I am now a mother too and I’ve noticed that the best way I can love and teach my son is by praising him. Yes, discipline is necessary but being told what he did right versus wrong seems to sink in more. I realized that small children ask their parents so many questions because they think we have the answers. When we tell them things, they believe it because they trust we know best. So, I choose to tell him that he’s the most incredible, smart, loving, positive and unstoppable light on the planet.
If you love me and you like something I’ve said or done, please voice that to me. And even when I’m not at my best, remind me how great I can be.
Kinsey Scale
Sexuality is finally being recognized as a diverse, ever-changing and beautiful part of the human experience. The terms heterosexual and homosexual do not speak to the vast majority of people who may have had experiences with both. The Kinsey Scale is a rating system, created by Alfred Kinsey, that allows more flexibility when identifying sexual preferences.3 The letters XX represent someone who identifies as asexual, X for gray asexual, a 0 for someone who is starkly heterosexual, 6 for those who are completely homosexual and 1 to 5 represent varying degrees of sexual fluidity.
As Maya pointed out to me, the Kinsey Scale does a poor job of representing transgender and nonbinary communities. Sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct, which the Kinsey Scale fails to address. The Gender Unicorn by Trans Student Educational Resources tried to fill this gap so take a look at that if the Kinsey Scale proved unhelpful.4 To make a quick guess of your Kinsey Scale number: Imagine you’ve just returned home from a vacation with a group of people you will never see again. After you’ve gotten settled you phone your best, nonjudgmental friend to spill the tea about your incredible trip. What do you describe?
xx.I had an amazing time with the group. I feel like I made a lot of good friends and no one pressured me to take our relationship any further, which I loved.
x.There was one person in the group who I really hit it off with. We went on a few romantic nights out, we shared a lot of our secrets and we never felt compelled to get physical, which I loved.
0.I met someone of the opposite sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with. I saw a few other people from the opposite sex who were superhot and intriguing too.
1.I met someone of the opposite sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with. Also, I flirted with someone of the same sex and we made out, which I loved.
2.I met someone of the opposite sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with for the majority of the trip. I also met someone of the same sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with for a couple of nights.
3.I met someone of the opposite sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with. Then I met someone of the same sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with.
4.I met someone of the same sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with for the majority of the trip. I also met someone of the opposite sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with for a couple of nights.
5.I met someone of the same sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with. Also, I flirted with someone of the opposite sex and we made out, which I loved.
6.I met someone of the same sex who I was majorly attracted to and got to physically connect with. Also, I saw a few other people from the same sex who were superhot and intriguing too.
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Answer Key
xx.asexual—an aversion or lack of interest in sexual acts with others
x.gray asexual—a desire for romantic connections that aren’t physical
0.heterosexual—an attraction to only people born of the opposite sex
1.heterosexual and incidentally homosexual—open to isolated acts of homosexuality
2.heterosexual and more than incidentally homosexual—open to common acts of homosexuality
3.equal parts heterosexual to homosexual—often known as pansexual (an attraction to people regardless of gender or sex they were assigned at birth) or bisexual (attraction to those who identify as male or female)
4.homosexual and more than incidentally heterosexual—open to common acts of heterosexuality
5.homosexual and incidentally heterosexual—open to isolated acts of heterosexuality
6.homosexual—an attraction only to people born of the same sex
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The best way to do this exercise is to do it twice: once keeping in mind what you would likely do and the other, what you would fantasize about doing.
Now that you’ve completed this assessment for the first time, write a short paragraph about your results. Here is Maya’s answer:
Me: 24, queer, writer, true Taurus. Likes: bad TV, curios, beer, celebrity gossip, people who can skateboard. You: must love dogs, trying new foods, early 2000s teen movies; laugh easily; are curious, spontaneous, and can appreciate a comfy couch and a good movie. As per sex/gender: there are no boundaries to me finding someone that I can have a romantic or physical relationship with. I am pansexual, meaning that I can have feelings toward someone no matter how they identify (cisgender, trans, bisexual, queer, nonbinary, etc. . . . gender and sexuality is a spectrum!). It’s very important to me that my partner understands this, especially if they are cisgender/straight.
I got a score of 2 on the Kinsey Test because of my lack of experience, but I am a 4 in fantasy. Although I have yet to have a romantic connection outside of the heterosexual experience, I am predominantly attracted to queer people.
APOLOGY LANGUAGE
After The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman teamed up with Jennifer Thomas to write The Five Languages of Apology. I loved this follow-up, because while we can all acknowledge how important it is to feel loved in a relationship, we often forget, until someone is yelling or crying, how important it is to feel understood. The apology languages address this gap by giving us five ways of acknowledging that we’ve made a mistake in hurting someone we care for. Chapman and Thomas’s five apology languages are: expressing regret, accepting responsibility, making restitution, genuinely repenting and requesting forgiveness.5 But the only three I don’t see overlap in is expressing regret, accepting responsibility and making restitution, so those are the ones I will focus on here.
