9 Jan 12: Accept yourself

[Davidj]

[ To be brief if Helen put her mind to it she could've been an equal partner with Karen and her gang.

Since Helen's only motivation is needing someone to follow, no she couldn't. She could have filled what Karen intended to be Cyndi's slot, except that Cyndi's role was to be just cool enough to be the bottom of Penny's totem pole, and Helen couldn't manage that.

[JerrBear]

http://sadkeanu.com/

I thought Lisa was talking about the end of Sweet November at first.

As for Stan, from watching my sister try the FWB dynamic with guys, he's making the same mistake those assholes made: pushing for a relationship when the other person doesn't want to. FWB can be fun (been there, done that myself). However, it can get complicated fast if boundaries aren't set, or if they are set and one person continuously tries to cross them. Add that Lisa and Stan are trying this long distance (AFAIK), and you have a clusterfuck of complications.

[oenone]

Especially when it's boundary crossing with no exceptations of reciprocity. Like, seriously, you wanna bust out with "boyfriend" in the same convo you're asking for "permission" to act like you're single?

1. What a dick move -- if Stan feels guilty about acting like he's single, he's the one with a problem w. FWB, not Lisa. How childish to ask for permission and for her to assuage his guilt.

2. How manipulative/presumptuous to keep pushing a pre-negotiated and long established boundary.

[JerrBear]

Especially when it's boundary crossing with no exceptations of reciprocity. Like, seriously, you wanna bust out with "boyfriend" in the same convo you're asking for "permission" to act like you're single?

1. What a dick move -- if Stan feels guilty about acting like he's single, he's the one with a problem w. FWB, not Lisa. How childish to ask for permission and for her to assuage his guilt.

2. How manipulative/presumptuous to keep pushing a pre-negotiated and long established boundary.

True there, conflicting indeed.

[Mung]

FWB always ends up having one or the other assume boundaries that the other didn't agree to. Whatever that means under whatever boundaries they have established. Like all human relationships, it's in constant flux, but FWB is a hard balancing act to maintain - made harder by its unorthodoxy in the eyes of others.
Inevitably, BOTH parties come away feeling confused and aggrieved.
Maintaining a relationship for a long time (enough to be measured in years rather than months) requires some commitment to the relationship - the very thing an FWB relationship is side-stepping. Now if BOTH are committed to the FRIENDSHIP, that friendship can last forever, but the benefits part will have to be sacrificed for longer and shorter stretches from time to time to do that. So you could have a constant friendship with on-again/off-again benefits, but a strict FWB relationship has a limited shelf life.

[oenone]

I bet Stan has a really complicated relationship with his mom -- he's basically trying to cajole Lisa into giving him permission to play video games instead of eating his broccoli.

[Ollie]

I bet Stan has a really complicated relationship with his mom -- he's basically trying to cajole Lisa into giving him permission to play video games instead of eating his broccoli.

Actually, T once mentioned he has a great relationship with his mother, and that's the source for why he could never do things to intentionally hurt a woman.

[brasca]

[ To be brief if Helen put her mind to it she could've been an equal partner with Karen and her gang.

Since Helen's only motivation is needing someone to follow, no she couldn't. She could have filled what Karen intended to be Cyndi's slot, except that Cyndi's role was to be just cool enough to be the bottom of Penny's totem pole, and Helen couldn't manage that.

Like I said before she has the ability just not the inclination to trample on people to get what she wants. She could've traded on information and come up with a better lie when everything fell through, but that requires someone who knowingly plots to betray someone instead of just reacting to the situation in a panic. It's fun to imagine what you could do if you were amoral and diabolical, but it's an entirely different thing to actually do those things. Cyndi could without hesitation, Stan would think it over, and Helen would ultimately choke.

[sun tzu]

[ To be brief if Helen put her mind to it she could've been an equal partner with Karen and her gang.

Since Helen's only motivation is needing someone to follow, no she couldn't. She could have filled what Karen intended to be Cyndi's slot, except that Cyndi's role was to be just cool enough to be the bottom of Penny's totem pole, and Helen couldn't manage that.

