Dealing with a Love Bomber

I was dating someone for awhile. Things were always off and on. Either smooth or rocky. Rarely any gray area’s. I cared so much for this man. As of lately, I’ve come to accept that he has serious, unresolved issues and I refuse to claim the baggage for the way things ended.  The pain this man has caused me still lingers deep, but everyday seems to be getting a little easier. Dealing with someone like this has been the hardest dating situation that I’ve ever been involved in. It’s time for me to completely let go…for this situation has taught me many things and I see it all so clear now.

Narcissists; love bomb you, tire you, hypnotize you, and manipulate you. You find yourself giving into all of their demands, you spill your guts to them about what you have always wanted and wished-they become that to win you over as their supply. Once they win you over then they start to devalue you. EVERYTHING is wrong with you. This is done when they have a new supply locked in. Then they discard you like you are nothing, but a piece of trash; and they never look back. YOU begin to beg them, asking them what is wrong, can we work this out? It’s a sign of weakness to them. They have lost use for you because they have found someone else to give them better supply.

If any reader’s encounter a person, like the one described above, I hope they leave before it gets so deep, that you lose yourself and your soul…I almost lost mine.

-Melissa

College Kids New Twist on Free Love

In today’s rapidly changing, fast paced world the lives of college students are fun, but also challenging and overwhelming. The social life of a college student can be pretty intense, late night drinking, fraternity/sorority parties, and college sports games all add to the mix of trying to have fun, while keeping up and fitting in with everyone else. Within this society of college aged people, there also remains the prospect of male and female relationships. How do students find the time to date or become romantically involved with one another?

Hooking up, is the college kid’s buzzword. With little time and effort college aged people, can receive instant gratification and pleasure without having to divulge themselves into an intense, or time consuming, monogamous relationship. Hooking up has become the more recent generations form of free love. From kissing to consummating, hooking up is a huge prospect and form of socialization on college campuses everywhere. Sexual relations have become both all important and devalued. It’s insane how casual sex is not just acceptable, but becoming seemingly expected.

According to Laura Sessions Stepp’s book, Unhooked, hooking up in the minds of this generation comes commitment free. Partners hook up with the understanding that no matter how far they intertwine themselves sexually; neither should become romantically involved in any serious way. Hookups defining characteristic is the ability to unhook from a partner at anytime, just as they might be able to delete an old song off their ipod or an out of date away message from their instant messenger programs buddy list. College teaches values of responsibility, but the college students counter culture of hooking up is neither responsible or valuable.

“I met this guy in my marketing class this semester. We hung out a few times, I thought he was really cool and cute. I don’t have much time for a relationship, so we started hooking up. We made a deal that we would only be physical with one another, but then I found out that he was also hooking up with other girls besides me. I felt horrible about myself, but their was nothing I could do about it because we weren’t in a committed relationship,” stated an anonymous Brookdale student.

The hook up culture risks physical and emotional woes bestowed upon mostly the woman. Women assume much greater risks then men do in these casual scenarios and its not just the risk of pregnancy. The male to female transmission rate of STD’s is much higher then the female to male rate. Society also deems that women can become quickly emotionally attached compared to ambivalent male counterparts, leaving them emotionally unstable or depressed.

According to the book Unhooked, a national study found that among 18 to 29 year olds only more than a third are in committed relationships. What is going to happen to the roles of male and female relationships in generations to come? Dating is a lifestyle that needs to be more encouraged.

“I like being in a relationship, I’ve had a boyfriend for a few years now and we’re both really happy together. Making time for one another can be challenging, but we make it work. Hooking up is not for me,” said Jenny Blanc, a 22 year old, 2^nd semester, mathematics major from Howell.

Unlike healthy monogamous relationships, hooking up teaches males and females nothing positive about intimacy or communication. Hooking up is a very vulnerable, bad lifestyle to get caught up in. Everything important about ones self is put on the line sexual and mental health, self worth, and reputation can become easily damaged. Although perplexed and overwhelmed. college aged people really need to start thinking about their actions of today and where these actions will leave them tomorrow. Hooking up doesn’t bring you up, it pulls you down!

 

The Preoccupation of Thin…

“Thin is in,” seems to be the motto that most Americans have become preoccupied with. From ultra thin electronics to starved models in magazine ads, and slim foods marketed as “Skinny chips,” people, now more then ever before are associating thin with being the preferred look. The absorption and effects of this “thin” obsession are sending the wrong messages to millions of men, women, and children. The media may be to blame for the glamorization of the thin ideal. According to a press release from commonsense.org, “by the time a girl is 17, she has seen more than 250,000 messages about what she is supposed to look like.” The worlds of entertainment and print publications have created a society that is full of fake breasted, muscular, ultra-thin, perfect looking people, but that is not reality.

Author and internet blogger Jen Lancaster, is one writer that has created a positive “self-esteem” outlet through the use of the media. With a memoir entitled, “Such a Pretty Fat,” Lancaster has broken down boundaries with a first hand encounter of how hard it is to be yourself in a world full of “thin is in.” Although scrutinized herself, for being a “pretty fat,” Jen, has always been happy with her body image. Once, Jen learns she must lose weight per her doctors orders, she becomes fixated on the food that she can’t eat and how much she dreads going to the gym. This book entails her love of macaroni and cheese, fuzzy navels, and  her daily struggle to stick to a diet! Jen eventually realizes that diets are just fads and that making healthy longterm lifestyle changes are really what works to keeping a healthy body, mind, and soul.

“Such a Pretty Fat,” is a positive, pee your pants funny book, great for anyone deserving of some praise and encouragement. In the synopsis Lancaster explains, “I hate the message that women can’t possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I don’t find these stories uplifting; they make me want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don’t matter.” Courtney Simanowicz, a 20 year old, 2^nd semester, psychology major at Brookdale has read Lancaster’s book and agrees that “People need to realize, being thin won’t make you happier or healthier; people surrounding you and the media are always going to make comments, but you have to disregard the negative garbage and pay attention to the positive enlightening stories.”

Writer’s Block what a Shame

Please dissipate…oh writer’s block, why do you have to lull my brain? Any writer (professional or amateur,) will tell you that writer’s block is painful. Not being able to write can be compared to waking up one day and not being able to hear. Writing keeps me sane, it is my intuitive sixth sense. When I write prose, or narritives, I can write, what normally would be left unsaid.  I can share feelings of excitement, pain, and happiness. I can describe anything and everything with words. It is the words, and the meanings of the plain black letters; so perfectly sized and alighned that make me feel whole and purposeful.

As of recently, my thoughts cannot be turned into words. Instead my thoughts have become little fish, dying in a big, murky, polluted swamp (my brain). My thought process, over the past few months has been electrically, intense. There’s a lot of brilliant things going on in inside my head and I’ve been yearning to write about so many interesting things. Politics, the American economy, sex, religion, personal life, comedy, music, psychology, sociology, prose, and narritives to mention a few. Such great topics, but my creativity has diminished. The wires in my brain don’t want to spark and get the creativity juices flowing. I, Melissa Walsh, refuse to accept that I have become unmotivated. I’d rather admit that I have become fixated on absolute nothingness…and it needs to come to an end.

I once, wrote: “Writing is a passion, it’s more then just words. Not everyone has the talent nor desire to create deep
thoughts that flow smoothly onto paper and into ones soul; I have that passion.”

Therefore, the art and passion of writing still lies within me, it just needs to be poured out…so let the writing begin…