(This post is adult rated and not to the faint of heart ; it has explicit content, profanity and a deep questioning of life, the universe and everything. Proceed at your own responsibility.)
The original idea of this post started by a conversation with R about my relationship-phobia. He said I should start blogging about an alternative me who lives in a different world with a different set of beliefs yet went through similar circumstances in life; perhaps a Swedish blonde. The only reason why we chose Swedish is just to say far away from me. I mean, if my looks and my beliefs affect who I really am, then maybe a Swedish blonde with blue eyes who is as far away from my religious beliefs would just be a good starting point. My point being, I have nothing special for or against Swedish people.
Anyway, before I begin my trail of thought with you, I'd like to differentiate between commitment-phobia and relationship-phobia. I think the later is an advanced stage of the first. Commitment-phobia (or fear of commitment), as defined in wikipedia is "avoidance of long-term partnership and/or marriage", while I would think that relationship-phobia is actually the fear of being a part of a relationship in the first place, even if short term.
My first thoughts on the matter was that had I been Viveca (my Swedish Alter-Ego), and had a different set of ethics and morals, I'd probably be the person who sleeps around with married men, so I get all the fancy dates, the emotional and physical connections but avoid the dependency and commitment issues. Yes, in other words , a slut. Now I know that sounds disgusting , bitter, twisted and even sick, but bear with me till the end of the post.
It actually took me a lot of strength to say the above, and the image of me doing that makes me, personally sick, but I had to question the idea, given that the entire last week , I've been seeing the weirdest things that force me to challenge that idea. So here are some of the things that happened, I think you'll find the reason why I needed to question:
1-Grey's Anatomy (you saw this coming, didn't you): the whole talk about infidelity, cheating, affairs, divorces, marriages, love, lost love, working out on a relationship that is obviously dead...etc.
2-An article I came across in my Insight magazine called "Affair-proof your marriage", which states that 60% of men and 40% of women have affairs in their marriage. Scary statistics!
3-Had a very interesting conversation with M about what would make someone get involved in an affair in the first place. Most of the reasons we could think of are , come to think of it, bullshit!
4 - A very unpredictable short conversation with A about polygamy. You'd never think that a progressive, male-female equality advocate would open that conversation, in the first place, let alone with a relatively conservative person like me.
5-A movie I wanted to see for a long time although I never read anything about the plot, and finally got a chance to, turns out to talk ,quite explicitly may I add, about affairs, marriage and sex.
6-Another random article at a magazine I came across , "We all cheat, but we're not all smart about it"
All the above, simply made me challenge my thoughts. If infidelity is so common, why do people still get committed? And if Viveca is a woman that 60% of married men admire, what happens to the poor wives of those 60%. And what kind of trust will exist between those couples after the guy meets Viveca? Or let me rephrase; can there be any trust, even if forgiveness exist? Can there be a relationship between a couple when one or both of them know the other is seeing Viveca. So basically, Viveca will be the slutty, home-wrecker, intimacy-ruiner, trust-breaker, potentially cause of unstable, emotionally messed up , vulnerable and un-trusting generation of children. As much as Viveca has a different code of ethics and religious veiws than I do, and as much as she doesn't care about the home-wrecker part, she can't possibly see herself, one day, responsible of a messed up generation of kids
Which brings me to the grande finale of my post, Once again I break my own rules of not talking about religion on this blog, I just want to say, I find myself grateful for being a relatively religious Muslim, for the rules Allah has kindly guided us to, actually save humanity. Imagine, that the above was real, that Viveca actually was someone we know, someone who would help every man with a midlife crisis cheat on his wife. And that Oleg (the male Viveca), steps in to every woman with a postpartum depression. Had that been the real world, it would have been a sad sad miserable place where humanity turns into a jungle where the strongest survives on the weaker blood. I'm proud to be a relatively religious ethical Muslim who would rather stay single, alone, and maybe even lonely than be a home-wrecker and a slutty bitch. End of the day, Alhamdulilah, I'm proud of who I turned out to be.
The original idea of this post started by a conversation with R about my relationship-phobia. He said I should start blogging about an alternative me who lives in a different world with a different set of beliefs yet went through similar circumstances in life; perhaps a Swedish blonde. The only reason why we chose Swedish is just to say far away from me. I mean, if my looks and my beliefs affect who I really am, then maybe a Swedish blonde with blue eyes who is as far away from my religious beliefs would just be a good starting point. My point being, I have nothing special for or against Swedish people.
Anyway, before I begin my trail of thought with you, I'd like to differentiate between commitment-phobia and relationship-phobia. I think the later is an advanced stage of the first. Commitment-phobia (or fear of commitment), as defined in wikipedia is "avoidance of long-term partnership and/or marriage", while I would think that relationship-phobia is actually the fear of being a part of a relationship in the first place, even if short term.
