture. Instead, allow yourself to be human and embrace your mistakes.”
Who wouldn’t love a woman who so understands her man and gives both of us permission to be human?
Nobody but me, and all the other men on the face of the planet who have their heads screwed on straight, that’s who.
İStevenHunley2015
https://youtu.be/48EOgmjGsUI The Bargain
A triangle is a three-person relationship system. It is considered the building block or “molecule” of larger emotional systems because a triangle is the smallest stable relationship system. A two-person system is unstable because it tolerates little tension before involving a third person. A triangle can contain much more tension without involving another person because the tension can shift around three relationships.-Murray Bowen
When you get a tap on your shoulder at three AM and it isn’t for hot monkey love, you know you got trouble.
“Which one of us were you most attracted to at the very beginning? Me… or that witch?”
“What?”
I said it all stupid-like, as if I were Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies. Drew the vowel sounds out for all they were worth. I didn’t need to squint my eyes, I already couldn’t see sh*t-like I said, it was three AM.
“What was I wearing when you first met me?”
Again, the ‘what?”
“I mean, she was wearing high heels and a blue dress.”
This is getting stranger by the minute. Madam X, who we now label with a more appropriate name-Venom, was wearing a blue dress when we met, and high heels, but I’m so sleepy it doesn’t dawn on me yet that we’ve never discussed it.
At this point I don’t know what this is about, but I decide to be honest. I know my true-love woman likes me to be honest, so I say,
“I don’t remember what you were wearing.”
She was sitting on the bed up to this point… but now she gets up.
“I knew it, I just knew it. I’ve had it,” and gives out a great huff, like the Big Bad Wolf in The Three Little Pigs.
The words are confused but the tone is quite clear. She’s pissed about something.
“What’s the matter?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went in the kitchen, made Chai tea and opened a box of animal crackers. Then I sat on the leather couch and went on Litnet to read some of your stories. You can find out a lot about a person by reading their stories."
“Oh, Jeez,” I’m thinkin’. “This is the part when the sh*t hits the fan. I can smell it coming.”
“And the bath. The tea-candles all around the tub. None of it was genuine, nothing, nothing new.”
“You read “The Bath” and what else?”
“Everything else. "Close Encounter” too.”
“The train-ride north, no one was there, it was dark out, poor dear! The she appears in a puff of exhaust. “Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with the blue dress on. The one with the plunging cleavage."
“Darling, she was really flat as a tortilla. I inflated her topography to voluptuous curves. Only you have the cleavage I crave.”
Now I’m getting uncomfortable. I didn’t plan to have it happen this way. She’s looking on my Litnet back pages and finding old stories. I’m in an awkward position and my past is about to haunt me, and bite me on my bottom. And to make it worse, she looks sad.
“I mean, I go on Litnet to read a few stories and I find these. I can’t do this anymore.”
This sounds ominous. I don’t like the direction this conversation is going.
“With me the beginning was slow, a spark became an ember, then a fire, but with her it was like this!”
My celestial partner snapped her fingers, “Right off!”
“Uh-oh,” I figure, “This is going to get ugly.''
“But I explained she was a long-distance relationship. The seriousness of the situation was magnified with all the comings and goings. I was more in love with love than in love with her.”
“That’s just an excuse. I can’t sleep and decide to have a reading adventure and it turns into an S and M experience. I can’t do this anymore.”
Nothing I say is right. Nothing will please her. So I get defensive and jump out of bed and begin pacing. Offence is the best defense in cases like this.
“You’re the one looking for an excuse to bail out of this relationship,” I wail.
She ignores me. I hate it when she ignores me. I learned how to be a hater from her, the dramatic fool. Sometimes I want to bite off her head. She acts as if she’s on a different track.
“Why are you such a liar? You even lie to yourself.”
I’m nervous as all get-out and she’s agitated like crazy. The tension builds and builds, events coil tighter and tighter. At this point you need a rock-saw to slice it.
“And the name Babygirl. You called her Babygirl, too. How many times did you call her Babygirl? I told you my father called me Babygirl.”
