We're All Crazy

I just spoke consecutively with two of my best friends. Presently, both find themselves trapped between not two, but THREE boys each.

One of each is committed, one is in love with them, and the other they are in some desperate way in love with. The exact same situation, with minorly different variables. Both are completely miserable as a result.

As you can imagine, the word "crazy" surfaced an awful lot in both conversations. They would say, nearly in sync with my having thought it, "Why am I upset about person A, when I am doing the same thing to person B! Am I crazy?" In either case, I didn't know what to say.

I have always maintained, and have yet to be proven wrong, that just about everybody cheats. (At least to some degree.) If you haven't yet, it doesn't mean you won't. Or that it hasn't happened to you. Or that it won't. Cheating doesn't make you crazy, it makes you human. Period. Call it cynicism...but I think it's only realistic. People are animals too... and rarely monogomous just like the rest of them. The problem, however, lies in how we handle ourselves as a result. I have found myself at one point or another on every possible end of the cheating spectrum.

Presently, in fact, I find myself between two boys; feeling similarly confused, and similarly chaotic. And I can't for the life of me seem to get out from under it. It makes me crazy. Or what's more likely, is that I was already crazy, and this is just a biproduct of that. Chicken and the egg, so to speak.

The trick, however, is to understand the consequences of whatever actions you're facing, and to not lose respect for yourself in the process. Guilt, insecurity and self-doubt are three HIGHLY prevelant reactions associated with the mess of cheating. Whether you're the victim, the perpetrator, or just an accomplice...it quickly becomes clear that even the most sane among us can find themselves on shaky mental ground in the wake of a complicated relationship.

But what I told my friends, and have been trying to tell myself, is that right or wrong... our choices to date, not to date, to date more than one person...are based not on our insanity, but rather on the very sane desire to know what it is to feel. To have different kinds of attention. To experience different relationships, with different people. These are the normal things that normal twenty-somethings have to do in order to finally wind up with the one thing we then know for certain is what we want. We want to wind up without regrets. Without having to wonder what we missed. And despite being driven completely mad in the process... I have to believe it's all worth it.

The process of sorting through all of the people, all of the problems, and all of the passions can be maddening...for anyone. But the trick is to keep an open heart, an open mind, and most of all...as much of your sanity as possible.