Effort

My all time favourite Vlogger, Will and RJ

I’ve been writing about 'moving on' the past few weeks and I figured it’s time for me to get back to my original series (Keys to Sustain a Healthy Relationship). After sharing my thoughts on timing, compatibility, chemistry and also honesty in my previous posts, I would like to bring your attention to the word effort, in this post.

Let’s revisit the house building analogy; compatibility, timing, chemistry, etc… All the things that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts are just the foundation/building blocks, if you may, to build your lifelong happiness. But these alone are not enough. Huge effort is needed to assemble all these building blocks together so we can finally build the perfect relationship that we have always wanted.

Maintaining a healthy relationship requires effort, constant effort actually. Even the most magnificent building requires patch up, brush up and some tinkering from time to time to maintain its glory. However, don’t be taken aback by the idea because this “effort” that we are talking about is nothing stressful like doing homework or rushing to meet a deadline. Putting effort into your relationship simply means spending time with your love ones, time that both of you enjoy spending together.

A lot of couples tend to get too comfortable with each other after a while and forget the need of being romantic or spending quality time with each other. This normally happens after the honeymoon phase where fights and arguments start to pop up more frequently. One side of the couple will start to freak out, thinking that things aren’t the same anymore or the person that they fell in love with has changed. Truth is, maybe they didn’t change at all - they just got too comfortable with you and forgot the need to “be nice”.

Affection vs Obligation

Both affection and obligation are necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. Don’t say things like “I want him to do it because he wants to and is willing to do it himself, not because I ask him to.” One cannot base their relationship solely on affection since the feeling of love subsides overtime. (#Fact) Think of affection as a water tank that fills up very slowly, it will be drained quickly if you were to rely solely on it. This is why we need an extra faucet (obligation) to draw water from and all you need to do is to turn it on/off at times. Remind yourself to treat your lover well from time to time, let them know they are loved even when you’re terribly busy; likewise, if you feel “mistreated”, don’t be afraid to give them a kick since most of the time they are just blunt or have been too busy (lazy).

Keeping the romance alive (Inspired by RJ)

Keeping the romance alive is the key to maintaining a healthy relationship. Why?  Because rough times are inevitable in a relationship; There will be disagreements, fights, shouting, heart breaks & PMS (you girls still rock though); There will be days that you are already stressed out about your job but your partner just won’t let you off the hook from an argument; There will be nights where you just want to sleep after a long day but you couldn’t, knowing your partner might be sobbing on the other side of the bed; There might even be times where you think about things like “Why am I even with this *****?!” and this is when effort comes to the rescue.

I have an imaginary score board for my boyfie that works exactly like how it works in the Harry Potter series; “Brilliant Granger! 10 points to Gryffindor!”, “Do not talk back to me, Potter, 20 points from Gryffindor.” I award points to my boyfie every time he does something nice to me, be it sending a sweet morning message, giving me massages or taking me out on romantic dates but I also take points off the board when he does stupid things like being late, text-driving and when we have arguments.

It is vital to keep the scoreboard positive, just like your bank account so you will have some cash for withdrawal during an emergency. Save some good memories so you still have something to hold on to when the bad times happen. For the most times it’s not that you don’t love each other anymore, it’s just that life got into the way. People often juggle with life responsibilities like studies, friends, work, bills or children that they forgot the need to make a deposit in the “relationship bank”, only to realize it running low when they need to make the ugly but necessary withdrawals.

Make Time

To have time is to make time, nobody is really too busy for their love ones. Set up some sort of rules to have romantic dates once in a while. Go to the movies, have a picnic or just snuggle up and watch Real Housewives of Atlanta together before going to sleep. Maintaining a healthy relationship is really all about gaining more points than losing them. So, if you are in a relationship, keep in mind to provide your partner with more than just affection, see them as one of your obligation too. Do your best to make them feel happy and loved every day, all the deeds that you have done will return in your favour someday.