I wasn’t sure what it would take, but decided my woman deserved a grand gesture to assure her she was the only woman in my life, and that she was never second best. She got this second best impression on Lit Net. She’d read all the old stories concerning Venom, our pet name for a woman I’d known earlier who lied and then dumped me…twice. They were written when I was exercising my theory that writing, as a form of communication, but without body language and gestures, was poor communication and lacking. Therefore, the writing should always be over the top.
“With you and her,” she told me, "it was like this!” She snapped her fingers, then continued.
“But with you and me, it was first a glow and then a spark and finally a conflagration. Why was she so different?”
“I exaggerated. It was a long-distance relationship with dozens of comings and goings artificially inflated with drama.”
It was a weak explanation. I was embarrassed to discuss the relationship because I was uncomfortable when admitting my lack of judgment about Venom’s true character. It was one of those “I don’t want to talk about it” things. I still hadn’t learned my lesson, which was that her dumping me was the best thing that ever happened because it led to the love of my life, my true Babygirl.
“You have to stop calling me Babygirl,” she said, while she was putting on her face and getting ready for work. In was in her personal Versailles hall of Mirrors, and I was caught with my pants down out in the open. I was putting on Wrangler shorts from Wallmart while she was applying Chanel from Neiman Markus.
“What?”
“And not just in the stories, I read in the letters you called Venom, Babygirl. You called her that in letter after letter.”
Again the Babygirl bit. It was shredding us.
“Yes, Babygirl, but I just called her that after running out of terms of endearment.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, there was Darling, Dear and Baby. Sometimes I called her Honey. I called Kristina Honey too. I like the term Honey.”
“Yeah, I know. You call me that too.”
There’s a tone in her voice and it’s leaving me puzzled. It drives me mad when she does this. Simply mad, I tell you, Victor Frankenstein mad, because I know something’s coming if I don’t nip it in the bud before it blossoms. So I get out my repair sheers and slice a sweet one but temper it with fire.
“There was Babygirl simply because I watched Criminal Minds at the time and stole it. Some agent would use when he talked to this computer-geek fat girl. It wasn’t really Venom’s name. But it really was your name, one your father used. So I’m still calling you that and you’ll have to get used to it.”
By this time I’m cinching up my imitation army web belt and pulling down the X large red T shirt from the Upper Peninsula she got me. It says, “The UP, where them that don’t survive are Eaten.” I gave her a long hard look.
“You’re worthy.”
Then I give her another long hard look and allow her to watch my wheels turn. She is worthy, supremely worthy, and Venom lacked even understanding the meaning. My woman was prettier, a better mother, more of a scholar, a harder worker who saw potential in me where Venom only saw limitations and faults. She was worthy of my service in true Cavalier fashion, and worthy once again, of my love. Her character was sterling. With her I felt better about myself and about my future.
Just now she was putting in contacts, all the better to see my potential with. She looked up.
“OK, you can still call me Babygirl,”she said demurely, and put my heart to rest. I was relieved. I had already ordered the ring.
I sighed what they referred to in penny dreadfulls as a ‘sigh of relief’. The ring would be engraved. And my pitiful rag-tag life would be engraved in platinum by this woman, once and forever, once, and for better. I adored her.
“We all make mistakes,” my good woman told me, “to err is human. Your last mistake is your greatest mentor.”
“I’m embarrassed about my lack of judgment,” I replied sheepishly.
“Don’t be ashamed. Wear it as a badge of pride-lessons learned.”
“Well, I’d like to think I’m more mature now,”
“Look at it this way. You’ve aged like fine wine and improved your taste.”
I like her attitude about this, it’s so positive and all. And besides, this is the real me talking now, the fella with boundless enthusiasm.
“I’ll be damned if I make any more mistakes.”
My good woman gave me one of her trade-mark therapist looks and gently objected.
“Oh no! You’re going to make plenty of mistakes, and when you do, you’ll be blessed. Your last mistake is your best mentor. Every mistake has hidden in it the opportunity to grow. That’s why perfectionism sucks. Perfectionism screams 'like me because I don’t like myself', but it’s a fake posture. Instead, allow yourself to be human and embrace your mistakes.”
Who wouldn’t love a woman who so understands her man and gives both of us permission to be human?
Nobody but me, and all the other men on the face of the planet who have their heads screwed on straight, that’s who.
İStevenHunley2015
https://youtu.be/48EOgmjGsUI The Bargain