Love means....

...never having to say you're sorry.

Does it now?

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." is a line from the novel of the same name and from the 1970's film Love Story.

Matthew (The Editor) and I had our first real disagreement since being an official couple last week and it got me to thinking.

First of all - I say disagreement rather than fight because I don't believe anything is ever really a 'fight' unless you want it to be. Matthew and I are both rather intelligent (him more so than I) individuals with a very strong hold on what we believe and for the most part our thoughts and beliefs are very similar. However, when we do come across a topic we don't see eye to eye on we can tend to get rather passionate and well, OK let's just be blunt here, we can both be pushy jerks about getting our personal views across to the other person. And respect can sometimes get lost in the heat of the dispute.

This happened in our disagreement. I guess argument could be an accurate description as well. I admit I wasn't always this way, and occasionally am still not, but over the years I've come to the realization that everyone is not going to think like me. I know, who'd have thunk? Along with that realization has also come the maturation of my ability to respect others even when we don't see eye to eye. I have, you could say, developed the ability to be ok with 'agreeing to disagree'. My honey on the other hand, while he's much more mature than me in many other areas, is somewhat lacking that same ability.

It started from a conversation about Lam Loung, the man who threw his four small children off of the Dauphin Island Bridge last year. He was found guilty and jurors were deliberating to determine his sentencing. Life in prison or the death penalty.

I personally am against the death penalty. I do not believe that any human has the right to take the life of another. The only exception I would make to this is in an extreme case of self defense. God is the giver of life. God is the only One who has the right to take it away. That is my personal belief on that topic.

Matthew believes in a more Karmic view. Yes God gave life, but the Bible says that if you take the life of another then you forfeit your life at the hands of man as well. You take the life of someone, you are in effect putting into motion the end of your life as a result.

The first mention of capital punishment as a penalty for murder is in Genesis 9:6:

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (KJV)

Numbers 35:31 states:

"... you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death."


And that's all find and dandy, but it's not my personal feeling or belief. Yes I believe in God, yes I read and follow the Bible, but on this particular subject, my heart leads me in another direction.

So the conversation started getting a bit passionate and I could tell that it was headed nowhere fast so I told Matthew, "OK, I understand how you feel, and I respect that. I don't feel the same. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this particular subject"

He didn't agree, or agree to disagree and he continued to push his view to the point that it became disrespectful. He got angry, eh frustrated may be a better word, and I got upset.

We both calmed down later and I expressed how I felt, that by refusing to accept my view and respecting that it was not the same as his, that he'd disrespected me. He said he was sorry for upsetting me and we moved on.

Now I want you to reread that last sentence because it is the real reason for this post.

He said he was sorry for upsetting me and we moved on.

He was sorry that something he did upset me. Not that he did something wrong.

Please note that the next day he did come over and very very humbly said he realized that he'd been a bit of an ass and that he owed me a very big apology, which I very happily accepted.

But it got me thinking.

Saying you're sorry.

If you honestly don't think you did something wrong, but are honestly sorry that someone was upset as a result of your actions does the sorry mean the same thing as apologizing for the actions themselves?

Does "I'm Sorry" carry the same weight if the person really doesn't think they did anything to be sorry for or are they basically apologizing for you taking something the wrong way? Even if you didn't. Even if they really were wrong.

Now this isn't a slight against Matthew in any way, shape or form. This is not a 'my boyfriend was a jerk so I'm going to complain about it' post. We rarely disagree and when we do, we're normally very skilled at verbalizing ourselves in a way that gets the point across to both parties without any sleight occurring. It's simply a question, an expression of a thought brought on by a rare instance where we didn't communicate quite so well.

So what do you think? How do you like your 'sorrys'? Does it matter what the apology is for as long as it's sincerely heart-felt, or is it important to you that the other person really see the 'wrong' they've done and are sorry for that?

For me... a heart-felt apology for hurting my feelings carries a lot of weight, but ultimately I want the sorry to be for the action that did the hurting. Although ideally it would be for both.

So for my love and I... it may not need to be said often, but love doesn't mean we'll never say "I'm sorry".

Welcome to Yoville

Have you ever played The SimsTM?

I got into it briefly several years ago and thought it was a pretty cool game, addicting, but after a while it got a little too detail intensive and wasn't quite as fun anymore. You had to make sure your avatar went to the bathroom or he/she'd pee on herself. You had to make sure they ate, or they'd pass out, take out the trash, or flies would infest their apartment, make it to the curb in time for their ride to work or they'd lose their job; it just got too busy.

Yoville is a game I came across on Facebook, you can play it on Myspace as well. Yoville is like a less detailed, more relaxed version of The SimsTM. The town of Yoville has a fashion store, Yoville Depot, Furniture store, Deli, Coffee shop, Gift store, beach, speedway and more.

