My problem is that I don't play by the rules.

When I was with my ex-girlfriend, I was participating in a definition of romance that I understood, finally, to be functional for the first time. This definition involved occasionally hurting each other, because we were experience junkies. There was no conversational topic off limits and no experiment that couldn't be approached as a possibility. I can tell now that I took her for granted to some extent, because most people just aren't psychologically comfortable with that level of freedom. They want to know that the relationship is monogamous or else it's not, and there are rules, and they want to understand what you can and can't do as far as hitting and biting and kicking, and they want to keep certain emotional territories hidden from the partner for the purposes of retaining their structural integrity. They don't just throw themselves into a relationship as an art project.

Well, I don't really know any other way to have relationships anymore. I understand now that I've gone way too far beyond the traditional relationship paradigm to ever date anyone who would need the program to unfold according to those rules again. It's interesting to speculate about what would happen if I just started applying the experimental attitude I've developed towards normal dating situations. Who knows.

Now I'm in a marriage-- another experiment, really, though we seem to have forgotten it. We've started playing it safe, even though over and over again I've learned that there's no such thing as playing it safe with your own emotions. Attempting to shield someone else, attempting to be something you're not, rarely works out very well for anyone involved. People that contort themselves to fit into boxes smaller than they are are in for extraordinary amounts of pain. You can be considerate, you can be kind and reasonable, but beyond a certain point you have to be able to open up and be who you are.

This goes for your career, your schooling, your friendships, anything, really. I've been looking back at my life lately, and I've been realizing that in many situations where I thought I was doing something incorrectly, or incompetently, or thought I didn't "get" something fundamental, I was actually convincing myself that I was dumber, less capable, less flexible, or less knowledgeable about the issue at hand than I actually was. And-- here's the kicker-- I was doing it in order to stay safe. I felt that my take on the given situation was so different from the ideas or feelings of those around me that I clearly must have something wrong, and were I to act on my predilections, I would just hurt myself.

Well, now I've backed myself into a corner. I'm at that point in my life where I can either take risky steps toward the life and career I want or continue hedging my bets and being careful and continue assuming that I'm not competent or special enough to bring about the kind of life I'd really like, despite all evidence to the contrary. Here's hoping I make the right decision, and here's hoping you do too.