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All in Dating & Relationships
Like many other people in the last couple of years, I started taking PrEP — the daily pill that lowers one’s risk of getting HIV. Since it’s a new drug, I’ve been keeping up with the news and controversy surrounding it, and there’s been a lot. Perhaps most troubling to me, though, is the rise of PrEP haters. So, I thought I’d give everyone a handy guide on how to react when your hookup tells you they’re on PrEP.
The man I married and I were once very in love. We were once very sexual. Hell, we were at one point even mutually financially stable. And if all of those pieces had stayed in place, we might have had a fighting chance. And I stress “might.” There is no winning formula for a lasting, happy relationship, but there are myriad formulae for doomed, unhappy ones.
So, ask yourself these questions:
I remember designing and ordering the invitations. And then I remember never being happy in our relationship again. It wasn’t a magical switch; planning the wedding didn’t make us unhappy, but getting married didn’t make us happy, either.
In the past week, I’ve written somewhere near 3,000 words on defensiveness. It was a thorough and thoughtful collection of blogs, but frankly that’s far too damn much to read for most people – me included. So, for myself and the rest of those who want to get digestible info quick, here’s everything you really need to know about defensiveness.
Normally, we get a first-hand look at defensiveness when we’re fighting or when you’re given a critique. You can stop yourself in the moment, but it’ll be easier if you know it’s coming and how to deal with it.
It’s fine to recognize your defensiveness or someone else’s, but unless you actually work on it, you’re not going to make any progress. It can be difficult but it’s not impossible.
People love to make declarative statements, like these: “White people suck,” “Men are rapists,” “Beck deserved the Album of the Year Grammy.” While saying these things makes it easy for you to share your thoughts, they’re kind of useless if you want to have a discussion that goes somewhere other than into a shouting match.
Asking questions instead of making statements is one major way to avoid arguments, spend less time dealing with stupid problems and make yourself much more likable. Here’s a few reasons why.
Fact is, most of the time when we talk, we don’t choose every single word that comes out of our mouths — that would take way to much damn work, and I got shit to do today. So we tend use a lot of code words, common sayings and other thoughtless words to get our points across.
When it comes to an argument, critique or other difficult conversation, thoughtless usually equals asshole-ish, rude and defensive. Here are a few of those code words, sayings and other thoughtless statements you need to remove from your dictionary.
At some point we all get a little defensive, but how we do it is different. Some people are in your face with it, others simply stay quiet and annoying – passive versus active. Either way, most of time, is a ninja with skill levels far over 9000.
It’s a beast but kicking defensiveness’ ass isn’t so hard. Its key weakness is that it’s only really effective when you don’t know it’s there. Luckily, it’s also kind of stupid, illogical, repetitive and leaves footprints everywhere.
Defensiveness is probably the biggest cause of “disagreements.” It’s an insidious little fucker who’ll drop into a conversation silently and try to disrupt any plans you had for a productive situation. If you let it stay around, it will accomplish its goal and probably make things worse for a long time after.
Luckily, you don’t have to concede defeat to that asshole. You can kick defensiveness’ ass. Although it’s pretty easy to learn how, be forewarned that it takes a lot of practice and understanding.