To start the game you create your avatar - a mini you. This is your character for the game. You pick their face shape, skin tone, hair color and style, eyes, lips.. you get the idea. Then you head over to the fashion store and buy some clothes to dress yourself.

I've been playing for a while and don't remember how much (if any) Yoville coins you start the game with but similarly to The Sims, you do have to go to work and make money in order to enhance your 'life' in the game. You can check in at the Factory every 6 hours and how many 'employees' you have determines what your pay is. The more friends you recruit and 'hire' the more money you make. You can also make money by visiting friends homes and completing activities with them, by going to the speedway and winning races, by playing games with friends and by going to the casino. Of course, just like a real casino you can lose $$ at this one too.

Once you've racked up some Yoville coins you head over to the Yodepot to pick out floor and wall coverings, doors, windows, bathroom and kitchen appliances for your pad. Then you stop by the furniture store to decorate your rooms. You can edit your room any way you want, move windows from wall to wall and switch out furniture when you want a new look. Yoville stores are always getting in new merchandise so you can decorate and redecorate to your heart's content! Like my living room?

Get tired of living in an apartment? Once you've saved up enough $$ you visit the Yoville realtor and upgrade. Just remember, the bigger your place, the more rooms to furnish!

Whether you live in a trailer, an apartment or a monstrous Gothic Mansion, make sure you decorate your place with style - as other Yoville residents often stop by and rate your rooms.

So if you're on Myspace or Facebook take a trip to Yoville and maybe I'll see you there!

Come and knock on our door.....

We've been waiting for you......
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's company too.

Except in this case it's his and his and hers, and one of those his and hers is an ours.

**edit**

**After I wrote this and went back and proof-read it I realized that last sentence may be a bit confusing. I have a guy roommate, so that's where the other 'his' comes in. He's just a roommate, older, and has a girlfriend lol so the only his and hers kissing going on is between Matthew and me. :-) **

Last week I posted about feeling, in spite of how wonderful Matthew is and how great things were between us, that something was missing in our relationship.

And back in February I wrote about how, although for all intents and purposes Matthew and I were together, we were actually not a 'couple'. I explained that due to events yet to come, we'd decided it just wasn't in the best interest of either of us to plunge full steam ahead into a 'relationship'. I've not yet talked about those events, and today won't be the day for that either, but despair not, that post is in the near future.

Well shortly before the post about feeling something was missing, I'd had a talk with Matthew and explained how I felt. Then I let him read the post. I told him that even though things were great, he was great, we were great, it just wasn't enough for me. I was no longer ok with 'being together', but not really 'being together'. If you just got confused.. well imagine how I've been feeling.

It's hard to explain our inital decision without talking about the future events, but there is a reason I'm holding off on that post so just try to bare with me. If you didn't know that we weren't an official 'couple' and saw us in public you'd think we were together. We're affectionate with each other, he calls me hon or baby and I do the same. He sleeps over at my apartment, we for all intents and purposes act like a couple. Yet we weren't. Our 'relationship' had all the bells and whistles of 'being together' but we weren't together. My profiles said single, as did his. If someone asked we were 'seeing someone' but not in a committed relationship. He was not my 'boyfriend', nor I his 'girlfriend'.

This was a mutual decision between us. One I thought I'd be ok with, and I was... for a while. But that changed. So we talked, and I told him I needed him to decide - what did I mean to him, to what extent did he really want me in his life and how much risk (future events related) was he willing to take to have me there. Or did he just want to try and go back to really being 'just friends'. I needed things to either be one way or the other. The balancing act between acting like we were together but not really being together just wasn't something I could do anymore.

To say I was nervous, scared, anxious about what his answer would be is putting it mildly. I was terrified. What if he just decided it wasn't worth the risk - to either of us - to go ahead and really be together? What if he just wanted to go back to being friends? Could I do that? Could he?

Well Sunday morning he said he had something to tell me - but was nervous and wasn't sure how I'd take it. Sounds ominous I know. But as always, I worried for nothing, and I'll just say this - my face is starting to hurt from smiling so much.

We are now officially a couple. He IS my boyfriend. *giggles* and I his girlfriend. We are together, and I've never been more happy.

It wasn't the little things he didn't do that made me feel like something was missing. It was that we were walking a tight-rope between being together and not being together and I'd started feeling like I was about to lose my balance. I needed the complete commitment from him that I was who he wanted in his life, who he wanted to be with and now that I have that the 'little things that bothered me' just seemed to kind of fade away.



Oh yea, there's one more thing....


He's moving in. :-)