A Relationship With Brooklyn

My LS went to Harvard for medical school.  Whenever she was asked how it was, she said it was not too special because everyone there could do the work.  Harvard was pretty selective on who they let in.  So if you were accepted, odds were that you had the right stuff to be successful.  Harvard is one of those places it's hard to get into but once you're in, according to my LS, you succeed.  (But knowing other people who attend Harvard, I'm not so sure those cracks don't open wide every once in a while.  :-)  There are countless other institutions where entry is easy but it's the success that trips people up. 

When I was younger an older gentleman told us, about credit, that 'they' will give you anything 'they can take back.  It's easy to get a car or house, according to him, because if you didn't pay, 'they' can just come and take back the car or kick you out of your home.  I wonder where he is today and if he got caught up in the housing crisis.  A lot of other people did.  It was easy for them to get into the homes, but hard for them to keep them.  And no, it wasn't always this way.  Back in the day getting into the home was hard.  Once you got in, you'd already proven you could save and pay your bills on time.  How?  By putting down a sizable amount of money and paying all of your prior bills on time.

Then there are jobs.  If you haven't heard, the government will be getting rid of KSA's.  I wonder how that's going to affect the applicant rate.  There's a portion of stakeholders who think the intern program has already been used to get around the KSA's and if that intern program isn't more closely regulated, the loophole will still exist.  I'm figuring being hired from a pool of interns is a lot easier than having to fill out KSA's, get rate, yadda, yadda.  And it's probably easier to slip someone into the intern program through nepotism.  If someone goes the regular KSA route, it's hard to get in.  But once they get the job, it's easy to keep.  I know people who are hoping to wind up in government and ride it out to retirement. 

This isn't the only place where the easy to get in versus easy to stay in situation happens.  It's in relationships too.  You knew I was going to go there (come here).  Lately I've been wondering where I fit in this.  Roll with me on this one.  Am I hard to get or hard to keep?  I find excuses valid reasons to not go on first dates.  Once I'm in a relationship, I find excuses to leave there's a disconnect between my expectations and needs (that have always been clearly voiced), and what the SO is doing. 

Yesterday Ted wrote about not getting what you put into a relationship out of that relationship.  In my comment, I mentioned that in relationships, my focus isn't whether the return is equal to or greater than my investment.  Instead, my focus is on whether or not I'm getting what I need from the situation. Maybe it's my needs and expectations in relationships that are hard to meet. 

Which one are you?  Are you hard to get?  Hard to keep?  Easy to get?  Easy to keep?  Why?

Which one am I?  It depends on who you ask.  My mother has always said I'm not for the weak.  And it's true.  Either people like me or can't stand me--even if they are to bitchassed to fess up and decide to play the passive-aggressive hate game.

But if you ask me, I think I'm Brooklyn.  I just go hard.

Comments

[cee]

I love it. Probably because I consider Brooklyn to be my home. Like you, I'm Brooklyn.

[Ted]

I have always considered myself easy to get and notoriously difficult to keep.

Since I was never the "it" guy, I didn't have hordes of women at my feet. So for those who were interested, or who I was interested in, I gave all a fair shot from the gate. I was open to possibilities. But keeping me around was hard as hell. It's because I can be fickle... I lose interest quickly. So to keep me was a momentous task.

[Ted]

*notice how I ignored your, as you would say, lil' bald-headed comment!!*

[Ms. Smart]

So which are you? Easy? Hard? Both?

[Ms. Smart]

Well hell! I give everyone a fair shot too. Jus happend that some don't get past 'go' or collect $200! Frankly, I feel like some men have gotten me but then didn't have a clue as to what to with me once they got me--even after we discussed it, agreed, signed contracts, etc.

[Ms. Smart]

You put yourself on blast. Only the original 72 + 1 would have known who I was talking about.

[Ted]

So you consider yourself easy to get?? Hmmm....

Even though I know you less and less each month, I'd still say you appear to me to be hard to get and easy to keep.

[Ms. Smart]

According to my ex's I am harder to keep than I think. They throw words like 'spoiled', 'demanding', and 'crazy' (though most men call most women crazy) around. Never mind the bending over backwards and catering I do! Humph! This is about to piss me off and make me call a couple of them to curse them out. No wait! That would be crazy.

But I guess I shouldn't really believe then since half of them wore themselves out trying to get me when in reality, they probably had me way before they realized.

[Ted]

They throw words like 'spoiled', 'demanding',

These are words men use when they don't how to treat a woman.

As for the crazy, well...

[Ms. Smart]

Well what? Now who's playing bald headed games?!

[Ted]

LOL I'm just sayin'... I don't know you like that to comment on the relationship version of Ms. Smart.

[WuDaMan]

*stands up* Hi I'm hard to get easy to keep. I'm too calculating. So like first impressions go hard w/ me.