My first thoughts on the matter was that had I been Viveca (my Swedish Alter-Ego), and had a different set of ethics and morals, I'd probably be the person who sleeps around with married men, so I get all the fancy dates, the emotional and physical connections but avoid the dependency and commitment issues. Yes, in other words , a slut. Now I know that sounds disgusting , bitter, twisted and even sick, but bear with me till the end of the post.
It actually took me a lot of strength to say the above, and the image of me doing that makes me, personally sick, but I had to question the idea, given that the entire last week , I've been seeing the weirdest things that force me to challenge that idea. So here are some of the things that happened, I think you'll find the reason why I needed to question:
1-Grey's Anatomy (you saw this coming, didn't you): the whole talk about infidelity, cheating, affairs, divorces, marriages, love, lost love, working out on a relationship that is obviously dead...etc.
2-An article I came across in my Insight magazine called "Affair-proof your marriage", which states that 60% of men and 40% of women have affairs in their marriage. Scary statistics!
3-Had a very interesting conversation with M about what would make someone get involved in an affair in the first place. Most of the reasons we could think of are , come to think of it, bullshit!
4 - A very unpredictable short conversation with A about polygamy. You'd never think that a progressive, male-female equality advocate would open that conversation, in the first place, let alone with a relatively conservative person like me.
5-A movie I wanted to see for a long time although I never read anything about the plot, and finally got a chance to, turns out to talk ,quite explicitly may I add, about affairs, marriage and sex.
6-Another random article at a magazine I came across , "We all cheat, but we're not all smart about it"
All the above, simply made me challenge my thoughts. If infidelity is so common, why do people still get committed? And if Viveca is a woman that 60% of married men admire, what happens to the poor wives of those 60%. And what kind of trust will exist between those couples after the guy meets Viveca? Or let me rephrase; can there be any trust, even if forgiveness exist? Can there be a relationship between a couple when one or both of them know the other is seeing Viveca. So basically, Viveca will be the slutty, home-wrecker, intimacy-ruiner, trust-breaker, potentially cause of unstable, emotionally messed up , vulnerable and un-trusting generation of children. As much as Viveca has a different code of ethics and religious veiws than I do, and as much as she doesn't care about the home-wrecker part, she can't possibly see herself, one day, responsible of a messed up generation of kids
Which brings me to the grande finale of my post, Once again I break my own rules of not talking about religion on this blog, I just want to say, I find myself grateful for being a relatively religious Muslim, for the rules Allah has kindly guided us to, actually save humanity. Imagine, that the above was real, that Viveca actually was someone we know, someone who would help every man with a midlife crisis cheat on his wife. And that Oleg (the male Viveca), steps in to every woman with a postpartum depression. Had that been the real world, it would have been a sad sad miserable place where humanity turns into a jungle where the strongest survives on the weaker blood. I'm proud to be a relatively religious ethical Muslim who would rather stay single, alone, and maybe even lonely than be a home-wrecker and a slutty bitch. End of the day, Alhamdulilah, I'm proud of who I turned out to be.
Comments
Also, the whole post reminded me of a long conversation with an old friend who is very open-minded but he supports polygamy as a "solution" of the dramatically increased numbers of unfaithful relationships in the American society where he used to live. From my side, I'm convinced that polygamy is highly narrowed by a number of reasons that are fair enough in their own circumstances, so I was trying to tell him that cheating and unfaithful affairs abroad is not because polygamy is not allowed but because of the lack/absent of true love, trust, being responsible and fully committed. And that what I also understood from your post.
As for Grey's Anatomy, are we talking about love here?! no way. Although I'm addicted to Grey's Anatomy, I emotionally lost interest in tracking their affairs. I'd better concentrate on some other well-written stories in these episodes. If Grey's anatomy is reflecting their own Society then it is a disaster, they are all turning into animals or -i'd better respect animals and say- sex machines, but I really doubt this is the truth, it's no more than "mal7 we felfl" to increase their audience.
You know Zeww, if it's not about true love, trust and being faithful all the time so why bother ourselves looking/waiting for the one.
sorry for the long comment ;)
Awalan ... thanks for your comment, I appreciate it begad.
Thaneyan... I'd really love to have an offline discussion about the topic, I don't mind khales.
w akheeran... welcome aboard my blog.
@Nag,
hab2a 2a2olek 3ala gamb!
Bas what i REALLY like from your post is the quote
"We all cheat, but we're not all smart about it"
and umm .. i am like Nag, interested to know the film name :D