Relationship stuff

Given complaints that my writing typically falls into the camps of

1. Being happy about video games
2. Being angry about video games
3. Video games
4. Being angry

and also realizing that this is essentially true, i think it’s time to diversify.

I’ve been thinking a lot the past year about what makes a relationship work. I’ve seen friends and their relationships, i’ve reflected on my own, and i’ve considered the literal term “love” and what that means for people.

The more i think about it, the less i can describe love as a constant state of being. I’ve seen relationships you could only call turbulent work out beautifully, and i’ve seen peaceful relationships fall apart at the seams seemingly at random. I’ve also seen the opposite. Some seem to drift along indefinitely on a soft cloud of balance and ease, while others meet in meteoric drops with catastrophic consequences that last for years.

It all has something in common though; There are always moments when you don’t feel the same love you wish for, or feel unable to give what you feel is expected of you. Both sides hurt.

Not loving, as in not feeling that deep irrational draw towards your significant other, doesn’t mean you don’t want to love them. Sometimes your body just lacks the chemicals to produce that emotion. Perhaps you’re exhausted and lack the capacity. Perhaps he or she does, or some other outside influence is blotting out the parts of them that you fell in love with.

No matter the social stigma of saying so, deep down everyone wants to be beautiful and amazing. Egotistically speaking, when you find someone amorously responding to you, you want to maintain that state of attraction because it makes you feel wonderful. Later, if you grow to deeply care for them, you want to maintain that state of attraction because you don’t want to disappoint them, or feel like you somehow duped them into affection for you in the first place.

But you can’t always do this. You can’t always be the postcard picture of yourself you want to be, and neither can they. There will always be moments where you’re unlovely, and there will always be moments when the one you are engaged to will feel less attracted to you.

Love is no different an emotion from any other, and it is not a constant. It comes and goes. What remains is the friendship, and the conviction that it’s worth something more.

Reading Moby Dick for the first time makes me think about affection. Ishmael shares a relationship with Queequeg that can only be described as loving, yet it never fully steps into homosexuality. In fact, i can imagine this element of the story would be uncomfortable for some readers, though there is no notion of sexuality. They sleep together and treat one another with genuine physical affection, but not in the way of lovers but rather that of truly close, childlike friends. Ishmael freely admits to being attracted to Queequeg, but his attraction is with balance and peace of mind. He seems attracted to Queequeg’s freedom from the shackles of the white christian man, and what that represents.

I’m convinced this freedom from physical attraction is what keeps a relationship together. Eventually, that magical buzz of intense physical, sexual attraction fades to a low hum, and the foundation of the relationship is laid bare and vulnerable. At this point, a relationship ceases to be primarily about sexual drive and becomes a state of deep and honest friendship. Dull day-to-day things like diet and sleep habits bubble to the surface, and the moments you feel unabridged, frank and dizzying love for the other becomes relegated to moments in time. You make time for these things, you plan them, you procure supplies, you mentally prepare. You do laundry, clean your apartment meticulously. Get a good night of sleep, a long shower, a clean shave. You make time for a moment in which you can be perfect again, so your partner will feel that shine he or she felt when it began.

Every time i feel less than perfect, when i feel my edge is dulled and i can’t be everything to my girlfriend that she wishes me to be, it crushes my heart, and i’m reminded that i can’t take love for granted. I can’t blame her for not feeling strongly drawn to me when i’m a morose unshaven insomniac wreck with little time for pleasantries. Those moments of love have to be inspired, maintained and lifted. In a dualistic turn, love is the incentive for staying in the relationship, but the friendship is the actual long term payoff.

However, you can’t have one without the other.

I don’t have a solution or master plan, but i know it all comes down to trying, and fighting to keep it. Eyes on the ball, so to say. It comes down to deciding what’s important, and that those moments of unbelievable warmth and incoherent streams of emotions flooding your mind to fast you can’t formulate sentences to describe them are the reason you want to keep going, and those moments of eventual coldness are bee stings that will eventually fade.

You won’t always feel loving or loved, but the times you do are worth fighting for.

… truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.
— Moby-Dick, Ch. 11