Looking for the Treason

[teratologist]

I swear on my grandmother's grave, I had no idea when I used 1984 as a metaphor in reference to We Need to Talk About Kevin that the book ends with the main character protesting her love for the character (both of the characters) that have utterly destroyed everything meaningful about her life and performing allegiance to a system that tells her

Comments

[teratologist]

The thing with a relationship, in my book, is this.

If you raise a child, yeah it may suck, but at the end you have a whole new member of society.

If you write a book, you have a book.

If you work a job, you have some money to spend on a vacation or a motorbike or what have you.

If you work at a relationship... tomorrow you get to get up and do it again?

A relationship, in my mind, isn't a separate thing. It's the happiness of the two (or more, I suppose) people involved. If it's not making both of them happier more often than not, working on it is just throwing good energy after bad! It's like a small appliance; there's only so many times you can fix it before you've spent more on it than you would on getting a whole new one. Because of this, swearing to keep the same romantic relationship for life strikes me as just putting your back up against the wall for no good reason. No one promises they're going to keep the same toaster oven forever just because.

Although I should say, my boyfriend has a twenty year old food processor and the thing's a fucking workhorse.

[mothwentbad]

That metaphor might have various degrees of applicability depending on the circumstances. While I'm not one for dogmatically staying the course in all but the most fucked up cases, I'm not sure it really has to be like you say in general.

But on the other hand, I'm not really living a counterexample. I guess I just have an accumulating sense of unease and dissatisfaction with being loose and nominally self-sufficient. Then again, I'm male so statistically, I'm the life leech in a hetero relationship, so I would be prone to feel that way. I guess I try to be aware of that and make corrections, but I'm not sure that it's been to the point where it would be sane for a fully self-respecting woman to get in on the deal.

[teratologist]

Well, there's two separate issues here. I don't really see what's in it for anybody, aside from the part where it's worse for women.

I mean, there is something to be said for comfort and stability, but, I'm just not sure it's all that much, all told.

[mothwentbad]

I don't know. I think I'd appreciate it, if there were someone who was really all that awesomesauce in my life. I guess I can cross that illusory bridge when I hypothetically come to it. Maybe I just like the idea of a wife, but now I'm all modern and I don't even know what that would even mean anymore. :-P