From my balcony

Been a while, huh? Here I am, writing from my balcony in my rocking chair. Just got it like what, two weeks ago, and it took quite a while to assemble together. But now it's alright, and it's chilling. Also, the new table for the balcony is here, with four chairs - I'll add one when my whole family comes - and we just put the old one in this area, called "esplanade", both for recycling and for leaving stuff we think other neighbours might want.

By we I mean with Marija, my friend/housemate/tenant. We thought about renting together, but then I told her, what if I buy and you rent from me? Makes much more sense in this economy, doesn't it. And here we are now. She's great: met her in Copenhagen four years ago, we kept in touch more or less till she came to Algarve in 2021 and then coincidentally moved to Brussels too. She's a bit more extroverted than me, about which I often have the same reaction most of my friends have with me - like Oscar and Andrei being like "how come it's 9am and you're already so active and happy?". But this means she also suffers more from my problem in the Netherlands, which is not finding people that vibe your way. And instead of always being "too much", being too generous and empathetic, and not getting enough reciprocity. This adds up to the fact she's very - stopping it a bit but still - into her standards for the "right man" in Croatia, which often conflict with the more feminist standards in a place like Brussels.

I say this a lot, maybe never here: Brussels is the right place to be right now in my life. I can't say I love it - although, if I really think about it, I don't really love any place. The closest to it it's Olhos d'Água, but even there after living one month straight in 2016 I wanted to leave already. So I think this is just how life is: you live here now, there later, "acolá" in the future and you should use the people as the main criterion. And my people are here. Intellectually, this is the place where I am right now, and I do remember feeling it wasn't in Lisbon a year and a half ago. And being so international means the local culture is more international than the local culture, which I can super coordinate with wanting to be involved with the community here in Schaerbeek. French also helps, compared to Dutch from when I lived in the Netherlands.

And so that's how I bought this apartment. I wrote this almost a month ago, before getting back to it just now. I should really write more, but I haven't been doing it. There isn't really a reason why I haven't other than I just opt to watch more and more Netflix. I mean, I watch stuff that I like but still I should diversify my time at home more. And it was during the first half of this week, when I was in Albania, that was talking with Henrique about it, as well as reading more. I haven't been reading books that I like to read the ones people give me first, but that's stupid because then it never ends. And there's this Spanish one my aunt gave me years ago, called Four Friends, that I'll start this afternoon.

Speaking of books, and Albania, they are connected by the fact that I've been reading Attached on kindle. It's a book that talks about different attachment styles, from anxious to secure to avoidant, and how to identify them, both in yourself and others. It's super enlightening and life-changing, because it puts into words what I've been thinking for a while: it's okay to be anxious, to wanting to be attached, connected, and that the people that always call this as "being too needy", that you should be independent and not needing anyone, are simply wrong. No, they are. My main two takeaways are: we all need someone, including avoidant people, to satisfy needs and wanting that, biologically, we obviously cannot and will not to alone. And I mean not as much about sex, but about care, affection, chemistry. And the second is that if you are like that, if you are more anxious and need more reassurance, more touch, contact, then you need to find someone that understands it and loves you for it. And not someone that tells you constantly that you're "too much".

Why is it connected with Albania? Because I finally met Sindi. We've been texting since late August, after - in a very millennial way - I saw her on a story from Lea. She's already been in Brussels last May but I was in Portugal by then/I didn't know she was around, and this actually goes back to her telling Lea I looked like El Profesor two years ago during the college. With some ups and downs since we started texting, we finally met after so much anticipation. And it was really awesome. She came to pick me up at the airport, had dinner cooked and then we spent every single second together, both in Tirana and by the beach in the south - amazing, super recommend. The best thing about being with Sindi is that not only I can apply what I learned in Attached - and we seem to be very much in sync about being both very passionate, very touchy, wanting to reassure one another -, but also helps me better understand the way I want to be with a partner following the experiences within my circles.

I wrote about this already but for some years now, I feel feminist men are struggling a bit to find themselves between the world they told us worked in a certain way, the way women around us expect us to behave and, last but not the least, the way we want to behave/feel comfortable. I've been feeling it in Brussels, where people are tendentially more progressive but 1) sometimes I just don't know and I can end up be more or less progressive with a girl that wants the opposite and 2) Brussels is a place where the "European" way of doing things - often simply the way it's done in France and Germany - is seen as the correct one, and that others need to catchup. And it's not like that. About feminism in particular - cause about politics it takes another post -, I found out it's really more about me, as a man, to behave in a case-by-case situation. For example, Sindi wanted to iron one of my polos and my first reaction was "oh, well, no, I mean I can do it myself, you don't have to". But then I realize, if she wants to, what's the problem? I also do things more "manly" to her, like sending flowers, and I do it because I want to. Because love is about taking care of each other, making each other happy. So I learned that yes, I have my way of wanting to be a particular type of man, which is a feminist one, but above all it's about feeling good with someone behaving the way they also want to be behave - also because the way feminism is pursued needs to be adapted to particular contexts and particular times. 

And I felt very good with Sindi. I felt we connected a lot and behave in a very wholesome way towards each other. And that's why just less than half-an-hour ago, I booked our Louvre tickets to be there within three weeks from now. Can't wait.