Site note: I'm flying to Boston tomorrow, and will not be back until Sunday night. If all goes well, everything will go up as normal--Pony Thoughts of the Day at noon on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and Spoilers Below's guest post at midnight Sunday. If not, well... I'm going to have Internet access, but I'm going to be astoundingly busy, so I *might* be able to fix it quickly or it might have to wait until Monday. I also cannot say for sure whether I'll be able to do any comment moderation, not that I expect to need to--I've only had one or two comments that actually needed me to do anything since the blog started.
You won't learn math or science or literature or art from ponies, obviously. It's not educational in the sense of all the things schools were supposed to teach before they gave up. (Which appears to have happened, in Fairfax County at least, somewhere between when I went to school, and when my four-grades-younger sister did.)
But you do learn things. Case in point: You may have noticed I made a few references to my fiancee early in this project, and more recently the occasional reference to my ex-fiancee.
Yeah.
But I've taken it WAY better than my last break-up, and we're still best friends and roommates (though that latter is just for a few months). What changed?
Well, I can't say for certain it's Friendship Is Magic. But somewhere in the last couple of years, I've realized that finding that one person I can fall asleep and wake up to next to is kind of secondary to finding those five people I can spend the entire rest of the day with. And I actually already know those people, and could stand to spend more time with them... so why should it bother me if I don't have that one? I'm doing pretty well as it is.
Speaking as someone who might not have lost a fiance but has had one HELL of a nasty break up, and helped two friends through an aborted wedding, you have my deepest sympathies. Even when it's cordial (and I have never heard of one so cordial so props there) it's not easy.
ReplyDeleteSo...yeah. Not sure what to say. Hope your trip goes well.
Thanks.
DeleteIt really isn't a bad thing. As I've taken to saying, "Why are marriage and murder the only enterprises considered a failure if they don't end in death?" Our relationship evolved, as all relationships always do all the time, and the direction it evolved in happened to be friendship rather than romantic. I'm incredibly lucky, to be honest: I didn't lose a fiancee, I gained both a friend and the knowledge that friends are better than fiancees.
And thanks, I'm hoping my trip goes well, too! I'm frantically trying to get my panels finished in time, as per usual.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with you having a bad breakup. I've had a couple of those, too! I'm just saying, this was a different sort of thing, and I'm actually completely okay with it. It's not what I was hoping for, but it's still good; like wishing for cake and getting ice cream instead.
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DeleteDon't worry I didn't get that impression at all. You're lucky yours ended so well: I had a break up so bad it kept me out of the dating pool for almost three years and definitely made me a little more misogynist. I got better.
DeleteOne of these days I'm going to have to go to a con and meet you in person, buy you a drink (alcoholic or non as you prefer).
Definitely non.
DeleteMy con schedule for the rest of the year is:
Anime Boston (Boston, this weekend)
Connecticon (Hartford, July)
Bronycon (Baltimore, August)
InterVention (DC area, August)
AnimeUSA (DC, September)
The closest one to me is a 36 hour drive...which is obviously out of the question. I may need to plan ahead for next year.
Delete"I gained both a friend and the knowledge that friends are better than fiancees."
ReplyDeleteNow part of me really wants to make a joke relating to your comment on the mane six being asexual. But I'm compelled to say something I think needs to be said even though I don't have the ability or experience to say it well. So take this with a grain of salt.
I know we're all acquainted with story-time love: Two people fall into pure, perfect love and live happily ever after into the sunset. It's a story as old as dirt and worth as much in truth. But I've met people who do love each other, and so have you. Sometimes all I think these people do is be friends who live with each other, but occasionally I realize that maybe that is something wonderful anyways. We live in a society where romantic love between a man and a women is the most sacred thing. But for the Greeks, (or was it the Romans?) the friendship between two men was beyond all others. Both of these cultural beliefs are just that: cultural. There is no objective quantifier of what kind of social relationship between people is best. Right now, your actual friendship with your friends and ex-fiance-now-friend is more important than a hypothetical romance. I can't fault your math on that one; I'd make that trade too! But the Greeks did occasionally reproduce through means other than cellular fission. All I'm trying to say is, you were open to the idea of being friends. Maybe not tomorrow or in a hundred years, but it might one day be worthwhile to still be open to the possibility of finding romantic love too.
(THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY A JOKE, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!)
"...finding those five people I can spend the entire rest of the day with."
Basically, you're in a group of six friends. I ship that.