Yanno, one emotion I’ve never understood is jealousy.  Not the feeling of being envious of what someone else has – no I’m talking about the jealous feeling someone gets when they think (rightly or wrongly but we’ll come to that in a minute) that the person they say they love or are in a relationship with,  prefers someone else to them.

I’ve never understood this need to possess someone every second – this suspicion that drives them to screen your mail, your phone calls, to question every notation on every piece of paper as to from whom and why.  The sneaking around to view what you are writing ‘just in case’.  In case of what?  Were I going to write something to someone I damned sure would do it where someone else couldn’t read it now wouldn’t I?  Talk about some people’s apparent stupidity!  And what business is it of their’s anyway in the first place? 

Let’s assume that Person A in the relationship has never stepped out on Person B in the relationship.  Person B continues to be suspicious and accusing of  Person A – treating them as if in fact they have been unfaithful to Person B.  At what point does Person A stop trying to convince Person B of their innocence?  At what point does Person A think to themselves if they are going to be accused of doing it that they might as well go ahead and do it since they are paying for it anyway?  Does not Person B ever realize that all they are doing by this constant suspicion and prying and jealous snits is to push Person A away from them.  That it is Person B who is undermining whatever trust there is in the relationship to begin with.  How long can any relationship exist where there is not mutual trust and respect?  Are they so jealous not because Person A actually ever did anything but because Person B has or has been tempted to do so that therefore they feel that Person A must have been as well?  Are they so afraid of being alone that they must chain someone to them?

By what rights does being in a relationship with someone automatically confer on them the right to police that other person's time, emotions, thots, who they can speak with, be friends with, what they can do, where they can go?  Being in a relationship does not mean that you stop ever being an individual first.  How does my relationship(s) with others on any level take away from what time I choose to spend with anyone else?  Speaking with a male friend does not mean that I've any plans on bedding them, even if they are a sexy man in their own right.  I’ve never, ever believed that one person can fulfill all the needs and desires of any other one person on all levels.  Not all of the men I’ve loved have been able to fulfill my needs for good companionship, friendship or good conversation for example.  I’ve never expected them to and so I am not disappointed.  Some things can only be experienced with one’s sisters or daughters – or brothers for that matter.  It is outside the realm of what a lover can provide – love divided by more than two does not diminish – it enriches.  I have open relationships – that is understood upfront.  For me – binding myself to others in a one on one to the exclusion of all others has never worked or been an option.  I don’t make promises I can’t keep nor do I demand such promises of the person I am in a relationship with.  If they want to be with me they are.  If they want to be with someone else I certainly don’t want them with me while they are wishing they were with someone else.  I am not threatened when they chose not to be with me - I am pleased when they are happy - even tho I admit that sometimes I am hurt or disappointed, but that is my affair.  

A person who exhibits jealousy with regard to me and my doings is poisoning the time we have together and soon I won’t be spending time with them at all.  I can guarantee it.  I certainly won’t be sharing my life, my thots, my inmost feelings with them.  And in the end – they will have no one to blame but themselves that they wasted the time – wasted the gift.