The American Center for (Army) Lesson Learned among other things accumulates and distributes information about survival strategies in war zone. I imagine this is when one is more than willing to learn from others’ mistakes – it can save one’s life!
How nice would that be if upon entering a relationship one could access a vast knowledge database and get some useful tips that one would be willing to take into consideration. (This, too, is about survival.) We have a whole army of experts at our disposal: parents, friends, friends of our friends, neighbors and their pets… The problem is we hardly ever learn on our own mistakes let alone follow others’ advice.
For once in my life I decided to take things seriously and put together a little survival manual for myself when it comes to what is known as romantic relationships. Mainly a check list for signs I usually notice when stating a relationship (really!) but for reasons unknown to me choose to ignore those little warning sparks, hoping THIS TIME it would be different and yes, he has a lot of other fine qualities that compensate for this little flaw. Huge red lights and an alarm sound should start up at this first warning sign and take me out of my trance (obviously I am in trance at that time, why else would I not be heading for the door already?).
He is past 25, lives with his parents and doesn’t see what is wrong with the picture.
There is just no way working it out in a lifetime. Surely one could adopt this child and try to raise him into an independent individual, all the time having his mother’s spirit hovering over, but to be honest I don’t believe it could actually work and secondly, would it not be more efficient and gratifying to use this time and energy for, say, learning Japanese?
Let someone with guaranteed nine lives try that one.
