Why did the chicken cross the road? To get over the ex-chick.

I think it's time to openly admit that I am still not over my ex. At the end of the day, I seemed to play a game I didn't know the rules of but I was getting just enough to feed my imagination and make me want to play more...I played against myself, with no option but to lose.

Some of you know that I have a permanent partner, we're still together and we're still able to make you vomit with our cuteness, very much so. Just before I met him, I was still with an ex. Incidentally, not just an ex but my first ever girlfriend. We were together in our mid teens, we then split up, and after about 7 years (i.e. last spring) we decided to give it another go, as we both realised that we'd left things unfinished and we wanted to know whether "us" was a relationship worth pursuing. Our dates were wonderful, we took walks, talked and claimed places to be "ours" or called places we'd like to go to. We did all that people do on dates, and it was sweet because it was the second time around, we had grown up and you probably know, there's nothing sweeter than getting back with an ex-partner.

I had to go back to England, we wrote little, I wrote her a letter. She loved it, thanked me and adored me for it, she loves letters. She never got to writing one back. I felt like I put in more effort and yet she would still spontaneously write to me saying "I love you". Fair enough. I got back to Sophia, and we took the same walks, it was all lovely. We just never progressed from there, and soon she failed to come to Pride with me because she'd been out the previous night, being fucked by some guy until the morning, to the point of bruises. I didn't know whether to kill her or help her on the next day, when she called to explain. I wasn't bothered much about the guy, we'd been in an open relationship, but I was pissed off as hell that she chose to go out when I was purposefully giving her space to study, with exams coming up for her, so I called the whole thing off.

She had long beautiful hair, going down to her waist. Such a charming smile. What I will always remember, though, no contest, is the scent of her body, natural sweet smell. That's what makes her unique.

I am happy that I know now what I didn't know when I was 14 and when I cried my eyes over her: we cannot ever work, we're so compatible yet so different in our approaches toward relationships. It's all the closure that I'll ever get, just knowing that it cannot work, it's no-one's fault. It should be enough.

Yet I am stil bitter, not because I miss her, but because I miss what she represented. I hate that the person who is so responsible for who I am now, the person who made me a bit more of a woman, is also the only ex that I am not speaking to and I am not on friendly terms with. I hate that she hurt my ego, that I still don't know what she did to me to get under my skin like this. I know she meant it when she said she loved me. I hate that I will never really know why we couldn't work, why I wasn't worth the effort for her to fight for me.

I hate that I will probably never be able to hate her. 

Why did the chicken cross the road? It was a matter of principle.

Is it always right to uphold your convictions?

What initially got me thinking was a discussion on The Big Questions, a BnB had refused to host a married gay couple in a double room because it was agains their convictions. It was an interesting enough case, with courts giving preference to law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and thus overruling the law supporting the right for religious expression. Awesome. 

Little did I know I'd be having a much more personal encounter with the same issue.

My partner recently asked me to delete a photo I had taken of him, that he wasn't too proud of. As far as I was concerned, I was in the right: he was aware at the time, thus his lack of objection indicated consent to me, that I was about to take a photo. I had also agreed not to share the contents of it to others. So why was he asking me to delete it? It made him uncomfortable, he said. He felt that simply asking me to delete it should be enough, we play for the same team, not against each other. I knew I was technically right but of course, when you are a team, you can't get away on a technicality. I deleted the bloody picture. 

What upset me was the certain emotional manipulation: surely, if you love someone, you don't use their trust and love against them, and this is a point that should speak to both of us in this case, I get it. 

I still struggle to make up my mind: did I make a compromise and take one for the team, or did I simply bend over and take it? When does compromise end and when does manipulation begin? There are cases when being right is not all and upholding your convictions will ultimately be destructive.

Going back to the original case, the BnB was held by a religious family who wouldn't allow any unmarried couples to stay in a double room, gay or straight. However, the gay couple were married, but were still denied the double room, as marriage was only for men and women, the owners felt. Yet, you relinquish your rights to judge, when you open up a business in the public sector. It shouldn't be right to uphold your religious views when that harms others and when it is against the law. We have placed the law above religion, which pleases me immensely. 

As far as my partner and I, we're fine. After some sulking on my side, and some Galaxy chocolate bars, it's all back to normal. I figure, as long as we communicate honestly and are able to swallow our ego every now and then (yes, mostly me, doing the swallowing), then we'll continue to be awesome.