Turn off all the lights! Turn the AC on! Everyone shut the fuck up!

  Clips from this show have been showing up a lot on my recommended feed lately. It’s called ‘Couples Therapy’ .True to its title, it mostly features couples…in therapy! I think they’re real couples, but of course you never know with this sort of thing. I’ve been really hooked, there was another show I loved watching for a while, it was called ‘In treatment’ a fictional show, with fictional characters in…treatment! I really enjoy therapy as a subject matter, whether it’s my own or that of others. It’s all just so entertaining to me. An interesting thing I’ve noticed, is that with every single couple on the show, BOTH are contributing nearly perfectly equally to the issues that brought them to couples therapy.

 (If that’s true then I suppose I should stop blaming myself 100% for the failures in my last relationship huh?) 

So for example, there’s this one couple where this lady was unfortunately abused in her prior marriage, and because of that, she’s projecting her trauma and feelings of mistrust into her new husband, who by her own account, is really sturdy and effectively perfect. For example she’ll call him literally fifteen times during a meeting and then blow up at him when he gets home about why he didn’t answer. Or, as another example, she got incredibly paranoid that he wanted to attend the funeral of an employee’s family member, because she felt he was going out of his way for them, and never for her. Sounds like a nightmare right? 

On the other hand, (and I noticed all but one of the men do this) the husband, has become very passive and shut off to her “hysteria”. He’s withdrawn from her, which further stokes the flames of her anxiety, he knows this, and sometimes does it deliberately to punish her. He feels resentful because despite his best efforts to always help and reassure her, it is never enough. 

Clearly, both people have some issues to work through, fair! Yet, the comments of each clip are unbelievably always polarized. I don’t think I’ve ever read a single comment acknowledging that both parties involved are contributing to the issues, the closest it ever comes to that, are comments like “why are they even together, they should just break up!” 

  It’s a little strange to witness. I realize, everyone watching and commenting, are judging the situations and people on screen through their own experiences and paradigms. Naturally, it makes sense, it’s hard not to, and even being aware of it, I also do it myself every time I see one of the clips. I catch myself thinking “holy fuck she’s crazy, I can’t blame the dude for being so shut down” or “damn, why is she even bothering with him still, dude clearly sucks and has too much shit going on”. 

  I catch myself, zoom out and look back realizing I’ve done it again. It always makes me slightly more pessimistic to see. 

   I spent the afternoon with at a friend’s place and met her landlord, quite content with myself for having canceled on those dates I had scheduled for this weekend. It felt like the right choice as I walked down the neighborhood streets looking at the beautiful flowers. Her landlord was a real pleasant guy. Old guy from Sicily, diagnosed with Parkinson's four years ago. Tragic, he’s really funny! We had a pleasant conversation, every few minutes, his wife would call him and they’d yell over each other a tiny bit about the apartment, and who’s coming to see it, etc etc. I’m sure they love each other very much, to be together when they’re old still, but man, it seemed so exhausting. 

He told me his family fled Italy when he was a year old, because of *the* war. I had to feign knowledge of what he was on about until he mentioned Hitler by name. 

Last week at work, this guy came through. Needed a new phone, new internet, was going to go see a new apartment afterwards, etc. He was going through a divorce and asked if I’m married. I said no, and he said “good, don’t ever do it man, I knew it was a mistake when I was marrying her, but I went through with it anyway. Now that apartment y’all got on file? She in there still and I’m the one paying for it.”

He shook his head and looked off into the distance.

    I’ve run the cycle yet again as I always do with these dating apps.I open them, swipe through the likes, send out some of my own, feel exhausted, then close it. Lately, the exhausted part comes on more and more quickly. I just can’t seem to be bothered with it anymore. I can delete it, but inevitably within a few months I’ll hop back on, then do it all over again, so I might as well keep it on my phone. 

  I’m not sure why I continue to bother with them at all considering how pessimistic I seem to be about the whole ordeal of relationships, and how shitty the world around me makes them seem. Suppose I’m just bored! and a tiny bit lonely! maybe a lot bit. Doesn’t matter, my pessimism beats out the loneliness at the end of the day, every time. 

  It’s just, when I stop and look at it, every issue facing us as a people, is really just kindergarten shit. “ I want this and you won't let me have it, so now we fight!” “You look weird and different so I don’t like you but really I’m just scared of you” “That’s my spot! No it’s my spot!”

Myself and another friend also had to talk a third friend through breaking up with her partner, who she’s resented and disliked for many months now, I think a year even she said. Rightfully so, by all accounts he was just incredibly awful, but still, it scared me that people can stay with someone they no longer love for that long. It’s all just so messy and sad.

On top of it all, more and more, I see rhetoric on the internet encouraging this idea of treating people as commodities. “What do you bring to the table? Is he broke? If he ain’t willing to spoil you, get another one who will! Bro just fuck her and move on! lol I’m back in the phase of using sex as self harm xD! Female rage! Sigma male! She’s a ten but…! Looking to tryyy ethical non monogamyyyy”

  Too much noise! It’s all just too much noise and nonsense! I don’t want to play anymore! I’m very hungry these days, I won’t get my first paycheck till the end of the month! aaaaaaaaaaaaa!