To quickly estimate your apology language: Imagine you just got in a big blowout with your romantic partner over behavior that you’ve told them before is unacceptable. After much explaining you are finally able to break through to them. So, to make things right, what would you prefer them to say?
I get it now and I’m so insanely sorry. If only I would have listened to you the other times you’ve explained yourself, we wouldn’t be fighting again. I wish it never came to this.
This is all on me. I should have been paying more attention to my actions and how they’ve been affecting you. My behavior is my responsibility and I totally dropped the ball.
I made the same error again and this time it could have really damaged our relationship. Please let me do X to make this right.
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Answer Key
Expressing regret: An apology to you is best when it includes a clear indication that the other party knows their wrongdoings and wishes they’d made a better choice.
Accepting responsibility: If someone is going to apologize effectively to you, they need to take full ownership of the offense, without passing the buck.
Making restitution: If someone wants to make things right with you, they should start by offering a make-up, act of service.
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Once you’ve got your apology language down, write a short paragraph that personalizes your results so others can truly understand how to make amends with you. Here is Courtney’s apology language paragraph:
People know me as happy, confident, filled with self-love, determined and always seeking to grow. But what if I t
old you not too long ago that I was physically, emotionally and mentally abused by someone I loved who claimed to love me too.
In abusive relationships, the abuser finds a way to demean, dehumanize and discard an individual in such a way to control the individual to not leave. According to the National Domestic Hotline, the abused will return to their abuser seven times before leaving for good. While there are other factors that played into why I gained the courage to leave, one important realization I had to come to was how important true remorse and apologies are to me.
My apology language is “accept responsibility.” So many times, apologies by my abuser would be followed up by “but I wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t . . .” I noticed that he never took responsibility—not even for physically assaulting me.
In all relationships, even healthy ones, I know that being disappointed by others is a natural part of being loved, but to me, if someone really loves me, they will accept responsibility for the pain they’ve caused. To me that shows maturity as well as humility and it gives the relationship an opportunity for a better future.
ATTACHMENT STYLE
Why are some people clingy and super-jealous? Why are some ghosters? How come certain people want you until they have you? How do some people manage to be pretty chill about the whole attaching thing? And most important, which of those labels would other people describe you as? Attachment theory is an area of psychology first coined by John Bowlby that seeks to explain attachment styles by identifying four different ways people behave in intimate relationships: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant.6 Take the quiz below to get a loose idea of your attachment style in romantic relationships. Try your hardest to answer realistically and not idealistically. Sure, everyone wants to be secure, but in truth anxious people tend to work well together and avoidant types like Steve Jobs can become mega rich and successful because they are undistracted by emotional ties. In addition if you’re honest and discover something you don’t like, that puts you on the path to self-improvement. So, worry less about proving your ex wrong and more about circling what truly sounds right to you in each of the scenarios listed below:
You are having a rough day so you reach out to your romantic interest to get comfort, but you can’t get ahold of them. So you:
Move on and try to get ahold of another close ally.
Get more upset that not only are you having a rough day but now you also don’t know where/what your interest is doing.
You don’t reach out at all. If you’re having a rough day that means you need to work extra hard on your own to fix it.
You send a follow-up text to your interest that says, “Hey, never mind my missed call, I figured it out and have a pretty busy day so don’t worry about calling back.”
You and your romantic interest get into a heated argument and they announce that they are going out for a bit to clear their head. So you:
Get upset that they would leave before things have gotten resolved but you let them go anyway so you can also calm down.
Block the doorway/chase after them/hold them back so they can’t leave until you feel like the issue has been resolved.
You’re usually the one who leaves the situation.
You let them go but as soon as they’re gone, you leave as well because you refuse to be there waiting when they get back.
Your romantic interest tells you the two of you should take a break to reassess the relationship. So you:
Express how you really feel about it, but encourage them to honor their feelings to part ways if that’s what they feel is best.
Get angry because you feel like they led you on all this time. You then let them know that deep down you always knew they would leave you as soon as things got tough.
You’re usually the one who pumps the brakes on relationships to reassess if they’re no longer meeting your expectations.
You tell them there is no point to a break. You won’t want them when they come back, so you think it’s best to end the relationship immediately.
Your romantic interest tells you that someone they dated five years ago is in town and they’re going to meet up with them. So you:
Thank them for informing you, ask them to keep you updated, then go about your day.
Stress out about why they would be interested in seeing an ex again, then immediately search that person online.
