"puppy love" in 2015
I can remember in the early 2000s rocking out to the latest Lil' Bow Wow record the night it came out. This is back when buying CDs was the thing to do. Maybe it was "Like You", or "Let Me Hold You" or some other song about puppy love. But I wasn't even in high school, no idea what love was about, but at that time I felt as though I could relate. I knew to treat a girl right you had to tell her nice things and buy her expensive gifts, that's how you keep her. It was simple back then. Fast forward about ten years later and all my "puppy love" has groomed me into what I would call a pretty well-rounded young man. I know there is more to a relationship that just saying nice things and buying your significant other gifts. In some ways you have to do this, but it's a lot more involved than that. You have to be on the same page intellectually, emotionally and physically to truly make things work. It's communication verbally and non-verbally that go the distance. Now that I am embarking on something new myself, I use my past missteps to put things in better order. I try to learn from where I went wrong to do better in the present. I don't leave someone when I'm mad, but instead hug them in spite of my feelings. Instead of saying what is always on my mind, I bite my tongue and give positive notes and make people feel good about themselves, instead of putting them down. I call it my 2015 person puppy love story because in it's infancy things are not complicated yet, but I am fully involved and fully invested. It's no about MySpace or AOL instant messenger, but now its a gazillion other social media platforms. From Twitter to Instagram to SnapChat to Vine to Facebook -- slip up on social media and it can be the ruin of your relationship. There are so many more factors than your significant other that you have to deal with today. You have to worry about what they say and feel and possibly how the outside world is going to react. Maybe you shouldn't tweet this or instragram that, it's crazy, but it's reality. I've learned to pick and choose my battles and have patience. I need to learn when I should speak up and let other things go. Put your significant other before you when in the end it makes them happy, but maintain a balance always. It's easy to like someone and make it work for a bit, but what are you both working on to make it last. Right now it's puppy love, but my goal is real love when all is said and done.