Label

I’ve been hearing a lot of rebuttals if putting a label to a person or a situation is right or wrong. Let me try to swim on both sides on this one to gauge the importance and the possible instances that people negates to have this kind of idea of imprinting a label.

First and foremost, the idea of putting a label is to identify and putting everything into its right places. On some cases we often need it to determine people who’re not blood related to us if they’re friends, close friends, best friends, acquaintance, colleagues, etc. We need these identifiers to know who are the people we can put our trust and the ones we can rely on from the ones we can't. Also, this can be our deciding factor in prioritizing series of events. For example, where would you better be, in a colleagues wedding or at your best friend’s house where he/she needs you badly? Based on the example I gave, this will depend on how a person levels the labels of each individual.

Having the behavior of putting a label to everything is like decorating a house where you put all the furniture on where you think they should be. But this kind of idea can sometimes cloud our judgment as a whole. Especially when you’re on the dating period or having an interest to a specific someone. In this kind of scenario, I guess we should be careful on putting an immediate label until we know them fully. Like what if the guy whom you have known as like your fuck buddy can be a good potential partner? What if he has the quality you’re looking for as your other half but you have already plotted that this person should only be your FB? That’s where we will have a difficulty in adjusting our mindset to this individual. Another sample is, the so called mutual feeling. This can be really very catchy which you may have the uncertainty to put a label on what really is your current situation with this person. Let’s just say that everything is going steady being with this guy but then again there’s this gray area on where this will lead to.  It’s either this may lead to a waiting game on who should ask first or try to stick a label on this situation or, a shot in the head once you found out that both of you were not on the same page. Let’s just say that you’ve found out that he’s not ready yet to step up his game for the both of you but you’re already on it.

Not putting a label can be fleeting, anytime the other party felt different, or drifted apart, it will be an easy way out since there’s no specific subject on what both of you may have. On the other hand, not putting a label can also lead into a lot of opportunities and it gives you more time to know more a certain person. But there’s this question that only you can answer, until when? Now this is just my two cents, regardless of how much you will give importance of putting a label or not, I think we should just always be honest to everything. On what we feel, what we think. No matter how much we may hurt someone, I think it’s better than keeping them in a blurry situation or giving them false hopes.

Closed -> Open Book = Singlehood

New Year, new chapter. New life. Everything old feels like new again to me. Most specially this singlehood thing I’m dealing right now. A lot has changed from moving on, to accepting the fact that my ex has someone new, and finally from being fully recovered from all these emotional catastrophe of ending the relationship in my own terms and in my own preferred time. I only determined that I’m already at the end of it when I’m starting not to think of him from every hour, to everyday, to every week… a month till he became someone that I used to know.

Being single has its own pros and cons. You get to know a lot of people who can appreciate you inside-out. Go to places without having any curfew or any fucking conscience of anything you might do. All I can always think of is that I am only responsible to myself. Am I enjoying it? Well yes! But too much of it is an unexpected sucker. So this is where I began to realize that I should start limiting the people around me to myself. I can’t afford to be everywhere. I can only handle as much demands. Learn to say no is hard to think at first but with a firm decision, it’s manageable. I can’t please anyone, that’s one thing I have validated. And yes, I will stay being straight forward which sometimes can hurt other’s feelings towards me but I can’t afford to lose the grip of firmness in me.

The difference of being single from having a partner is like driving a car. Having your other half, sometimes, you need not to be in the driver seat and just stay at the passenger’s side. You can depend on your partner or you can dictate where both of you will go. While being single, you need to drive your own car/life which you may see some obstacles along the way that only you will decide which path you’re going to take. So that’s why we need to be more focused when we’re single as no one will really contradict on the things that we want. It’s just that we should really know what we really want. Again, focus.

So upon declaring my singlehood, this doesn’t mean that I’m opening myself out in the market. Yes, I’m single. But I’m not available. After all the distractions, I finally know what I want. And I’ll focus on it for now.