http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com The Art of Relationships, Real and Imagined Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:00:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The important question is "Why?" Why are you interested in getting into a relationship? Why are you in a relationship now? Why do you stay in this relationship? Is it for her? Or him? Or you? Is it because "that's just what people do?" Why do you do what you're doing? If you can't honestly answer that most basic ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/06/11/hump-day-crush-ask-yourself-why/ Once you've decided that you want to learn more about yourself by taking your crushes to the Grown Up Crush level, there are four major tools you'll be using: Self Control, Imagination, Introspection and Action. Self Control Without Self Control, there's no way other than dumb luck that you're going to keep ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/05/21/four-tools-of-the-trade/ Every now and then I get reminded what real Love is. And every single time I'm surprised that it's so easy to lose sight of it. We spend so much of our lives chasing Love. We make fools of ourselves for it. We hurt ourselves and others in the name of it. ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/04/21/unrequited-is-ok/ Nearly 15 years ago, right at the end of my first year of college, I met this wonderful girl. We met at a very outdoorsy community service project my service group was working on. She was a friend of a friend and had spent most of the day trudging through the ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/04/02/hump-day-crush-half-the-story/ The first step in taking control of your crushes and making them useful as well as fun, is getting to know yourself. By taking a few minutes and answering five questions--the first of many you'll eventually be asking yourself as the process goes on--you can discover a little bit more about ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/03/19/hump-day-crush-5-questions-to-ask-yourself-about-yourself/ When exploring, there are two main things you need: a starting point and a rough idea of what you're looking to do. The starting point gives you somewhere to gauge how far you've gone. It gives you an anchor point and, in a worst case scenario, a port of sorts to ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/03/12/hump-day-crush-personal-limits/ At one point or another, you're going to have a crush that goes from light and fun to downright dark and destructive. It happens to the best of us, no matter how well we know ourselves, no matter how hard we try to keep it form happening. It's just part of ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/03/10/7-signs-of-a-crush-gone-bad/ Most weekends, I head out with friends to a bar or a dance club. I go because I thoroughly enjoy it. It's a chance to be social, a chance to meet new people and a chance to be reminded of things that are easy to forget between the week-day rush ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/02/14/old-habits/ The first Super Bowl party I was ever invited to happened when I was in high school. The invitation itself was a surprise. The geniality of the other people there--people who generally didn't have a lot to do with me in school--was even more surprising. I don't remember who played, let ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/02/04/the-big-game/ May of this year marks fifteen years since my high school graduation. As anyone who even casually reads here knows, high school played a large role in setting the groundwork for who I am now. That all became very clear to me when the ten year mark was rolling around and ... http://www.withoutbeingcrushed.com/2008/01/24/hump-day-crush-ten-years-plus-another-five/