Faults and Lessons Learnt

It's hard to admit our faults sometimes, and sometimes our faults is not listening to our guts and being lead on by what others call logic.

The way I see it:
If he likes you, he'll find a way to be there.
If he likes you, he won't be able to get enough of you.
If he likes you, he'd want to know you more.

I was told, it was not logical, he doesn't know me. Give him and give yourself time. Let it grow. You can't rush it. Even if he likes you, he doesn't know you well enough.

To me, liking someone should start like a storm, a big strong roar of thunder and then unstoppable rain. If there was no thunder, I learnt, that there's little point to wait for rain.

Love: Scientifically Calculated

This article on Business Insider claims to have discovered the formula for love. The formula, according to the article is clear, and I quote:

L = 8 + .5Y - .2P + .9Hm + .3Mf + J - .3G - .5(Sm - Sf)2 + I + 1.5C

L: The predicted length in years of the relationship

Y: The number of years the two people knew each other before the relationship became serious

P: The number of previous partners of both people added together

Hm: The importance the male partner attaches to honesty in the relationship

Mf : The importance the female attaches to money in the relationship

J: The importance both attach to humor (added together)

G: The importance both attach to good looks (added together)

Sm and Sf = The importance male and female attach to sex

I = The importance attached to having good in-laws (added together)

C= The importance attached to children in the relationship (added together)

Note: All 'importance' measures can be scaled from 1 to 5 where 1 is not important at all and 5 is very important.

Reading it, I honestly, doubt that this is "LOVE", I mean it's a good concept with a good calculation that would work possibly for a heartless marriage; can sort of be applied if you're looking for a roommate with benefits, if there is such a thing.

I think if I run this exercise with my closest male friend (regarding the value of sex, since I don't know how he feels I felt free to make an assumption), but anyway, I'd say if we run this formula we'd get 49 years or something. Why? Well, initially, we've known each other 17 years. You'd say 17 years, wow! But that's exactly the point.. if we hadn't clicked in 17 years, it means something; there is no chemistry, in other words, no LOVE. So what's a 49 year long relationship without love, right? I rest my case!

I think the "je ne sais quois" that makes love what it is,  is simply un-calculable. It's a feeling not a set of numbers, nor a scale. It's something beautiful but rare and despite what anyone else thinks, for me, a scientific calculation, no matter how sophisticated will not define or calculate love.

What do you think?

Misconceptions about Self

I'll start by giving you a piece of truth about myself.

I had always described myself as religious but not conservative. It was easy for me to make this assumption because:
A) I have very religious friends (and family), who I am comfortable around and noticed I adopt a lot of their religious point of views.
B) I have a number of non-religious, who'd fall under the radical/progressive-thinking category, whom I am also comfortable being around and do adopt many of their point of views
C) I do know some non religious but quite conservative people, who I don't necessarily like, am not comfortable around, nor enjoy their conversation, let alone point of views.
From there, I made a conclusion, that I am religious but not conservative, in the grand scheme of things.

The reason, I bring this up, is obviously, because it is important to me. I take religiousness/conservatism as some of my criteria for meeting/settling on my prince charming.

In theory, the perception we have of ourselves is fine, as long as it's getting you where you want in life. But, examining my choices of "potential beau" in the last few years, it hit me, that "hey, something's not right here". My choices don't reflect my perception of myself. So, a few weeks ago, I took a stand with myself, to investigate. And it hit me, I've made these perceptions a long time ago, things change, people change (i.e me), social circles change (i.e who i'm hanging out with), ...etc. Although, after examination, I still consider myself religious but not conservative, I think I fall lower on the religious scale now (say 2-3 out of 5, compared to 3-4 in the past) for many random reason that will take forever to explain, so I'll just skip. As for being conservative, I think I didn't change, the world did. No, honestly, the world did change, I mean with all the media that propagates profanity, alcohol use, sex, ..etc, people like me are now somewhere in the middle of the scale not on the side.

Regardless, the whole point of this post, is not to overload you with more details about me, but rather to walk you through my new self discovery.  I feel, now that I let go of some misconceptions about myself, it became easier for me, to identify my comfort zone.

Building on this whole religious/conservative thingie, I'm sort of/barely/kinda interested in this guy, but he is, actually, quite explicit with his flirting/joking. I thought I'd be really cool and comfortable. In my head, I was like, I dealt with way worse and came out the other side, right? But boy was I wrong. Apparently, there is a limit to everything. There was a point after which, I completely freaked out and panicked. I think I was so abrupt in the conversation, ended the conversation and sat awake in bed (way past my bedtime) thinking how the hell did this happen. I think the following day, I pulled myself together and pretended nothing happened. I am trying to reshape the conversation but I'm not sure how that will work out. I'll keep you posted how it goes.

The whole point of the long story is, I encourage everyone to stop every once in a while and re-validate the preconceptions they have of themselves. You will be shocked to figure out that some things that you took for granted are no longer valid. The questions then become, how are we going to deal with the new "us" and how does that change who we look to meet and how we act when we are around them. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

So, I end this post with a special thanks to Mr.K for helping me discover a little more about how far my comfort zone goes.

Another Blog, Why?!

Going through old blog posts, I discovered that most of the posts are about relationships or the lack of. But hey, that makes sense, I don't blog about work (mostly), my fashion choices (though I'd like to start a hijab fashion blog at some point, wishful thinking), I paused card-making and crafting (indefinitely.. well, maybe one day). I occasionally post music, events or food but mostly just men and the shit they do.

I came up with several assumption:
- I really have no clue how dating works, let alone relationships
- I don't understand men
- I, possibly, may have some misconceptions about myself and my preference
- I do not enjoy this current status anymore, and thus want to do something about it.

After examining the evidence carefully, I decided to start a new blog. Instead of just bitching and whining, I'll do something constructive. This blog documents my journey in trying to understand .a little about myself (and how I make things fail), a little about men (to me, they're not as simple as they claim), and a little about dating/relationships/love until I find *The One* and from there, possibly blog about making it work versus not.

N.B: I honestly hope this is useful to people not just me blowing some steam off. I will try to make it entertaining but if you find me going all research-y or scientific on you, bear with me. It's all for the common good!