Thoughts About Relationships.
To relationship or not to relationship? A dilemma I recently faced.
Not too long ago, I found myself part of a discord that put my views on life to the test.
The dispute quickly escalated from a sincere exchange of opinions to a full-blown battle that lasted two days, no truce in sight until my - much more rational - contestant decided it would have been silly to continue bumping heads.
I had to silence the feminism - reads child - in me pack up the tantrum, sit down and listen to the motives behind his take on the topic.
The trigger of the dispute was the following statement “Once you get in a committed relationship, you lose some of the freedom you have as a single person.”
My contender did not agree and from my side, it seemed like he just did not want to listen to the reasons why I would say such thing.
In the moment, I was not having it. I became livid. I could not comprehend why he was denying such a clear assertion. “This is such a man thing to deny!”, I thought to myself.
Matter fact, how could anybody go against something so obvious? The denial of something I was so sure about ignited a fire inside of me, I was raging. I silently blamed it on his acute logical approach to life and stood my ground to the very end - somewhat blindsided by my own views on the subject.
Over the course of those two endless days, I kept ruminating. I kept going over the reasons why I thought getting into a relationship later in life was better than focusing on finding the love of your life at the beginning of adulthood.
I couldn’t help but go over all of the failed connections I had made during my life. All of the toxic relationships I had been in and ran away from.
I thought of all the experiences not focusing on eloping and birthing children had afforded me. The impromptu trips, the late nights with no regrets, the career changes and freestyle movements (like the below picture) I could make when I did not have another person to consider before making any choice. It all just made sense to me.
This disagreement was eating me alive. I had to confront another source and have them help me reinforce my beliefs and enrich my argument. I asked multiple people. The topic became public domain, a ground for research and development. I felt like turning into an anthropologist in order to debunk my rival.
“Is it better to find love after experimenting and finding yourself in your 20’s or is it better to focus on finding somebody to grow with early on?” This question kept buzzing in my head.
I was very adamant about the former. Afterall, I had been living out my 20’s in a way most people - including myself obviously - would consider as “free”. Sure, I had a few relationships that felt significant in the moment but made me raise my eyebrows in puzzlement shortly after they perished. Most of my “successful” girl-friends also lived the same way.
Actually, this approach to life seemed to work perfectly for a vast majority of modern women trying to establish themselves as professionals in the world. Who needs a man when you’re busy stacking accomplishments?
Truly, I could not see how anybody would want to live a life of constriction, sacrificing freedom for one of the first people you meet in this long journey we call life.
I was so stubborn about winning the argument with facts that I spent every free minute googling studies confirming that people who get married later in life end up happier and more fulfilled, but I could not find anything substantial - even if I was confident that must have been a thing.
Disappointed my research was void, I began losing faith in my ability to prove my point to the competition - who, on the other hand, excelled at the art of debating.
Still, nowhere close to backing down, I started deconstructing my opinion to figure out where it was leaking and how could I patch it up before making my way back to the imputation stand.
Naturally, I started analysing what I was up against. My contestant’s counter-argument was: “a good relationship is supposed to enhance what you’re capable of. Never drag it back, nor make you feel like you’re losing your freedom”.
Pretty strong thesis, I thought.
Suddenly it hit me. My take was not only selfish, but also spoiled by my own anecdotal experience and privileged position in life.
After “settling down”, you do lose some freedom. There’s no denying that, however compromise and sacrifice are not dirty words. A committed relationship will present you with a new set of decisions and conundrums you never had to experience before, it’s true.
However, a good relationship will feel liberating, never like a trap.
It will open way for new exciting possibilities and one thing it will for sure not do is deprive you of your freedom of choice.
By declaring that relationships are golden cages, I naively insinuated that people have to give up their dreams in order to be committed on a long-term basis. But after further thought, what kind of bullshit is that?
Ironically, around the same time of the argument, I visited a friend at his pop up vintage store in the Lower East Side and picked up this very slim book called “Males & Females: Sexy Sexx” by Corinne Hut.
This very academic publication - albeit outdated at times - explained the essential differences between men and women, citing scientific studies that proved the biological opposition of the sexes since birth.
A passage that particularly stuck out for me was a chapter discussing the roles of men and women in society, proving with evidence, that even the most successful women, once they reach a certain age or bear children, they are 80% more likely to choose a/their family over professional status.
This both brewed wonder and sparked a “Ah-Ah!” moment in me as at my big age of 30, I came around to these new preferences too, despite never have had “FAMILY” on the top of my life goals list. And trust me, I have many lists.
I went back to the drawing board and reformulated my query to be much more radical: what if, instead of believing relationships are dead weights holding us back from living our youth to the fullest, we yes, focused on checking our career goals off the list but at the same time took time to re-evaluate our values in order to have a bright, fulfilled future? Why must the discourse surrounding relationships - especially for women - be so black and white?
While I still think the leap into adulthood should be a time of experimentation, a period to build self-awareness, this discussion made me reflect on all the reasons - beyond my career dreams, which changed every other year for the past decade - I thought the way I thought.
And the verdict is that life is steep yet malleable at the same time, and there’s no absolute true answer for my initial dilemma.
However, freedom and relationships are not mutually exclusive - rather, GOOD relationships can be, are, a trampoline for better things to come.