Posted 3/13/2010




I look at you, and I
remember how I used to be.

An experience that has defined my life at Brown so far was one that completely re-wired my perspective on relationships: Sex Power God. It’s okay. Laugh about it a bit—I don’t blame you. It sounds silly, given its reputation and all. But from what I can gather, most (if not all) of the people that I know to be in an existing relationship, or have had previous ones, haven’t had the moment I have been fortunate to encounter: an instant, gratifying sensation of having no fear, no insecurities—allow me to elaborate. 

I remember it clearly. The flashing of lights, the pounding of the bass. My body was like fire, and the music: gasoline. 

And there he was—that guy from my afternoon class. I didn’t really remember his name, but I figured what the hell, so I signal for him to come by. We start dancing. Stopped. Started dancing again. Stopped. 

Then something happened. We caught each other’s eyes, and for once in my worrying, complicated, disorganized mind, there was silence. I didn’t care what would happen the next day, whether we would be together, whether we wouldn’t, if we could be friends, etc. I wasn’t thinking about anything, and before I knew it, our lips touched. 

Usually in situations involving making the “1st move” in a relationship, a kind of overwhelming tension exists: What if when I execute action A, they’ll reject me and there would be awkwardness? How do I know if they want it, too? And before anything is done, this push pull anxiety floods our heads. Sometimes we get lucky, and the risks we take are met with mutual gratification. And sometimes, we don’t; nothing happens, and we act like everything’s just how it should be, despite that body language obviously says otherwise. 

But everything in that moment unexpectedly clicked. We didn’t even say a word. It was almost as if I could tangibly feel that he wanted the exact same thing as I did (and vice versa), and it was amazing. 
Afterwards we became friends, and we have no negative feelings towards the event. 

It then occurred to me that things don’t have to be as planned and carefully thought out as most think it should be. 

I look at you—people like you, and I
remember how I used to be:

structured and rigid—my perspectives on relationships followed the stereotypical “friends first, see what happens later” guideline. I thought that if I followed those principles of conduct, it would be pretty simple to get into a relationship. After all, they always say that best friends can make the best lovers. 

But having a kind of strict guideline or perspective on how to meet other people can actually limit the kinds of encounters most hope for in the first place. 

If we enter a setting with a preconceived notion of how we want things to happen, when another opportunity presents itself, it could be overlooked. 

This concept is pretty obvious for most of us, but why is it still so hard to take a chance with someone new? Furthermore, I’m sure we’ve all heard of what can occur if we remain open—without expectation—in a social setting:

“We met unexpectedly at a party, started talking, seemed nice—before I knew it we were meeting weekly for coffee on Thayer, and now we’re in a relationship.”

It sounds simple. Disappointingly enough, however, it’s an arduous task that requires great effort. 

In a world full of disorder and limitless knowledge, information, possibilities, etc. one of the ways we keep ourselves grounded in this reality is that we reduce the scope of our focus and efforts: we choose specific, small dimensions in which to exert our time and energy towards. This can be seen in the close group of friends that we spend with 90% of the time throughout the year, range of extracurricular activities, and even down to our very own concentration of study. We specifically choose aspects of this world to be passionate about—even lovers. 

This can account for the reduced likelihood of meeting someone new, or encountering a new social situation for it to occur. Dimensions of relationships takes into account various sociological factors in determining the difficulty of maintaining a relationship with another ranging from beliefs, social class, culture, occupation, etc. But one of the very basic, difficult factors involves that of daily time spent with each other. And the very things that we have chosen to focus on in this world—our close group of friends, extracurriculars, can easily get in the way. 


It doesn’t make it impossible, it just makes it harder. 

It’s so easy to stay within the comforts of what you know, that before you realize it, you very rarely get acquainted with and meet new people throughout the year because of these very factors. 

It makes me sad. 

Because everyone you walk by on your way to class—the unexpected meeting of eyes, the accidental bump-in when walking around, or the very people that just so happen to be sitting next to you—anyone and everyone around us has that potential to change our lives, and vice versa. 