“Make an effort to put a smile on his (her) face and you will be rewarded by a bigger smile”

Jace

Thanksgiving

This is not going to be a normal post where I talk about relation-shit and heartbreaks. I'm writing this post with the purpose of giving my gratitude to those who have helped me with my blog posts. Do read all the way just in case you miss your name, don't stop after you've found yours too, there's more than just thanks in this post. (If you didn't find your name and demand recognition, text me, blog posts are editable)

The first person I would like to mention will be Keith. I myself have terrible English since it’s actually my secondary language. Keith can be thought as my Blog's editor since he’s the one that's behind all the editing of my blog. Keith fixes my spelling errors, punctuations, wordings and even sentence structures (sometimes) that make this blog actually readable. Besides that, Keith has also been very supportive of me in writing, moving on and any other aspects of my life. I will remember all those stuff that you've done for me Keith, thank you very much! <3

Besides Keith, I would also like to give my thanks to my close group of friends. To name a few, my Chem gang (Sophia, Jian, CL), Hui Min, Jerry, YKuin, Agnes, XiangYin, Alex, CY, CaMun & ZhiHong. You people are so encouraging and gave me so much love when I'm down. All of you are awesome people and I have to be really honest here, I would not have known what to do without your support during my hard times. I know it’s extremely cheesy for me to say this, but I love you and it’s really a pleasure to have you in my life.

My BFF XinLing deserves her own paragraph as well. Unlike the others, she doesn't give me much support by giving me feedbacks and comments about the blog. (I don’t even think she reads my blogposts at all) However, she has been an awesome best friend by constantly slapping the back of my head and telling me to wake up. A lot of the contents of my blog post were inspired by what both of us have been through and also by her wise words. You don’t need a thank you Ling, you know I love you heapsss and I miss you like hell already, come back and give me a hug you rich bitch!

Of course, I have to give a huge thanks to the people who are reading my blog, I could name some of you that liked the links that I shared. (Carmen, Daphne, Philby, Tiera, WenLiang, Kai, JiShawn, Esther & HuiYen) Also, I can't forget to give credits to Ethan & Aaron for being such a cute gay couple and allowing me to feature their faces on my blog post! I started my blog in secrecy but people have been asking me to make it public and so I did, gladly. I've never thought that my blog will hit hundreds of views (I was aiming for 10+ initially). It actually gave me the motivation to write more and provide my readers with better contents. All of these wouldn't be happening without the support of you all.

Lastly, I would like to give thanks to Bii, the one true love of my life. I've never experience the word “Love” like how I did before I met you. Our love was like fireworks - very, very beautiful but also dissipated quickly . It was very, very painful to watch you go but you gave me the best 3 months of my life. If there was a time machine where I could go back in time, I would gladly go through all the pain again and again just to relive the moments that we had together. You've taught me so much that I would never have learnt or truly experienced by reading novels or watching chick flicks. For that, and all the love that you gave me, I would like to say thank you Bii, you’re the best! I love you and of course, all the best with *you-know-who* ;)

On a side note, I am starting a new chapter of my life now as an openly gay blogger. No more 'desperate for relationship Jason', no more 'hide in the closet Ted' and no more 'casual flirtatious Jia Sheng'. I've decided to commit to nothing else but my own happiness for now, that is until my next prince charming comes into my life and sweep my feet off the ground. (Not that hard, I'm only 60kgs, audition is available now) I'm also going to start my new “life” with a new nickname, Jace as I reckon it has a nice ring that’s similar to JS.

Yup, I just made you read all these sh*t to make a point that I'm changing my name, you are welcome :)

Sincerely though, Thank you

Jace

                                                                                      

Filling The Void

A very scary part of breaking up is how much void the one that you love leave behind. You used to text him day and night; go out with him on Friday nights. Calls him on skype cause you miss him; hang up but the heat stays within. Now that he’s gone, all you can do is stare at his WhatsApp last seen to check how he has been, only to find that he’s constantly online and it hurts deep within.

Having voids like that are unavoidable and I’m not just talking to the people that just broke up with their significant other. I’m also looking at you peeps that are transitioning out from the honeymoon phase. You don’t get texts as often anymore, don’t hang out as much anymore and maybe don’t even kiss each other that frequent anymore. But trust me, some voids in a relationship are healthy, it gives you some personal time and space to do your own “thang” and a chance for your love one to actually miss you.

