A week ago, I called my mom and asked her why she chose to marry my dad.

“I was sixteen,” she replied, matter-of-factly.

She went on to explain that she loved my father and in those days, people were too young to analyze it much further than that. My sister got married when she was twenty-three. Her boyfriend, who became her husband, has consistently been her best friend. So she was using more long-term criteria than my mom, but nothing too detailed.

Many of the unmarried women around me have a much more complicated set of requirements from a plausible marriage partner. To them, it’s not enough to love. It’s not enough to be best friends, either. They wonder if this man will make a good living. Is he successful? Is he patient? Does he like children? Will he make a good father? Will he be caring to her parents? Is he going to let her have her independence? Can he cook? Will he share some of the chores?

These are just some of the issues my friends raise. Not to mention the fundamentals, like physical attraction. They are twenty-seven and they have their own career, their own priorities, their own lives and the man is supposed to fit into all of that smoothly or it’s not going to work.

Which is why it doesn’t.

They either can’t find a man or won’t put up with the imperfections of the ones they do find. It seems that the longer you put it off, the more complicated marriage becomes. The older we are, the more established our lives are, the harder it is to fit the man into it. The more demanding we become, the less likely such a man exists.

What’s the right way? Do we marry in faith and with love or do we compile a list of demands and find the man who meets them all?

My opinion is that, as in most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. While it’s not a bad idea to make sure the man in your life is kind and caring to babies as well as you, it’s also okay to not dwell on every tiny detail. It’s really not that big a deal if he doesn’t bring you flowers every weekend. He can forget to unfold a piece of clothing. What matters still are the core things. Love, friendship, caring and having similar values.

Sometimes it’s best not to be so demanding.

Previously? Limbo.

The odor of alcohol mixed with the rotten food stuck onto the dishes in the sink. It kept attacking my nostrils, forcing my stomach to do flips. My brain yelled at my body for not concentrating on the issue at hand. With his fingers around my neck, was bad smell really my primary concern?

His fingers curled around my neck. Not tight enough to holler for the police, but too tight for comfort. Too tight for me to gulp. His eyes started directly into mine, overcome with anger. Spiteful words sprung from his mouth.

“You’re a piece of garbage.”

“You’re worthless.”

Tears filled up my eyes but didn’t dare to fall down. I knew crying was a bad idea. It would only serve to infuriate him further in his intoxicated state. He was so large, and his arms so strong, that all he needed to do was lift his hands slightly and my body would follow. He could easily pick me off of my feet. He hadn’t even bothered to lift his other hand; one was enough to cover the area necessary to grab.

I didn’t like his fingers around my neck. In fact, I worried I might throw up, which would be much worse than crying. But I didn’t panic. I didn’t yell. I didn’t blabber, like I usually did. I whispered softly. There were people in the living room and I wasn’t about to make a scene. I wanted this to end as quickly as possible. I didn’t even disagree.

“You’re no better than the scum in the trashcan,” didn’t sound so far-fetched to me. I really had provoked him, although for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how this particular fight had started. He might have been right. He probably was right.

All I wanted was for this to stop. As the tears started pouring down my cheeks, I apologized. I told him he was right. I’d fix it, whatever it was. I’d make it better. We could work it out. We would work it out. At that moment, nothing mattered besides his happiness. He was right and I was wrong. I needed him to forgive me.

The stench of vodka burned my eyes. The heat in the room made his palm sweat. His voice was getting louder and I worried his friends would overhear. I whispered more, as if to overcompensate for his lack of quiet. I tried to reason with him. I told him that I loved him and that I would fix it. I was there for him. I’d always been there for him. We’d make it work. My mind buzzed, like an overzealous student, trying to find the right words. The magic words.

Anything.

I wasn’t angry. I didn’t doubt him. Nor hate him. All that would come later. For now, I was desperate. Desperate for him to understand. Desperate for him to love me again. For the anger to dissipate. For the hatred to end. I begged. I groveled. I cried.

He let go.

Previously? Competition.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

As always, I’m sure they’re right. Thankfully, we all have our own ideas of beauty so that the wide varieties of humans who occupy the earth are each considered beautiful by one person or another.

I spoke to my mom yesterday and she told me about an event she had attended the previous evening. The event was organized by a distant family member I dislike. My mom said that the woman’s daughter looked absolutely gorgeous and I replied, “She’s such a terrible person that it’s impossible for me to see her beauty.”

After we hung up, I thought about my words and realized they were a perfect example of my true sentiments. When I see a stranger on the street, I might think she or he is beautiful but as soon as I get to know a person, my feelings about that person fully affect how good looking I think he or she is.

This is not to say that I don’t have a “type”. Even though the men I’ve dated have a wide range of looks, there are commonalities among them and I know that I prefer scrawny to buff. I like blue or green eyes. I tend to go for men who wear glasses. That’s about it. So when I met Jake, I was attracted to him. But over the years, as I fell more and more in love, Jake got more and more handsome in my eyes.

The same goes for my close friends and people I admire and it’s one of my favorite things about the web. The fact that I don’t get influenced by the facial image before I get to know a person makes it such that I think the person is beautiful before I meet him or her and once I have that image it rarely goes away.

It’s as if the inner beauty (or lack thereof) reflects on to someone’s face and features.

I don’t know if this behavior is specific to me, but I enjoy having it. While it makes it less pleasant for me to be around people I don’t like, it makes it a total joy to be around my loved ones. I feel like I am often surrounded by beautiful humans.

What could be more wonderful?

Previously? Tearful Meetings.