And yet.

There are over six thousand people on campus, and chances are that we’ll only get to meet and become acquainted with a little under four hundred of them by the time we graduate. 

I’m not trying to sound unreasonable, I’m just trying to realize the absurdity of the situation. With the right effort, a chance encounter could be an amazing friendship—or even more. But why does it rarely happen?

“We’re all scared,” says my friend Yun. 

I guess it’s true. It’s natural for everyone to fear rejection, I suppose. 

“Sometimes, people get so emotionally invested in a possibility, that they end up getting too scared to do anything,” says Amed. 

A lot of people just make it so complicated—and I’m also one to be guilty of that. 
Sometimes, when we actually do run into someone that we would like to get to know, we go too far in imagining the possibilities. We build up our hopes, our plans, 

our expectations.

And as a result we get scared to take risks—because the expectations we’ve built for the situation are too high, and if they aren’t met, we experience anxiety. And no one wants that.

I look at you—people like you, and I
remember how I used to be.

Or so I thought. 

Since then, I’ve been trying to live my life free from expectation. To live without a preconceived notion of how I want things to go—and it was nice, just having that mindset of “anything can happen, and if it doesn’t, that’s okay”. You remain open to the possibilities. And if you meet someone new, you don’t end up getting emotionally invested in the situation: “Oh, I really hope they like me and we end up in a relationship,” etc. But rather, it ends up being, “They seem really nice. Maybe we’ll end up in a relationship, maybe we’ll just be friends—that’s okay. Whatever happens, happens, and that’s that.” 

See the difference? I hope I made it clear. 

Furthermore, I feel with this new mindset—due to the absence of high expectation—that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to get into a relationship. 

Sometimes it starts off at a slow pace, you get to know each other bit by bit, and then if things work out alright, you’ll be in a relationship. 

But it can also work backwards: Maybe you two end up meeting one night, sparks fly, and you end up having sex. Then you end up in relationship afterwards, and it’s awesome. 

I know a couple like that, and they are one of the cutest, fun-loving couples that I know to date. 

The point of this is, is that there is no linear, directional mode of procedure, remaining open without expectation involves the absence of this kind of mindset. Things happen, mostly by accident, and if you’re fortunate enough it could end up resulting in a rewarding experience.

Granted, however, one method seems to be more acceptable than the other.
But I don’t like labeling things as “right” or “wrong”. As influenced by my Sociology professor, it reflects an objective societal bias, or a subjective, personal bias. It would be wiser to label things as “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Deciding to have sex with someone you’ve just met isn’t wrong; it’s just that this method, compared to others, is rather unhealthy in the sense that it could bring about a complicated, messy situation. 

No one method is “right”, or “wrong”. Many things can lead to a relationship. 

Lately, however, I’ve been finding that I’m losing this mindset of no expectation. I’ve been regressing back towards the unnecessary, emotional investing.

I guess it’s because it’s easy.

It’s nice, knowing how you want things to happen, how you hope the situation would turn out. Because when it actually does go according to plan, it feels amazing. And I feel that’s what everyone kind of hopes for: for things to go the way you want them to. I guess it’s because it allows us to feel like we have more control in this world. 

But imagine how much easier dating would be if we didn’t have such heavy emotional investment; such high expectations for the situation. 

I find it terribly ironic that an institution characterized by liberal thinking has such a poor dating life. 

You’d figure otherwise, right?

Me too.

Maybe I could be wrong about all of this, and it’s just me. 
Maybe I have this perspective because I’m not considered “generally attractive”. 
Or maybe I’m just a hypocrite. 

All I know is that I try so hard to just wait for the world to put something in my hands that I forget to extend my arms and reach out for it. 

But does it work? 



Maybe one day, you can tell me.
Maybe you won’t ever be able to. 

Maybe one day, I’ll figure this out for myself. 




Maybe I never will.





Cheers, 

Dubby