Like I said before she has the ability just not the inclination to trample on people to get what she wants. She could've traded on information and come up with a better lie when everything fell through, but that requires someone who knowingly plots to betray someone instead of just reacting to the situation in a panic. It's fun to imagine what you could do if you were amoral and diabolical, but it's an entirely different thing to actually do those things. Cyndi could without hesitation, Stan would think it over, and Helen would ultimately choke.

Or simply half-ass it.
Helen can be malicious. Just not competent or driven.

[Mung]

I typed Sara Kim into Google Translator and got : 사라 김
Of course, technically, it should be Kim Sara, 김 사라

I think it comes out rather pretty.

<linguistics nerd>Hangul is actually a very cool writing system.</linguistics nerd>

As linguistics go, my passion is really orthography (writing/spelling), but that's not really divorceable from the rest of the study.

[JerrBear]

FWB always ends up having one or the other assume boundaries that the other didn't agree to. Whatever that means under whatever boundaries they have established. Like all human relationships, it's in constant flux, but FWB is a hard balancing act to maintain - made harder by its unorthodoxy in the eyes of others.
Inevitably, BOTH parties come away feeling confused and aggrieved.
Maintaining a relationship for a long time (enough to be measured in years rather than months) requires some commitment to the relationship - the very thing an FWB relationship is side-stepping. Now if BOTH are committed to the FRIENDSHIP, that friendship can last forever, but the benefits part will have to be sacrificed for longer and shorter stretches from time to time to do that. So you could have a constant friendship with on-again/off-again benefits, but a strict FWB relationship has a limited shelf life.

The one FWB I have/had doesn't last long as FWB. He tends to get a boyfriend right away after we start up again, lol!

[thebitterfig]

Part of me thinks this is a "Where do we stand: FWB who sleep around, or BF/GF who might flirt a little but go home alone?" sort of conversation which got off on completely the wrong foot. It all hinges around a hypothetical: would Stan have still asked for permission to sleep around if Lisa hadn't freaked over the BF label? Let's say Lisa answers the phone in a good mood, Hank hasn't found her Nazi-porn, plus she just got a decoder ring out of a Crackerjack box. Let's say she's lovey-dovey, embraces the long distance relationship, brags about her new decoder ring. What then does Stan say?

I can see him going either way. He's shown often enough that he could be that level of tactless, but he's also shown enough regret that maybe not.

Anyhow, one assumes it'll be one hell of a party Saturday night.

[JerrBear]

Part of me thinks this is a "Where do we stand: FWB who sleep around, or BF/GF who might flirt a little but go home alone?" sort of conversation which got off on completely the wrong foot. It all hinges around a hypothetical: would Stan have still asked for permission to sleep around if Lisa hadn't freaked over the BF label? Let's say Lisa answers the phone in a good mood, Hank hasn't found her Nazi-porn, plus she just got a decoder ring out of a Crackerjack box. Let's say she's lovey-dovey, embraces the long distance relationship, brags about her new decoder ring. What then does Stan say?

I can see him going either way. He's shown often enough that he could be that level of tactless, but he's also shown enough regret that maybe not.

Anyhow, one assumes it'll be one hell of a party Saturday night.

Also, it sounds a bit like Stan wants to go the open relationship route, which would make them a little exclusive but not enough to exclude casual sex outside of each other.

Edit: It'd mean boyfriend/girlfriend labels though.

[Alice Macher]

@thebitterfig: I think, in your scenario, that conversation would've probably gone better. However, each of them being who they are, I think they would eventually have broken up over the same root issue anyway. The bottom line is that they may have started out wanting the same things out of their relationship, but in the end they didn't. Stan in particular seems, to put it as charitably as I can, to be confused as to what kind of relationship he wants. He wants to call himself Lisa's boyfriend, implying a relationship beyond FWB, but at the same time, he still wants the option to "flirt [and] fuck" with others. Sooner or later, that disconnect would come up. It may or may not, depending on the circumstances, have been an angry conversation, but in the end it would've come down to "Sorry, I like you but this isn't working out."

That said, the bit about finding a decoder ring in a Cracker Jack box cracked me up. Welcome, and please stick around. ♥

[lokisdottir]

Sooo... What is irony boner, then? Getting horny... ironically? Or is it like a boner of iron?

If it had to be anything I'd imagine it would be something like this, so... both, sort of?