All You Need is Love
We could be heroes forever and ever…
I’ve been thinking about relationships a bit these last few days. Relationships. One person relating to another. It’s what fills the space between. Doesn’t it sound so simple? It so isn’t.
I’d say a lot of people immediately think of the “romantic” type when they hear the world ‘relationship’. It’s as good a place as any to start, considering Valentine’s day was only a few days ago. I won’t lie; sometimes the thought of love just boggles me. A part of the reason for this, I’m sure, is because we are surrounded with a lot of fake love. The large majority of love you see on TV isn’t love, it’s acting. But I wonder how much of a base it’s created for what I’d expect true love to be. Rather unsettling! Even the love that’s supposedly real on TV is questionable. Sure, celebrities really seem like they’re in love, you know? They seem like they’d sacrifice everything. They have fantastic weddings, but then, two years later, they end in disastrous divorces. Despite myself and despite what I want, every time it happens, part of me loses faith in love just a little. I’m not the only one. As far as Hollywood is concerned at least, other people have become jaded, too. A few of the cast members of Lost and of House have gotten engaged to each other, and a predominant consensus of the fanbase (that I’ve seen) is “it’s cute, but they’ll be separated in three years anyways.” Some people are very influenced by what the ‘stars’ do. (I hope I’m not one of them.) The more this happens, the more people will think it’s okay to be married for three years and then scrap it for something new. It’s really disappointing. I’m kind of tired of it.
Another thing I’m kind of tired of is hearing that people say to their unattached friends, ‘I can’t believe you’re still single!’ (Like Aaron mentioned). People aren’t saying it to me yet, but I think it’s because I’m still only 20. I didn’t think about it much until recently. Actually, I know for sure that I’ve said ‘I can’t believe so-and-so isn’t married’ quite a few times, but generally not to whoever I’m talking about at the time. I know I’ve said this because in those instances, I get worried about whether or not I’ll wind up married in the long run like I want to be. I mean, just because someone wants to get married someday, there’s no guarantee that they will. My foresight on my future changes by the hour, and has done since early high school. Sometimes I think, ‘Oh this is so in the bag. I’m a nice person, I’ll be married by 30 easily’. But then, oh wait, I think about all my friends who are way nicer, way better-looking, way smarter and more successful… just overall better people who are still single. Then, I pretty much decide that I’ll be single forever. It goes back and forth. Right this minute I’m feeling rather hopeful, perhaps due to a card in the mail.
In the last year or so of high school and for quite a while following, I had a crush on one guy and barely glanced any other way as far as boys were concerned. Still, somehow, I knew I wasn’t in love. I knew that I ‘could be’, if he reciprocated. But he wasn’t interested and it’s probably a good thing. Why do I say that? Looking back, I wanted to be in love. Who it was with was fairly inconsequential, and that’s a recipe for disaster. I realize that now. And I’m glad I figured it out while still averting what may have been a pretty big mess.
I believed fervently in the concept of ‘soulmates’ when I was younger. (See, I resisted saying ‘when I was young’. I know I’m still a child in many ways, haha! Anyways…) Now I’ve seen more and read more… I still almost believe. Still want to. But more realistically, now I think lasting relationships are about having key compatibilities and the willingness to work together at the relationship. So, in a way, it makes for better odds. Out of the billions of people we share the world with, you can potentially be happy with more than just one of them. (Not at the same time!!)
Odds. Probability. Firmly planted in romanticism and art, not in math, it’s a stretch for me to think of love in those terms, but I’m going to try right now! So, to get together with someone in a way that means anything, you need to have important things in common and you have to meet them somehow. You hang out in the places you like because if you meet someone there, odds are that they’ll have some shared interests. That’s simply put. Does it ever happen that way? My parents have a pretty dramatic story about how they met. Trying to figure out all the odds involved in what brought upon their eventual marriage would be brutal. I wonder if anyone’s ever tried to make a formula for love.
I wonder if anyone’s ever succeeded.
Anyway, that’s all I got about that. Then you have relationships with everyone else. Friends, family, co-workers, enemies, strangers. I’ve noticed how some people change depending on who they’re with. They say that’s a bad thing; they say that it’s not adapting, it’s being fake or keeping people at a distance. Still, I can’t help but feel like I might unintentionally be like that. As a result, it really wouldn’t surprise me if a bunch of people who know me, if asked to describe me, would answer in really different ways.
It’s like I said, I don’t do it on purpose. But with two or three people in particular, for example, I tend to just say really stupid things whenever I’m talking to them. I constantly slip up and forget things and point out the obvious. Even while I’m saying the stupid things I know it sounds bad and I shouldn’t have said them. Those people probably think I’m really dumb. But then there were people from high school and from SAIT who would talk to me right after a lecture that just really made sense to me for whatever reason. I could explain it to them with full confidence, vocabulary, authority. Maybe those people thought I was really smart.
I’ve heard, ‘there is no reality, only perception’. I have no idea about the reality of things. But, in my perception, some people probably think I’m endlessly poetic, or hopelessly geeky, or forever childish, or lacking in purpose, or that I have my head permanently in the clouds, or that I’m unbelievably boring, or that I’m very witty, or that I rationalize things too much. Many probably mistake reservation for an air of superiority. Many probably mistake me really wanting to be their friend for me being awkward and chatty and annoying. I guess the problem is that no one’s with me all the time. They’re all just shrouded facets. Time really is the key, I guess. My brother probably knows me the best out of anyone — unsurprising.
When I consider how I relate to people, after a certain point, if I think someone sees something good in me, I tend to try to play up that aspect. There’s no way that’s a good thing to do. But it all comes down to an underlying fear I have in every relationship. A lot of the time I just doubt that anyone could ever fully love me, all of me, as I am. Even God. And that’s awful. Because He does. If possible, I know that but can’t understand it. And in some ways it’s sad that God’s love so transcends my understanding in that area. Things might be better overall if I had a greater sense of self-worth. I don’t even know. But as it is, it does interfere with my relationships. I internally question people’s motives when they show concern and I probably don’t have to. I hold back, just in case betrayal is imminent. Even if it is, I shouldn’t hold back. Stop holding back. Don’t hold back.
