incoherent relationship blog
This has been plaguing me for a while now, but I think I'm finally ready to deal with it in blog form.
I think it might be a massive yet subtle tribute to binary that we feel obligated to describe ourselves as one thing or the other. Are you gay or straight? Are you white or not-white? Are you a boy or a girl? Liberal or conservative? It's odd that we have embraced such an either-or mentality, because unlike computers, our brains are capable of handling a lot more than 1s and 0s. Are you in love with him or aren't you? Are you drunk or sober? And we never bother to describe all the decimal phases that we enter on the way to drunkenness, and the phases encountered on the way back to sobriety.
Today's underdeveloped category of choice is relationships. This week alone I have encountered two men that are worth noting (And please bear in mind that it's only Thursday). One told me immediately that he is seeing someone, and that as such I am not to even consider anything beyond a friendship, even in my wildest dreams. The other describes himself as in a relationship, and yet literally slept at my house overnight with his car parked on the street for the world to see (here it is important to note that regardless of his intentions in sleeping at my house, I am still as deprived as I ever was). Is it possible that even now, despite all our liberal thinking, the standards in a relationship are still set by the man? In that case, I suppose women who do not comply simply failed to meet their standards. It's out with the bathwater for those bitches.
I know couples who forsake their children for the sake of their marriage. I know wives who use marriage as an excuse to bitch and complain endlessly. I know men agree to relationships simply to placate the women they are dating. I know men and women who think of marriage as ownership, that this person is mine now, and no one else can have this person... and every day I wind up just a little more confused about the nature of relationships and the expectations of people.
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Dating: I think this term means to go on dates, and here there is no expectation of a relationship. You can date as many people at one time as there are days in a week (more if you plan it right). Awesome.
Seeing someone: To the best of my knowledge, this terminology describes the gray area between casual dating and the relationship. Here both parties are still technically free to see other people, but not really (which is stupid). It's sort of like a big test that no one tells you is coming.
Relationship: People arrive at this point with all sorts of different ideas, and no two parties ever reach it at the same time. I sort of wish guys would still ask me to "go steady" and give me a class ring or a letter jacket, instead of coming up one day offended that someone else (my cousin) was driving my car. Bogus.
Engaged: This one blows me away. No ring is necessary for this title, apparently. Instead it inevitably arrives:
1. When a suspect in court needs sympathy from the judge.
2. When a woman has a bunch of kids by the same man and is trying to
explain her lack of judgment to an outside party.
3. When a woman suspects a man of cheating and is trying to gain access
to his bank account/phone records/house key.
4. When said man is found guilty of cheating and needs to distract his girlfriend from the issue at hand.
5. When people have just been together too goddamned long and an upgrade is in order.
Marriage: Now at some point, this term may have had some meaning. In the biblical sense, I understand it to mean "this woman is my property now." It seems like women of means got married. Poor women, not so much. I think the term for "poor woman who is my property" is "concubine." Historically, or at least in Western history, it seems to mean "baby maker," or "all of my legitimate heirs will come from this woman." Again, this title is reserved for women with some sort of money behind them. Today, I think it means "we file our taxes together sometimes unless we choose "married filing separately." In the case of arguments, it also means "if you piss me off enough I can leave you and take half your shit."
I guess I could add to this list ex-wife/exgirlfriend, baby's mother/father, fuck buddy, boo, cuddle buddy, bottom bitch, and a myriad of others. Then I could go into a lengthy essay about "playing the game," with a subsequent discussion on "hating the game." Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day.
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I suppose the idea here is that a relationship is what you make it, and by "you" I mean each individual person. Upon realizing this, I attempted to point out some of the issues that arise in my personal relationships with people.
Monogamy is a huge one for sure. Hand to God I brought up the issue of monogamy at church and no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer. I used the story of Abram and Sarai, and pointed out that Sarai literally gave herself to another man to save her husband's life. I also found it worthy of discussion that we assume that Sarai didn't sleep with the dude because we don't want to face that possibility, not because there's any supporting biblical evidence. In real life, it happens. And it sucks.
**************** I believe that trust is more important than monogamy.****************
I actually brainstormed with some other churchgoers about things that we would find MORE important than monogamy in a relationship. We came up with quite a few things. Still there was the trust issue. How can I TRUST you if you've slept with someone else? I made a mental note that I must sort out such issues well in advance of my future relationships. Assuming I'll have any.
Money is another issue, I think, even though it's not as bad with me as it was years ago. Whether or not we intend to, it's in the nature of people to start bean-counting, especially when one person gets waaay in the lead. We start going "wait a minute, I bought him a shirt AND some shoes for Christmas, and he only gave me a stupid candle >.<. Where bean-counting is concerned I established a rule: "Never give a dude a gift that he couldn't buy for himself." So far it's working out wonderfully. I've baked so many cookies for so many dudes... and I was out about 2 bucks each time. I give more than that to homeless people on street corners.
Trust is tricky because it's tied into expectations. If everyone knows the expectations up front, it's so much more practical, but so much less romantic. Just the same, I am a genuine fan of relationship contracts *cough cough* can we PLEASE get that together? The contract doesn't even have to state a penalty, it's just good to sit down and go over the rules, so to speak. "Relationship" is a really murky word, and it's tough enough getting to the point where you both agree you're in one. It seems like there should be some ground rules at this point, instead of flying blind into the whole stupid thing.
Love can for real eat me. My current resolution is to avoid that word with boys, and to instead force myself to say what it is I'm really feeling. It will take more words, and it will be a lot less poetic, but it will be worth it.
**************** I'm not saying I'm replacing love with some other word ****************
********************* to describe the sacred bond that ties me to you ******************
************** I'm just saying we've mistaken one for thousands of words **************
********** and with that mistake caused you such pain that I damn that word ***********
Yeah. and sometimes that happens.
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I feel like it's worth taking our lives seriously enough to take an honest-to God look at things and bother to call them what they are. There are at least as many definitions for relationship as all the combinations of all the people in the world. It's stupid to throw out that word like it means something. That's all for now.