4 sentences

Writers are thinkers with a vocabulary.

Sometimes I wish the Michigan flag was flown above the U.S.

If it is cold enough to wear boots it is not warm enough to wear a skirt—and vise versa.

If you preface your statement with “I might be wrong but,” no one will listen.

Redefining “commitment”

Rock of Love had its finale yesterday. And having never watched it or other predictable attempts at entertainment, I was surprised to see how emotional these girls were over Poison’s front man Brett Michaels. But more than bad taste, the finalists had a complete lack of self-respect. The final dates for each girl ended in a night of sexual adventure—OK—but how can each one be content with Brett Michaels kissing and having sex with the other? They are, what, sharing?

I would hope that normally a girl would not tolerate her love-interest kissing other girls in front of her. So maybe it was the television, maybe it was competition, maybe it was just crassness? Regardless—let us understand that this mindset manifests itself quite regularly in all relationships: but emotionally.

A wise woman once told me that one knows they are in love when they can’t envision their life without someone. Probably true. So why then do we have, and tolerate, mild crushes for ourselves and our significant other? It has become absolutely reasonable to “think he’s cute” or “wish I didn’t have a boyfriend” if such a feeling is only temporary. Are we not temporarily “sharing” our emotional commitment?

Let’s be real—the reason why Rock of Love seems so vulgar is that Brett kisses more than one girl—and the girls are OK with that. NOT that he is emotional with more than one. Although—to me—this detail should be more striking.

The problem is with our definition of commitment. It has wrongly become synonymous with celibacy. Call me crazy but I’d much rather my girlfriend kiss another guy having it be completely unemotional than her having crushes on other guys but refusing to act upon them out of her so-called commitment. The real truth is that if she did either the relationship would be over, but let me emphasize that cheating more often takes an emotional form—and without knowing it—we start to share each other. And that is unacceptable.