You know, I've never had anything that anyone could call a relationship. Some screwy stuff where things got serious either between friends or, in one case, a very condensed thing where we were both in a program in Washington DC for two weeks and spent an insane amount of time together because we were so far from home, but nothing serious. Not a relationship.
That said, I learn a lot about them through the people that I am near and close to. I learn about relationships through their relationships...and sometimes it's hard.
My roommate's has been the most difficult.
I know I've mentioned a few times that I can't stand his girlfriend at all and blah blah blah, but that's beside the point. It's not her that makes me cringe so much, but him. I thought that I had seen obsessive relationships before, but as it turns out, I had seen nothing. This one takes the cake. For awhile I thought that maybe it was because I saw and heard everything that was going on, but I don't think so anymore. This is too crazy. His life revolves around her, and not even in the cute way.
His daily schedule says it all. He doesn't wake up until she calls or nudges, at which point he gets up and goes out for coffee or lunch or whatever with her until she has to go to work. For two or three hours then he lives the only bit of his life that remains separate from her...because then she goes on break and he spends her break with her. Once she has to return to work after one or two hours, he sleeps for three...to wake up to her calling him to say that she's getting off. He grooms himself and she comes over or else goes over to her place where they meet up, spend an hour or two in each others' arms and then go out to the bar...until closing time at which time they come home, go to bed, and either the lights go out or she moans loudly. Night passes and the whole ordeal starts over the next day. Of course, there is the every other weekend thing where she has kids or doesn't. When she doesn't, they don't separate for a minute during the 48 hours of the weekend. If she does, then the time is cut back to only three or four hours together (sometimes without the kids...who knows where she unloads them).
Notice I didn't mention a job for my roommate. He doesn't have one. Well, not really. He's picking up a few hours a few days a week working in the kitchen of an uppity bar, but that's all...that just started a week ago. No, over the course of the last two months or so he hasn't worked, hasn't even looked for a job (except for the one his girlfriend tried to get him at her workplace), his time and energy and focus and money has been all on her. 100%
It makes me sick.
I can't stand to see someone throw their life so completely into the arms of someone else. I can't stand to see such obsession. It's not healthy, it's not right, it's fucking ridiculous. It's gotten to the point where his friends ignore him somewhat when he goes out...because she's always there too. Just yesterday I went out with "the guys" and everyone left their girls at home except for him. The two of them were almost completely ignored. But they don't get it.
When two people reach a point where they cannot function outside of each others' presence, there's a problem, the relationship is doomed. It may very well be that neither will ever see it, but the fact of the matter is that propping yourself up against someone and having them prop themselves up against you is an invitation for disaster...if either one moves, you both come crashing down (go ahead a try it with the next person you see). Two people become so intertwined and their total existences develop such a symbiotic relationship to each other that even if things are completely wrong there's no way out, not without destroying everything. It's sad.
There needs to be room, there needs to be two individuals left in the coupling. Getting along and having fun and enjoying one anothers' company is a wonderful thing and it's something that I envy whenever I see it, but alterring your entire identity to mesh, conform, or otherwise merge with another person is demeaning to oneself, cancerous for the soul, and just plain wrong. Nothing is worth that, not even acceptance and love. But that's beside the point because it isn't love, not the kind that is supposed to be in a realtionship...it's the kind of love that is there to raise one's self-esteem, to fill some vacuum, to make one feel good about oneself...it is selfish love, not selfless, and insobeing it is the opposite of the type of love that's found in a real, perfect relationship.
And this is one of the reasons that I have never been in a relationship, because I fear this. Not that I fear being sucked in so completely by the emptiness of my emotions, but because I do not want to have this effect on people. And let's face it, I'm attracted to girls that have a tendency to be like it...because they too are looking for that real sort of love and not for one-night stands or purely physical relationships. And I don't see that very many people other than myself have learned this lesson in life. I think that's part of the reason that the divorce rate is 50% in this country, I think that that's why there's so much hurt all over the place. I don't want a part of it, I just don't.
But I find it ironic that little old me, the guy that's never been given a real chance, has learned this while so many people with so many chances fuck it up every time and never get it.