Disconnect and Reconnect

Ever had issues with slow internet and unstable connections? You do all the things to diagnose the problem like close down some useless tabs, check the Wi-Fi signal, scan your computer for viruses or just scream at your housemates for streaming/downloading “movies”. There’s a high chance that even after you do all the things mentioned before, you are still stuck with the sucky internet. So what do you do then? You disconnect the router; let it rest for like 10 seconds then reconnect it again. (That normally does the trick but if it’s still not fixed, go screw your ISP)

We all know that resetting the router is one of the most effective ways to fix bad connections but why do we still do all sorts of other stuff before doing so? There’s only 1 reason, lazy. We are lazy to get our ass up from the comfortable chair, walk all the way to the router to reset it. Same goes to a broken relationship, people are lazy at putting the effort to disconnect from their ex-es and so they choose to dwell instead. I’m not judging you, I was one of the “people”.

Filling the void starts with the word disconnect. I might be conflicting myself here because I’ve been saying that you can keep the love, blah blah… I’m not asking you to throw away or delete everything you have, just try to put it aside and disconnect yourself from him for a while. It is painful, it is difficult but do summon the will power to do it, it gets better. What I am going to say is going to sound crazy but it really did help me. Disconnect yourself from the internet, really.

By not having internet you’ve cut numerous ways of you knowing anything about him. No Facebook, no Instagram, no WhatsApp, no Skype, no Viber and no gay YouTubers to rub their sweet, sweet love in your face. That leave you with even more voids now, you’ve just lost a boyfie and now you lose Internet too but don’t panic, there are plenty of stuff that you can do.

This is where the word reconnect comes in. No, not reconnecting with him but a lot of other stuff. First on the list, family; Think about the times when you were attached, you have been cutting out quality family time to hang out with your boyfie haven’t you. When was the last time you went grocery shopping with your parents, gossip with your sisters or game with your bros? Time to do all those again and you will be surprised by how much love you are able to get from your family.

Then we go to our friends, you’ve got to admit that you’ve been slacking on them too. The usual Friday game nights were replaced by date nights, Saturday brunches turned into double date picnics, you even said no to clubs and parties just to cuddle with your boyfie in bed and browse YouTube. Shave your face, wax the hair, put on a nice dress shirt and have some fun out there instead of sobbing at home.

“You shouldn't depend on someone else to make you happy, 

learn how to be happy by yourself”

- HM

That quote was nothing but a joke to me years ago. You know how people make fun of lines like “Beauty lies within”, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Yeah, I felt nothing but petty about being happy alone, thinking that’s for the crazy cat ladies just like how the 2 lines mentioned before were meant for the unattractive people. However, it is kinda true as one of the most important things to do after a break up is to reconnect with yourself.

Do what you love, best if it doesn’t involve the use of internet. Go out hiking, gym, sports, sing, dance, pick up an instrument, draw, punch, kick, whatever that you like to do that you stopped/reduced doing ever since you got attached. Don’t be afraid of doing anything alone, be it dining at a restaurant, watching a movie at the cinema or even travelling. Ling has been travelling alone lately and I can only see how much she enjoys making some crazy spontaneous decisions like sky diving, helping children and also deep sea diving. Reconnecting with yourself makes you a lot happier and also stronger. You will realise how much fun you can have without the need of others and be surprised by how strong you can be as the pain fades away.

Lastly, consider reconnecting with him; and do that only if he’s willing to and you want to. What’s passed, passed; I'm not saying that this is necessary but you yourself could judge whether that person is still worthy of the friendship. However, things didn't work out last time for some reason and you should constantly remind yourself that if the reason still exists, what happened will only happen again. So, keep things casual and save yourself from a round 2 heart break.

I guess my main message of this post is about getting up and loving thyself. Remember, people are going to stop loving you if you refuse to love yourself. Does it ever stop hurting? I don't think so but I can promise you that the pain won't be the same as time goes. Do me a favour, if you read this far, find something that have your reflection in it and say (in your brain if you’re in public)

“I love you and I’m sorry for the shits that I’ve put you through”

I'm obsessed with this song lately, its written and sung by one of my favourite YouTuber Anna. I could actually relate to the lyrics and also the final sob at the end of the video. What made it even more awesome? Anna picked herself up, smiled and threw a Fuckkkkk at the end of the video.

I've been waiting far too long

I've been singing this same old song

Time to pick myself up from the floor

I'll be okay when I walk out the door

P/S, Reconnect to the internet too, so you can read more of my blogposts.

Good Luck

Js