My Comfort Zone

Generally speaking, I'm fairly permissive when it comes to issues of sex and relationships. My take is, if everyone is of age and consents they should feel free to do whatever makes them happy. More to the point, if I'm not involved in the relationship, then who gives a shit what I think about it? No one with a well-developed sense of self, that's for sure.

However, when a specific issue is brought up, it is hard not to think about it and make a judgement, regardless of how irrelevant my judgement may be on the matter. A friend of mine recently mentioned a problem with someone being judgemental about a relationship choice. I'm going to have to be a little oblique here out of respect for privacy (hopefully I'm being oblique enough to avoid pissing anyone off while still conveying enough information to make this readable), suffice to say, the choice is outside the norm, but not so unusual as to be unexplored territory or even particularly shocking. While it was easy for me to offer a supportive and sincere response to the issue at hand, my mind immediately started making its own judgements on the relationship, and while my opinion wasn't a negative one, it wasn't one of resounding support either.

Ultimately, I suppose I could let myself off the hook by saying that the judgement boils down to the choice simply not being for me. Not the path I would take, but then, no one asked, so why does that matter. Again, who gives a shit what I think about the relationship in question; what I find interesting is that, for all my claims (very sincere claims I believe) to open mindedness and respecting others' choices, there's still a part of me that is inclined to make snap judgements. And I don't say that to condemn that part of me. If it affected the way I treat people, then it would be worth condemning, but it doesn't and I suppose it's harmless to have an opinion about something that is really none of my business.

As I sit here thinking about it, I think maybe this tendency to judge comes from the way I tend to see people, as stories. I'm sure that's a horribly sociopathic way to think about other people, but when I meet someone I tend to be less interested in his/her now than I am in where he came from or where she's going. And, of course, all stories call on us to make judgements about the choices of the characters.

Or maybe I'm just full of it. Hard to say. At the end of the day, this is all just so much naval gazing, but a little naval gazing now and then can be useful.

Apologies to anyone who might be offended by my "talking out of school" so to speak. You probably know who you are.