Tell them you really couldn’t care less because you couldn’t.
Tell them you don’t care, then make a mental note to start keeping your distance since they’re clearly keeping their options open.
Your romantic interest has a close friend’s wedding to attend, but they didn’t invite you to join them. So you:
Ask them if they were allowed to bring a plus one and leave it alone from there.
Immediately start combing through their social media accounts to see who else they’re apparently dating too.
You fist pump because now you have a day to yourself uninterrupted.
You plan to do something incredibly cool for the entire weekend and make a note not to invite them to any of it.
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Answer Key
If you answered mostly A’s your attachment style might be securely attached.
This is the ideal way to attach to others, and the good news is roughly half of the population is securely attached. People with secure attachment freely display interest and affection toward others, but are also comfortable being alone. They make boundaries and they stick to them; they aren’t possessive nor are they passive or dismissive. They’re capable of accepting rejection and have little trouble trusting people.
As a child a securely attached person probably had attentive parent(s) who were consistent and nurturing but also left a healthy amount of space for them to explore, make mistakes and learn from them.
If you answered mostly B’s your attachment style might be anxious-preoccupied.
Twenty percent of the population are said to be anxious-preoccupied, meaning people who are often nervous and stressed about their relationships.7 They crave intimacy, but they lack confidence that anyone will truly love them. They worry a lot that someone will lose interest in them and choose someone else. They have a hard time trusting people but also have an even harder time letting go.
People who are anxious-preoccupied need plenty of affirmation from others, so they have trouble being alone, and thus often find themselves in unhealthy relationships long after the red flags start waving.
A major drawback of this attachment style is the obsessive preoccupation with relationships. This can cause an inability to concentrate on anything else.
As a child this person may have had an inconsistent parent or guardian who at times smothered them and encouraged dependency while at other times was too caught up in their own emotions to be emotionally available at all.
If you answered mostly C’s your attachment style might be dismissive-avoidant.
People who avoid attachment are super-independent and often uncomfortable with too much intimacy. They’re the kind of people who require a lot of space and a lot of alone time. They’re also afraid of commitment but unlike anxious people it isn’t because they fear they won’t get enough love, but fear they will get more than they can manage. A dismissive-avoidant person may regularly complain about feeling “crowded” or “suffocated” when people try to get close to them. They tend to be hyper-focused on individual achievement and see romantic connections as a distraction.
In childhood, people who are dismissive-avoidant often had some of their needs met while the rest were neglected. For instance, the child may have gotten fed regularly, but was not held enough. Or there was a lot of attention on scholastic achievement but none on emotional security.
If you answered mostly D’s your attachment style might be fearful-avoidant.
This is a combination of dismissive-avoidant and anxious-preoccupied. These are the people who push others away not because they want spa
ce, but because they fear once you get too close you will want space from them. They are torn between fearing and craving a level of commitment they don’t think anyone can provide. Relationships with fearful-avoidants can best be described as hot and cold with plenty of tests that their partner will likely fail.
As a child the fearful avoidant may have had a parent or guardian who was manic or possibly had issues with substance abuse, creating a literal day-and-night effect. They were never given the luxury of being completely vulnerable and thus as adults, avoid opportunities to do so.
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This is a very difficult one to self-assess, so after you choose one, try asking someone close to you what they honestly think you are; also refer to the full workbook at TheGameofDesire.com to get a link to a longer quiz. After you find your type, write a short paragraph that describes how your attachment style influences your relationships. Here is Stephanie’s paragraph on her attachment style:
Fearfully avoidant
While I am securely attached across the spectrum of relationships in my life, from my parents to my friends, when it comes to romantic relationships, it turns out I’m fearful-avoidant.
This breakdown makes a lot of sense, because traditionally, I see the best in people. I’m a lover not a hater, and I prize having deep relationships with people (my mantra for relationships, platonic and romantic, is “If it’s not real, I don’t want it”). However, in constant competition with my desire to form these real, authentic connections is my hesitance to reveal my true self to people I don’t fully trust. And for some reason, when it comes to men, I just find it so hard to trust them completely. I think a lot of it stems from my disbelief that men would want to date me the way I want to be dated (flaunted and shown off). So, I subconsciously relegate myself to a less-than-girlfriend position and (ironically) contribute little openness/intimacy to the relationship to avoid the embarrassment of having them think I cared. I try to keep it really distant/casual and I stay passive so as to not rock the boat/get too hurt when they inevitably want to abandon me for the real thing—it’s complete self-sabotage. I think that’s why dating my last boyfriend was so good for me—him introducing me to his friends and hearing him show me off (she went to Cornell, blah blah blah) was so awesome for me, even though he turned out not to be.
The Game of Desire Page 6