My partner Tim is a musician. I am a software engineer. I always knew the two fields were related. But until I started living with Tim, I did not know how much they were alike. When I explain a mathematical concept to Tim, he knows exactly what I mean, although he may use different words to express it. My ex-partner Todd was unable to grasp math. Todd is very intelligent...dont get me wrong, but he approached the world from a viewpoint much different than my own. This might have been one reason we never developed a close relationship, despite years of trying. I had to admit failure, but Todd is still trying. In his mind, he is still a good influence on me. But he was always trying to put me into his narrow, preconceived mold, made even narrower by his nursing training. It could never work, because he is not on the same wavelength as me. My current partner Tim and I focus on our buddyship, but whenever we get around to digging deeper, we find that we have some intellectual interests in common, too. Todd and I had almost no common ground intellectually. Todd may be a gay guy, but in other ways, hes very traditional, almost conservative. Tim is not even remotely conservative. Politics are only a small part of my life, but having a partner who put Republican signs on the balcony tarred me with the same brush. When he took down my Democratic signs, that was too much. Its my condo. Todd was my partner, yes, but he lived as a tenant in a condo unit owned by me. He did not or would not acknowledge the financial realities of his position, substituting instead a sort of medical model of the world he understood. He placed more value on the nursing profession than it deserves, while telling me that I.T. was not a real profession. He had a fancy car and spent almost every penny he made. He told me my habit of saving money was hoarding, a symptom of a psychological disorder. He said my early payoff of the condo mortgage was so out of the ordinary, it was bizarre. But there was no prepayment penalty. I did it to qualify for mountain property at the bottom of the market, after the financial crash. Despite all Todds criticism, I am convinced, even to this day, that he is a good person... Or at least not a bad person. That may be one reason I still speak to him. He does everything out of his firm convictions. He is a very good nurse, as far as I can tell. But Cheesman Park is not big enough to separate us....lol
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:58:50 +0000