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I have been thinking of friendship, love and commitment the last few days and somehow needed to put this down to clarify my own thoughts...  

This is what has been on my mind:  

i) Loving:  

Many people seem to feel that to really love them you can't love anybody else; as if your love was an accounted for quantity that would diminish by sharing it with others. I think this fear comes out of the idea of not being enough; thinking that if other people can give you the same or better then you will end by leaving them.  

I, excuse me for being weird, but I feel that the more love people gives you and the more people you love, the more there is to share.  
Maybe I should go into the definition of love for me: it’s being present, it’s being there no matter what, it’s acceptance, it’s freedom…freedom for the loved and freedom for the one that loves, it’s unconditional … It surely is not infatuation, or the way someone looks like, nor emotional blackmail, nor using others as a bulwark against loneliness.  

Now, I think that loving is a natural state that we end up corrupting by putting up all kinds of obstacles; social conditioning, personal hang-ups, religious bias, sexual taboos…etc.  

Another thing I have observed : comparing: it is a great injustice to compare people; they are unique in their ways, I can't expect them to be like any other person I know; I have to look at them as if nobody else existed while I am with them, I have to pay tribute to that uniqueness in them…but then to do that I would have to be able to recognize that same uniqueness in myself…and that is usually the problem; not many of us feel worthy of love and most of us are always afraid of losing the love of someone.  

It's that lack of attention and continuous comparing and expecting that spoils relationships.  
E.g: While you are with Peter you are thinking : *but Anne does it differently*..etc.  
Somehow its a weird thing to do, its like trying to compare inches to liters. Peter is not Annel and trying to make her into Paul is not going to help me much.  
So I guess what I want to do is to be able to enjoy each person I meet for themselves, for what they WILL give me if I pay attention, instead of for what I EXPECT them to give me.  

This concept is somtimes hard to explain to most people, because we are used to be on the receiving end of things, instead of being the creators of our life's.  
Look at television, look at how many decisions are made for us without our active consent; what we are supposed to wear, the way our partners are supposed to look, how we are supposed to feel and how everybody is supposed to behave...but hey!!! who is letting them do it. That is where your, mine, anyone's choice lies, where the power is...your, our power to choose. It takes a change of places, of attitude, from the expectant one: "life is supposed to be this and that way because my parents, society, etc promised me" to " what is life really like? let me take a look and see what it's ALREADY giving me and let me see what I want from it".  

Some questions that popped up here:  

why does everyone cry for freedom and there are so few that are prepared to deal with it, with rigths and with responsibility?.  

I meet people on different levels, some give me clarity of mind, some make me laugh, some make me think, some make me question myself, some let me dump on them, some actively teach me things.  
I would say that they give me a lot of stuff they don't even know about; sometimes it’s my perception of them that makes their existence into a gift, apart from their willingness to help and their support.  
It's like just by being themselves they let me choose what I most need of them and that is freely given, no expectations, no pressure. It makes me freer too, because I don’t have to second-guess them and I don’t have to carry their responsibility too.  
Dealing with anybody on an equal basis means that they have to be able to take good care of themselves, like I have to.  

I would like to think that I can let my friends be themselves and accept them as they are; instead of trying to change them or manipulate them or solve their problems for them, or leave them because their problems make me feel powerless.  
That is the way I want to be, but I am not there yet. ii) Expectations:  

As a friend pointed to me, it’s not the expectations we have, but how we deal with them: it is unrealistic to expect other people  to fullfill my expectations. And he is right, its the same principle as with violence; one can have feelings of anger without acting them out, the feelings themselves don’t do anything, it’s how we deal with them , how we use them.  

Expectations can be dangerous:  I may end  trying to get people to behave in a certain way, a way that may be contrary to their needs and wishes.  
My friend pointed out that there is nothing against expectations if I can be honest and fortright about them; like telling others what I want and leaving the choice to them, but lots of times it seems like the expectations are there unconscious, and tend to be confused with reality.  
My friend said that this is not about you SHOULDNT have expectations, it's just about how you can deal with them so that they don't become your stumbling stone.  
I agree: nobody can tell me or anybody for that matter what to feel, but I can always examine my feelings and make them work for me instead of against me.  

That is where self-responsibility comes in; where I have to decide what I need and who can give that to me, and be very aware that by choosing someone for a friend I am  somehow making a promise to myself to accept them as they are, not as I  want them to be.  
I guess there has to be a bit of both acceptance and compromise in a relationship. Any move and any compromise have to be freely and consciously chosen otherwise one ends up feeling pressured and powerless.  

More randomnes: I guess maybe some of the puritan, calvinistic views have made it into relationships too:  we don’t seem able to value anything that doesn’t cost us something, we value more what we have to work hard to achieve (mmmhhh, excurs here: is that why we don't appreciate nature and what the world offers, because we feel we havent worked for it, created it? Jeeez, if so isn’t that a big ego problem somewhere in there??).  
So if you feel like you are suffering and giving up something then you feel worthy enough of the reward?. Just more weird thoughts here…  

I guess I am not over the typical expectation to be nice and kind and fair to everyone (funny ain't it, that I end up resenting others for the expectations that I have of myself) but reality means to me  that I have to be honest to myself so as to realize that some people will end being a burden on me (not blame to them)because I, I, I, I can't deal with them, and then I have to make the decision to let them go or to protect myself against them, instead of blaming them.  
They are being themselves, it is up to me to accept them in their entirety or let them go.  
I know it is easier to expect OTHERS to change according to my needs, but then why should THEY?.  
Because otherwise I am going to not love them anymore, is that what love is based on? a continuous threat???…well, sorry, but that is NOT love, that is emotional blackmail, no matter how unconscious, it’s not love, its the need to control others, to manipulate their feelings to suit oneself.  
Parents do that a lot.  

I feel that unless I stop being the USER, the one that feels the right of being served, I will never ever be satisfied, because you see, others cannot read my thoughts, my needs and as such no matter what they promise (media) they can't give me what I want. It's up to me to use my brains and mouth to make my needs known, otherwise I end up substituting and making do…  
I know it is easier to complain and never do anything about it; I guess it is easier to lie to myself and blame everything else.  

But then it's not a question of ego, or blame, its a question of WHAT THE HELL DO I WANT?. Do I want to be unhappy for the next seventy years blaming others?. My goal in life is to reclaim my freedom of choice, to be as free as possible, to use the power I have where I can, instead of blaming others and ending up feeling powerless. After doing  that for a while, I realiced how useless it is; at least I did intellectually, it is still hard to live by, mostly because when you give others choices, you have to deal with their decisions.  
Then you have to make your own decisions and stop the second-guessing.  

Well,  I don’t want to spend my life blaming others, doesnt get me anything but momentary relief…what about you?.  
  

Fey,1997