Questions and Quandaries

It seems that being in a gray area is a place that people at one point or another would find themselves in, whether they like it or not. And just as it is so easy to fall into that hole, getting out of it could be just as hard. If you’re lucky, you can pull yourself out in no time, but others can stay an eternity there without even knowing what they were in to begin with.

Relationships, particularly quasi-romances, are the most common of the gray areas that you can get yourself into. In my circle alone, at least three of my friends are in that place of knowing and not quite knowing the status of their relationships. And who knows, maybe there are more who just haven’t the courage to admit they’re clueless as well.

My good friend, Karla, (probably the only person in this blog who will ever be named) has even written quite a number of posts on her blog labeled appropriately as gray area. O., another friend who lives about a thousand miles from me, sends me text messages of her frustration over a current quasi-romance. S, on the other hand, has got herself a number of relationships of that nature. It’s a wonder how she can actually keep up with them and with herself. And then there’s me…well, we all know how my little romantic adventure (or mishap) ended. On second thought, things are not exactly, um, through between me and Hugh (not his real name).

The situation that my friends, and often what I also find myself in begs me to ask: Can dysfunction in relationships prove to be so attractive that we are almost compelled to prostrate ourselves to it despite the obvious pain it will cause? And why is it that despite that recognition, we accept it as a matter of fact rather than a matter we have control over, and therefore can actually change? Are we that desperate for love that we completely forget the harm we’re doing to ourselves?

Another point that I also wanted to make here is the apparent curse or gift that has befallen my friends. They share parallel lives with me. I know, I know that not everything is about me, and that it is completely narcissistic of me to think that. But hey, even my friends acknowledge the fact. O. and C. has actually told me flat out that they don’t want to be friends with me anymore for exactly this reason. Of course, they were joking. Or were they?

Maybe my friends and I are that bonded together that we’ve begun to actually share the same fate, which when you think about it makes it really romantic in a sense. But then again, it also makes for a really sad thing.

Whatever the case may be, whether it’s coincidence or providence that makes us lead parallel lives, the bottom line is we need to get out of the gray and start finding the light. I think we mighty deserve it.