Have I turned textbook?

So. It's time for something girly and generally prissy.

I've always been turned off by textbook girlfriends. You know the type. The Textbook Girlfriend is the one who listens to whatever her boyfriend is listening to, then she tells all her friends (and his, more importantly) that it's the best kind of music, like, ever. The Textbook Girlfriend is the one who forbids (not allows is too tame a phrase for these girls. forbids may be more to their liking.) their boys from going out without them. Watching porn is definite taboo. Looking at sexy pictures of girls wearing slinky ourfits is disastrous. Staring at pretty girls walking by is a mistake that you'd better not make or else. The Textbook Girlfriend forbids her boyfriend from smoking when she's around (it's for your own good, dear) and throws a tantrum if he so much as drinks two bottles of beer. The Textbook Girlfriend likes being driven home and spends the weekends watching movies with her light o'love. Oh, and Valentine's is a sacred holiday for her. Possibly, she considers this day far more special than any member of her boy's family.

Anything less than this kind of treatment would cause the Textbook Girlfriend to leave and look for some other hapless victim. She likes the idea of leaving someone in the lurch. Makes her feel loved and hugely important.

These kinds of girls are the worst kind. They have the classic DSD syndrome: Dependent, Simpering, Delusional.

Whenever I was in a relationship, I took extra care never to do anything that would tag my actions as textbook. I girl-watched with an ex. One of my ex's read as many porn magazines as he wanted. I let one go out with his ex until he got tired of it. I watch what they want to watch and I almost never push the girly stuff that I want to see. If they wanted to drink, we'd go out and look for a bar. They seldom saw me home or opened doors for me. If they wanted to go to a basketball game, I went with them. I was a man's girl : low-maintenance and as flexible as a twig. But I did try to maintain some essentials: music preference, literary taste, and my privacy.

My main goal in even engaging in a relationship when I was younger was to hear my boyfriend say You're the coolest girlfriend I've ever had. And I got what I wanted all the time; never struck out. That's a record I'm actually proud of. I am.

I don't have anything against those other girls. I'm even friends with some of them. When they have love problems, they ask for my advice. What I tell them perplexes them. They think I'm strange to let the guy "get away with it". They think it's stupid, even, to let him "have all the freedom he wants."

I disagree with them, of course. But there are times when I need to check whether I'm doing a certain thing because I want to be "the coolest girlfriend, ever" or if this is what I really feel is the right decision to make as a woman and as a partner.

Yes, I do have a point and my point is this: when you're so used to acting a certain way, you tend to forget about lines that are supposed to separate what's right from what you want yourself to believe is right. You get so caught up in both that they blur and cancel each other out until you realize you've forgotten something along the way, but it turns out, you were too late to notice what it is.