Relationships Are Like Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies

Did I catch your attention? The cookie subject line does have merit.

A telephone conversation I had with someone - a guy who has this whacky soft duck type hat that's bright orange and yellow that is just about the damnedest sexiest thing I've ever seen :) - gave me food for thought (now that's a novel concept) - about whether you should analyze a friendship/relationship or just let it be.

So I got to thinking that friendships/relationships are like baking chocolate chip cookies:  If you keep opening the oven door to check on the cookies every minute, trying to "analyze" if they are done or by poking them with your finger, chances are pretty good these cookies are going to be undercooked and gross and get tossed out or overcooked, burned and - you got it - tossed out.

BUT ... if you are patient and just leave the cookies to bake in their own damned time, chances are pretty good you'll end up with something really, really delicious.

See what I mean? Friendships/Relationships - at least those in the early stages of however either involved party wants to deem the existence of their status or definition of "togetherness" - shouldn't be scrutinized every minute, shouldn't be analyzed or questioned or bolstered with statements like "I don't want you to think ..." or "I know you said this, that or whatever ..." and the old standby "I don't want anything from you and I don't expect anything from you."

I'm guilty as charged with sometimes analyzing or overanalyzing my own spur of the moment texts of pornographic humor, comments and statements that may or may not be construed as an attempt to wrap myself around someone like a boa constrictor.

That was NOT my intent but tonight, I did exactly that (not the wrapping part although I would like to wrap myself around him in a different way ha ha ha) and made "the phone call" and blabbed a lot of blah blah blah that this guy with the duck hat definintely heard (I know he was listening) but when I listened to the blather that was coming out of my mouth I realized that I should end the call before I choke on my own analysis and drown in my duh-ness.

Duh!

Go figure. It's hard sometimes to gauge where you stand with someone - if you even have a place to stand at all. But sometimes the place upon which we find common ground, common interests and a lot of laughter seems to be the right place to stand as long as you don't build walls or box someone in with a lot of conditions and expectations. That's how relationships - new and old - get ruined.

Certainly, we all want a solid foundation upon which to build - whether it be a house or a friendship or a relationship but not everyone has the same goal or ideal or has a clue how to handle something new, someONE new that perhaps makes them look at things in a different light.

May I interject that it sucks the major league big one when you have been in a long-term relationship and you find out you've been duped. Not just duped but blatantly and humiliatingly taken for the worst ride possible. Can you see my hand up there in the air? Does the term "been there, done that" mean something?  And what's worse is when you find out about the "duping" in the most innocent (or bizarre way in my case) and then your world unravels and you stand back in shock wondering how did I not see this? Or how did I not KNOW this?

When you bake chocolate chip cookies, the smell is inviting and overwhelmingly tantalizing and you can't wait to jam about two or three into your mouth. It's the same with relationships. New ones, steady long-term ones. Everything looks good and smells good and sometimes you're lucky enough to get something really delish and tasty and you just keep coming back for more and that taste is amazing every single time.

Then there are times when you spit out a relationship like it's bad, burnt overdone blackened chocolate chip cookies mixed with bad medicine and you feel like you'll never get that taste out of your mouth because one person ruined your ability to find that "delish" factor ever again.

I certainly didn't think I'd ever get that nasty taste out of my mouth. And it wasn't even my less-than-a-year marraige that put it there!

My chocolate chip cookie baking fiasco began when I entered into a five-year relationship with somone who ultimately gave humiliation, duped and sledgehammered - with an extra heaping helping of duped - entirely new meanings and made me question whether I EVER wanted to bite into any more damned chocolate chip cookie relationships because my mouth, and my heart, were just too damned scarred by eating those burnt cookies he cleverly disguised as good ones for five years.

Then one day when I was least expecting it, a guy with killer blue eyes offered me purple Hostess Snoballs. You know - those sickeningly sweet round dome shaped balls of chocolate with that marshmallow covering (it's like the covering on a baseball except way, way better tasting) with cream in the middle.

Ya those.

And for whatever reason, I took a leap of faith and took a bite. (Kinda like a fish taking the bait LOL except I haven't been thrown back - yet :)

I don't know what kind of meaning it holds for him, but for me, well, let's just say those sugar-filled heartstopping chocolate domes of cream and calorie-laden marshmallow high fructose corn syrup purple things taste pretty damned good so far.

And tonight after I hung up the phone and sat down to write this blog - I vowed not to analyze - or overanalyze - anything anymore because some things - and people - should be taken (and accepted) just the way they are: in little, tasty pieces.

No more, no less.

Got milk?