The Clingy Issue

Ladies, it's always nice to have someone to kiss and talk to and have buy you dinner. It's nice being able to flip your clodagh ring upright and be able to talk about your boyfriend to all of your wide-eyed, jealous girlfriends. And yes, it is certainly very nice to be able to look across the room at the eye candy that you brought to the party. But ladies, let's be real. It's not everything. And when boyfriend becomes the world and more, problem sets in.

We've all seen it happen time and time again with our best girlfriends. They find a nice man, you meet him a few times, and suddenly your girlfriend disappears for a while, answering your texts with various excuses and posting disgusting, lovey-dovey facebook statuses about the amount of minutes they've been dating and how the world wouldn't spin if she didn't have him.

And doesn't it just drive you crazy?

My sophomore year of high school I was surrounded by girls who thought that having a boyfriend was everything and it was the topic of conversation that just wouldn't die. I didn't realize how unhealthy this environment was for me until later, but I resolutely decided on my own that I was not going to talk like they did and I was perfectly happy on my own. I've been that way ever since, and though a couple boys have come and gone and I have enjoyed it immensely, I've made sure not to fall into the 'Clingy Trap'.

It happens on both sides. Boy must spend every moment with girl. Boy must know all guys that girl talks to. Girl must spend every moment with boy. Girl must monitor boy's text messages. Everyone around boy and girl gets frustrated and annoyed and many times boy and girl end up driving each other insane. It's a vicious cycle. So why as couples do we repeat it so often?

I've come to find that this issue changes with age, which is an encouraging model. But that doesn't change the fact that I continue to watch this happen and groan every time.

The complicated world of love and dating, which I will continue to post facets of, is hard enough without us continually screwing it up. We spend enough time trying to figure out what to do without having to deal with clingy friends, clingy boyfriends, and even being clingy ourselves. Nobody wants to go out to dinner with a group of friends and have the couple at the table start nibbling opn earlobes and swapping spit. Isn't it enough to have it sometimes as opposed to every waking moment?

Why must we do this to ourselves? Why must we put ourselves through it and why must we make others watch? From experience, clingyness just ends in disaster, so why bother?

Essentially, I think we just can't help it. We get sucked into things and don't realize the bad until it starts to crumble. And you know what, in a sense that's okay. Because I'm a big believer in that fact that we live and we learn.

So ladies, and if there are any genteleman possibly reading my blog, let's live and learn.

And let's keep the negative connotations of 'clingy' in mind the next time that barista at Starbucks finally asks us out.

--Rachael