5 Ways To Explain Your Love-Hate Relationship With Relationships
The thing with relationships is that when they are good, they are really good, but when the sh*t hits the fan, there's often no coming back from it. So, why do we keep doing putting ourselves through this?
Humans are masochistic; we can't help it. Here are five reasons why you love and hate being in a relationship:
There's someone there all the time.
No matter what comes up (wedding, high school reunion, birthday, etc.), there's someone to take so everyone knows you're not living a pathetic and lonely existence. But, that also means there's someone there all the time.
Say goodbye to wanting some alone time (because heaven forbid you should ever want to be detached), making plans for the holidays by yourself or taking a friend for freebies that have a plus-one attached.
After you've been in a relationship for a certain amount of time -- when you start speaking as "we" instead of "I" -- and your friends start automatically allocating spaces at dinner tables for you and bae, you know you'll never be alone again.
Yay?
You share your life with someone.
All those bits and bobbles that make up life -- the cute kid on the corner who bawled at the sight of you today, your credit card getting maxed out and your mother calling to tell you about what your father did -- now have an audience!
And, the more you share a life with someone, the more wonderful it becomes. Context is a beautiful color to add to anything, am I right?
The obvious downside to this, of course, is for the audience.
Not only does your SO have oodles of stories to blackmail you with (HIDE ALL THE NUDES!), but if you are on the receiving end of this blow by blow minutiae, then you have to (ugh) listen to everything this person thinks you want to know.
Love is awesome!
Love rocks! It brings great music, freebies (presents, mind-blowing sex, etc.) and general genuine positive energy. That's why they make all those movies about it, with the same "angry woman meets dashing man and he changes" template. We never get tired of watching them.
You know what else they make movies and write songs about? People with broken hearts who murder their exes. I mean, I can't think of a song in particular, but you get the drift.
The line between love and hate is so very thin, and the people who love you the most are also often the ones who hurt you the most, and who wants to be hurt?
When relationships work, they are a beautiful thing.
Everyone wants to be that sweet-as-pie couple who complete each other's sentences and are armed with a memorized 10-year plan.
A functional relationship that goes through ups and downs and still comes up smiling always serves as everyone's example for those "See? Love DOES exist!" conversations.
It's an inspiration; even more so, it's an expression of our deepest hopes and a defiance of our "forever alone" fears. If you work hard enough, maybe Tinder enough and are patient enough, you could find the person specifically created for you.
Then again, is there such a thing as "the one"? I don't think so.
Not just one, anyway. Also, you see that little phrase about being patient? The level of patience a relationship needs is ridiculous. It's like, Dalai Lama levels of forgiveness and fortitude.
I mean, look at the odds of you and a person who has been raised completely and absolutely differently from you (different values, friends, experiences and the added complication of boinking) getting along for a long period of time while bending drastically to each other's will and not killing each other.
There is a reason women say your husband is your first child.
Goodbye, loneliness!
Goodbye, team forever-alone! Goodbye, singlehood and all the other things that come with it -- like going to a bar and having to act like you're not looking at all the guys without wedding rings at the bar, and that you and your girls are having SUCH A GREAT TIME.
Goodbye, well-meaning family members' questions about your legacy, and theirs, continuing. Now, you have an answer! Ha! So there!
HELLO, having something to say on Facebook about sweet sweet lovin' to irritate old classmates and exes! Someone finds you attractive!
This is all fine and dandy if the relationship is with "the one you're going to marry." But, if it's not, and you have to go back to the place you were before all those Facebook albums, it's valid cause for depression.
As we all know, if you don't get married, someone cheats, goes into witness protection to get away from you or turns out to be an epic weirdo, well, then, there's a breakup.
And breakups f*cking suck.