[Anna N.]

I would say I'm hard to get....and somewhat hard to keep. The dude seems to think I'm all easy to get along with, though. But that gets us back to yesterday's compatibility discussion.

[A]

I think I'm easy to get and hard to keep. I sometimes have the attention span of a flea. I also have the sense to know that I guy might think of me as hard to get and hard to keep. On second thought, he'd be right. My current friend jumped through a lot of hoops.

[SoJo]

I'd say that I'm difficult to attract, but pretty easy to keep. I don't like people very often - so when I do, I'm open to the possibilities because I only "crush" ever so often.

Most of my needs are met by how that person makes me feel, so if they continue doing/being the same person that I was initially attracted to - it's all gravy. I don't need a lot of grand gestures or stage plays. Once I'm in, I'm in because its major for me that I liked that person in the first place. But if that person changes or flips the script on me, I'm ghost.

Now I'm trying to figure out what city would I be! Kinda sounds like ATL...before the transplants ruined it. LOL!

[SoJo]

RIGHT!!! LOL! But he's a Leo. He wasn't gon' let that ride! LOL!

[CreoleInDC]

You? Hmmmmmm...

I think you're hard to get and hardER to keep. I think what keeps YOU happy is being constantly thought provoked and figuring out "mysteries." At your age, most men checking for you will have their ish together and if they are ready to date seriously (and you're only the serious dating kind) they already have their mind set on how life should be once they find THE ONE. Like...you hear men talk about marriage in terms of...shutting it down. Hanging up my hat, etc. For them...once they get there they'd like it to be simple, slow and easy. Kinda predictable on some level.

And I think that ends up driving you bat.shat.crazy because your mind is always moving at warp speed.

I could be wrong. :)

Me? I'm hard to get but easy to keep. Hard to get because my standards were considered way high by a lot of people who felt my Princess Syndrome was unjustifiable (because they couldn't meet my requirements...LOL!). Easy to keep because I'm not the type of chick you'd ever have to guess what's on my mind or what I want. Why? CUZ I TELL YOU. I don't play those read-my-mind games and never will. Being direct and to the point always ensured that you knew exactly what I needed in order to "keep" me.

I think I'm rambling. Hmmmmm...

[CreoleInDC]

You KNOW I burst out laughing at that! LOL!

[Ms. Smart]

*eyeroll*

[Ms. Smart]

I've mostly thought this was the case with men.  They may give a woman a chance but that doesn't mean his initial impression of her changes.  Like, if a man meets a woman and sees her as girlfriend material, she rarely ever rises to wife material.  All she can ever seem to do is go down.

[cee]

I would consider myself relatively difficult to get - because, while I think that relationships are beautiful, I never prioritize being in one unless I can see that it has a great potential to be what I want and need - and possibly, difficult to keep. I mean, I'm a commitment. Just as I would be totally committed to the man that I'm with. But if he's not willing to put in the work, then it's not going to work.

[WuDaMan]

I'm an engineer Ma'am. The facts are just that to the best of our knowledge.

[Ms. Smart]

When men ask me for advice, I always tell them that there's a fine balance between getting and keeping.  If he's not compatible in what he's willing to do to keep you and what needs to be done to get kept, it won't work.  Now, if I could just figure out a way to know this up front instead of wasting six months all types of pissed!

[Ms. Smart]

Your mention of hoops makes it sound like you intentionally made him do stuff.  Is that the case?

[Ms. Smart]

I'ont like too many people either.  And I think it comes from the experience that people always want something.  And so my initial reaction is based on an underlying stress because I feel like I need to figure out what they want rather quickly, decide if I'm willing to give, then make a move.  As an aside, I was crushing before I started seeing this dude.  I was sure that going out with him would make the crush go away.  No suck luck.  Don't you just love when that happens? 

Wait!  What?  How the heck did you manage to pull ATL into this?

[WuDaMan]

Oh you ever heard, "a man can fall in love w/i 8 seconds of meeting a woman?"

[sherri]

Hey! Y'all cut that out. Get a room!

[Ms. Smart]

"At your age, most men checking for you will have their ish together and
if they are ready to date seriously (and you're only the serious dating
kind) they already have their mind set on how life should be once they
find THE ONE."

I wish this were the case across the board.  There are a lot of men in extended adolescence who have trained themselves that being there is alright because they surround themselves with young girls--I'm talking barely old enough to drink.

"And I think that ends up driving you bat.shat.crazy because your mind is
always moving at warp speed."
I'm going to need you to stop bugging my phone and home!  Or am I just THAT obvious?  I don't like men who can't hold a conversation and who are just hamsters on a wheel.  I like some foundation of consistency but I don't like mind numbing redundancy. 

