Relationships - Frm my old Archives.

I have been putting off writing this for over five years, so a lot of the thoughts here are ones that have been brewing in my mind for a while. The reason I am finally writing this now is because I'm over a long (five year) relationship with someone I cared deeply about; I didn't really feel an urgency to put down my thoughts about relationships as long as I was involved in one. Unlike all my previous relationships (which were more than two handfuls, double entendre intended), this was a relationship that I didn't think would end and one that I didn't want to end. However, certain events (mostly screw ups on my part) occurred with the inevitable result, and now I am faced again with the prospect of not knowing whether I will be with someone I seriously care about. Thus this missive about my views on relationship and love which formed after a series of several relationships when I was a lot younger (I was 22 as I write this). This is simply an addition to the rest of my philosophical missives. The major difference is that this one is written in first person, but like all the others, the goal is to put my thoughts on paper. The first person use may sound like I'm looking for someone, but you could in general replace all occurrences of "I" with "you" and might end up finding some truths for yourself in here.

A brief background: both people who know me and don't know me can easily see I have different passions and interests: science, philosophy, music, nature, sports and many many more. In previous relationships, I spent more time immersed in those passions than with the person I was in a relationship with. In an ideal world, I would go as far as to say that the person I was with didn't make me feel that she was primary and that my other passions were secondary. However that would be doing my own feelings and the person I was with a grave injustice. In reality, it is far too easy to be selfish and to take things for granted, without realising how short you come up in the relationship department. In the particular five year relationship that I didn't want to end, by the time the issue of me ignoring her was brought up, it was too late, regardless of what I did to save the situation. In fact, what I did, a sudden turnaround, only made it worse. For when you ignore and neglect someone over a period of months, whatever chemistry you had, even if it was the absolute best, gets lost and unhappiness sets in. The moment I realised what had happened, I promised to change, and I have changed, not just for the person I was with and perhaps will be with, but for my own self.

So the first lesson here is that in any relationship that becomes stale, there are underlying reasons. I think it behooves us all to determine what those reasons are, and if they have to do with you, think about why that is and what can be done for the next time.

This sounds a bit preachy, but what I am trying to say is that it's all too easy to rescind the responsibility for one's actions and this is one of the biggest threats to a relationship.

When I was really young, when the idea of relationships didn't have any meaning to me, I was completely content with myself. I didn't need anyone to complete my life in any manner and there was never a time when I couldn't occupy myself. When I started getting into serious relationships, in my mid-to-late teens, I was completely content except for the brief periods during the ending phase of a relationship, but I had everything a person could want in life. Now I am single and I'm still completely content. This is partly the cynical side of me speaking, but it's true because I've always thought relationships to be a tradeoff between freedom in exchange for close companionship, i.e., exchanging one set of complications for another (to quote from Stigmata).

"Before you can learn to say 'I love you', you must first learn to say 'I'."

The problem, if you could call it that, has always been that I love myself way too much. I enjoy my own company. I can amuse myself for endless hours. This doesn't mean I'm not with my fears and insecurities that don't require support from other people, but assuming nothing is shaking my world, I'm perfectly fine hiking the Grand Canyon by myself or reading the latest comic books. In fact, I almost prefer it that way. I think this is the essence of a good relationship, wherein both partners are happy and comfortable with themselves, but taken to an extreme (i.e., if they're too comfortable with themselves, or worse, if one of them is comfortable and the other is not), it can lead to emptiness.

I say above that I changed for myself and now have decided to spend a certain amount of time with whoever I end up being with. Why?

Because even given all my interests, I stopped doing (or didn't do) certain things that I enjoy doing. These are the simpler things in life that are less productive than solving a scientific research problem, writing software to fold proteins, writing a song, or coming up with a new scheme to thwart intellectual property. These include bubble blowing, kite flying, rollerblading, yo-yoing, playing on the swings in a park, listening to the ocean in the evenings/night, etc. (I suppose hiking would fall in that category also, though I'm more avid about hiking than I am about blowing bubbles.) These days I still do these things by myself, and I enjoy them, but I have come to realise is that it can be just as much fun (or more) doing these simpler things in life with someone else. Being with someone else forces you to do things you normally wouldn't do, which might be more fun than some of the things you do do. In fact, that's the best part of a relationship: the uncertainty, the random variable, that arises from not knowing and understanding another person completely. Being in a relationship makes life far more unpredictable and this is A Good Thing.

At the present moment, at the outset, I enjoy being with myself way too much to want to be in a relationship. However, I figure I will change my mind when I meet someone and certain sparks fly, as I have in the past. To me, the essence of a relationship lies in being close friends. This may sound corny, while I think physical chemistry is important, in the long term what matters are whether you can talk to your partner as you grow old. Thus it would be nice to share all the things I do above, the simpler things and the complicated things. Continuing on with this line of thought, I think it's not a great idea to get into a relationship for relationship's sake.

That is, as the friendship develops, if stuff happens, that's great, and if not, that's great too. I think looking for a relationship generally is detrimental to ending up in one.

One final point I want to make involves people being scared of caring about someone deeply or commitment (see thoughts on love below).

I think passion is important, and I think one should "follow their heart", whatever that means. However, impatience (sometimes confused for intensity, but it really stems from being passionate) can indeed destroy a blossoming relationship since it goes against societal norms. I am an extremely impatient person and this is both a virtue and one of my biggest flaws. Rather than play the waiting game, I'd rather push things even if it means a certain negative answer. In particular, this makes long-distance relationships untenable. It is strange to me that society views "moving too fast" to be a bad thing, and perhaps this is generally based on some valid reasons, but applying this to every case I think is wrong: it's easier to push people away than to let them in, and I think taking the secure/easy path leads to emptiness. I think sometimes you can end up in a relationship like in the movies, and when you do, there's nothing wrong with being impatient and going too fast. So if you feel you're in one of those, my advice is to not hold
back---that will determine whether it really is like in the movies or not.

I think a passionate relationship, even if short-lived, is worth the pain. I love like I've never been hurt.