My first official boyfriend and I started dating a few months before I turned sixteen. Before he came along, I’d sort of been dating my best friend but we never publicly admitted it.

So this guy, whom we’ll call James for ease of use, and I had known each other for ages. That summer we spent a lot of time together and finally became exclusive. At the time, there was no such thing as dating in Turkey, at least in my surroundings. You either were friends with someone or you were exclusive.

So James and I start seeing each other. We spend the next two years together. During this time we had many high points and a lot of hard times. I think that, overall, we had a pretty wonderful relationship. We laughed a lot. We cared for each other a lot and we fought little.

Since I was twelve years old, everyone around me has known that I planned to go to the US for college and for the rest of my life. It’s been a consistent and public goal. In the months before I left for college, James and I spoke at length about the future of our relationship. I wanted to stay together and see where it goes but he said we were to breakup. It wasn’t up for discussion.

So we separated. He took me to the airport on my last day and we kissed goodbye. We did talk on the phone during the first few weeks. After a month or two, I mentioned possibly seeing other people and he totally freaked. That was the beginning of the end. After a freaky few months, we stopped talking altogether. I started seeing someone else.

During the several trips home, I called him and tried to make up. It never worked. He was always cordial but we never spoke more than three words again.

This year, it will have been nine years since James and I broke up and we still don’t speak. It seems like such a shame that I shared two beautiful years with someone whom I loved and gave a piece of my heart to and today we’re nothing more than a “hello.”

I don’t know what, but shouldn’t it be more than that?

Previously? One Life to Live

Some updates on my earlier posts. After her post having prompted mine, Heather wrote about her thoughts on personal space. They are definitely worth reading and they made me think for a long time.

Six wrote me a real nice and interesting email on my post about the blame game. You can read most of it on his post and he has some insightful things to say. One of his greatest points is that blaming others is about not wanting to face yourself. And, of course, he’s right.

At one point in our relationship, Jake and I fought a lot. What started as a quibble over where the dishes should go would quickly evolve into a twelve-hour shouting match. Since we’d already been together for quite some time, we knew exactly what to say to get the other party upset. We would sit there, blaming each other for the obvious shaky status of our relationship.

We both figured it was the other person’s fault. If only he fixed this and did more of that and less of this other thing, we’d have the best relationship. We knew each other’s faults. We knew each other’s deepest fears. The weaknesses. We were really good at fighting and even better at making it the other person’s fault.

At one point I realized that this game was bound to end ugly. It’s funny that we choose partners cause we think they’re so amazing and then we spend the rest of our relationship trying to change them. Especially funny considering we have the power to change no one but ourselves. So I told Jake that all he should concentrate on is trying to be the best that he can for our relationship. And that if he only worried about whether he was being his personal best and I worried about being my personal best, our relationship would be much smoother and happier.

I’m not sure whether we grew up, we changed, or whether we just stopped for no reason, but Jake and I have stopped fighting, almost completely. We seem to have fallen in love all over again. We work together now and love each other and support each other. Mostly, we face who we are, accept responsibility for our flaws and try to improve constantly.

I think this is working much better for us.

Previously? I love you.

I’m really bad at keeping secrets.

No, not the kind a friend whispers in your ear and asks you not to repeat. Actually, I’m pretty good at keeping those.

I’ve kept a diary since I was eleven years old and until college the little book with its tiny lock was the only one who knew my crushes, my thoughts and my insecurities. My friends would complain that they told me their entire life story and I never shared a word. They were right and I felt bad, especially for my really close friends. But the words refused to come out. During those times, when a friend informed me of her most recent crush she didn’t even need to ask me not to repeat it.

I’ve always believed that people are bad at keeping secrets. Most people inherently feel the need to share. So when they have new information, they bubble with the excitement and will burst unless they do something about it. I used to write it in my diary and poof! It was out of my system.

As I grew older and stopped carrying ten-pound notebooks with a broken lock, I started to open up more and more. I still felt morally uncomfortable sharing other people’s secrets, but mine became less important. (As for my needs-to-be-out-of-your-system theory, I, at some point, decided that whatever my friend chose to tell me was between us and deserved utmost respect. If she or he chose to share it with others, it was her or his choice but I refused to repeat it, even if it bubbled up. Hmm, that says so much about the validity of my theory, eh?)

Anyhow going to back to my secrets and my point, I decided opening up wasn’t such a bad idea. Most importantly if I ever did something that was relevant to another person; I became totally unable to hold on to that information. This often applies to my boyfriends (meaning the category in general, not that I currently have more than one), but is not limited to them.

My mother used to tell me that everything doesn’t need to be public. Some things are better not spoken. I disagree. I must, cause I can never follow that advice. I can never hide anything from my boyfriend. Even if I have a crush on some other guy or I’m about to have dinner with an ex. I keep telling myself that it’s no big deal and if I tell him, he’ll think it is and that I shouldn’t tell him and then the moment he walks into the room, I blurt it all out.

The truth is that I think it’s a big deal when I choose not to tell him (assuming I’d do such a thing). If I feel the need to keep it from him, I must have a reason. Do I secretly hope something will happen between this guy and me? Am I still hung over the ex? The only reason I’d choose not to share the event with my boyfriend is if I believe I’m doing something wrong. I just think that there is no point in playing games. If either one of us is going to cheat then what’s the point of continuing our relationship? Obviously it’s lost whatever it had.

This habit has been enhanced by a remarkably understanding man who is my current boyfriend. Honesty has made our relationship solid and lasting.

Now when I feel the urge to lie, I ask myself what that says about my relationship with the other person.

In my case, that there isn’t much of a relationship to begin with.

Previously? Nitpicking.