" Being direct and to the point always ensured that you knew exactly
what I needed in order to "keep" me."

I believe that men don't respect my telling them my expectations because they consistently choose to ignore what I say. 

[Ms. Smart]

There's a school of thought that relationships shouldn't be work.  I'm on the fence about this.  Like, if it's work and you want to do it, you won't feel 'put upon'.  But if it's work and you don't really see the value in it, then HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM. 

[Ms. Smart]

Yes.  But they fall out in 7.

[Ms. Smart]

Naw.  We like to duke it out publicly so nobody can say I'm 'spending time' with a married man.  LOL

[CreoleInDC]

The simple answers to this is.

1. The ones checking for the pre-teens ain't worth your favor.
2. Yes I do have your home bugged.
3. I tried NOT being my Princessy self ONCE...just once and it was the worst 8 months of my life. Keep telling 'em cuz being miserable pretending is for the movies.

[ames]

For my husband I think I was easy to get and that I am easy to keep. I think 90% the stuff I need, want and like are natural to him.

I dated a few folks and the smallest thing they wanted felt as laborious to me as hiking Mount K, with them and their luggage on my back.

I don't think the work or a relationship is hard or easy, its the person you are giving too that makes it hard or easy. Not sure if that makes sense. Kid is screaming- must go.

[Ms. Smart]

1.  Tru-dat!  though I would appreciate if they just wore a sign.  While I don't look all 'old and tired', as was pointed out recently when i revealed my age, I don't think I look young enough to really attract men who want 'pop tarts'.

2.  I knew someone did.  Damn!

3.  Will do!  In fact, I need to just put the expectations on a baby-tee and wear it to the Target!

[Ms. Smart]

"I don't think the work or a relationship is hard or easy, its the person
you are giving too that makes it hard or easy."

Hit the nail on the head with that statement.  I could be or do ____ if I wanted to and felt good about doing it for that person.

[onefromphilly]

I'm not really easy to get, but if I like him, I will give him a chance. I'm probably harder to keep because it's taken me many years to realize that I MUST be with a really NICE-mild mannered man. I'll never go at a really nice man, but I will snap on a short tempered person like myself.
I'm harder to keep because a man must think that my brand of crazy is attractive. If he tries to change me , even slightly, I tend to act even crazier. And then it's over.

I think you are harder to keep. I think that you are determined to get marriage right the first time. And you're willing to put in the up front work to make sure, as best as possible, that the up front work produces the desired results. IMO

[L.P.]

I don't think the work or a relationship is hard or easy, its the person you are giving too that makes it hard or easy.

This!

I think I'm harder to keep than to get... I have a pretty good idea of what I want/need so when it's presented to me the way I want it, it usually goes easy. No need running around if I know what I want...
But that must also come from my very ability to leave things alone if they stop working for me one way or the other. I don't get attached easily.. I can leave rather easily if things stop being satisfactory... I've been called cold. I call it critical analysis. :)

However it seems that what I think are basic things that I am looking for in relationships seem to some as too much... Like the fiance often says, things can be simple and NOT easy... The things I want in a relationship are simple(and basic if you ask me) but apparently complex to others. With him though, it comes naturally and I find myself voluntarily doing things I once thought too tedious.

All in all, it's a matter of the person and the type of relationship... I think.

[Ms. Smart]

"...a man must think that my brand of crazy is attractive."

THIS!!!!!

"I think that you are determined to get marriage right the first time.
And you're willing to put in the up front work to make sure, as best as
possible, that the up front work produces the desired results."

Exactly.  Telly tried to roll back and 'make things work' recently.  I was discussing it with one of my best girls.  Her husband and some other male friend were near.  They chimed in and told me to stay away from him because I already knew the deal.  But my girl was the one trying to convince me that I should make it work.  I should work around the things I already know we aren't compatible on.  Those things seem to be damn near EVERYTHING that counts.  I think women are a lot quicker to ignore the obvious in pursuit of the ideal.  But men, save for if the woman is super fine, they aren't really trying to do too much working around 'issues'.  And hell, even if she is FINE, at this age, that's not enough to make him stay in a relationship and eventually marry--if he's smart.

[Ms. Smart]

"The things I want in a relationship are simple(and basic if you ask me)
but apparently complex to others."
This is because what you may think is basic are things other folks have never seen done.  OR they have been allowed, and sometimes encouraged to do NOTHING.

"With him though, it comes naturally
and I find myself voluntarily doing things I once thought too tedious."

*LIKE*

[WuDaMan]

Haha you said you Mama said you're like clowns and okra love or hate no grey area. Lol

[Ms. Smart]

I'm indifferent about clowns and okra.  Does that make me weird?

[WuDaMan]

Depressed? But most people don't ride the fence on those two. According to my experience. I like okra and clowns are aight.