In defense of relationships

Do relationships really need to be defended? Don’t we already live in a society which frowns upon single people, and considers couples as the normal unit, even more so now than the multi-generational family? We unfortunately do, and so my purpose isn’t to confirm the same implicit message we seem to hear over and over again. In my very modest way, I aim at following in the footsteps of Claude Lefort, who has always defended human rights, and more ferociously so against those most commonly and loudly advocating them. So will I, in my defense of relationships, strongly oppose the reason why relationships are most often praised: that they are a measure of success, the evidence of being loved.

Mare and stallion, by me

No, being in a relationship doesn’t mean you are better. In fact, it doesn’t per se allow for any judgment whatsoever. I cannot deduce anything from the mere fact that you are dating or sleeping with someone, or its contrary, that you are not. Being single or in a relationship at a given point in time does not define us.

I am also of the various opinions that: 1) you must learn how to be alone before being able to truly be with someone, 2) break-ups are healthy and you should walk away as soon and as often as you wish (though if it’s with the same person over and over, maybe ask yourself why you’re coming back?), and 3) being single and being chaste are two distinct things. For all these reasons, I want it to be obvious that I fully support singleness, and that being afraid of it can lead to some pretty nasty stuff like staying with someone you should definitely leave, or never taking some time alone for yourself, when you don’t have to worry about anyone in the world but you.

However, surprising as it may sound, I am writing this blog today to oppose the often repeated quote: it is better to be alone than in bad company. I do not oppose it entirely, but I do oppose its being used in the absolute, as well as the judgmental overtone it contains. Let’s say I am tired of hearing people maligned, mocked or pitied for their poor choice of partner, or people hiding their own cowardice behind self-righteous assertions. No, you don’t get to judge other people’s relationships and the reasons why they got into them. And no, having never been in a relationship yourself doesn’t make you more of an expert on what relationships should be and what patterns they should follow.

In other words, what I mean to defend today isn’t the successful, smooth, gradual, reasonable, well-balanced, healthy, loving relationship. This one doesn’t need my help to be put on the pinnacle. What needs my help, on the other hand, is the failed, the tentative, the hazardous, the crazy, the rushed, the clandestine, the stormy, the rocky, the ill-advised, the short-term, the casual, the loveless relationship. It is better to be alone than in one of those relationships, most people think. I disagree. As a rule, it is better to experience than not. It is better to live than to regret. It is better to take chances than to dismiss on sight. It is better to try than to avoid. It is better to have memories than nothing at all.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

- Václav Havel

I recently reblogged this quote on Tumblr, and I feel it describes my outlook so well. Romantic relationships and involvements make sense, regardless of their outcome. It isn’t the HEA that makes them matter; they already matter, just as they are. I have learnt so much about myself, about other people, about life in general throughout failed, short, impulsive relationships and casual, random hookups. I will not lie: I have believed, I have trusted, I have dreamt, and in return I have suffered, I have cried, I have been angry, sad, despairing and broken-hearted.* But I have built on these feelings, on the knowledge that they could happen, the knowledge of how and why they happened. What I built is stronger for the knowledge, stronger for these feelings.

© Andrzej Tylkowski

Then again, perhaps my position on this issue isn’t complete without my definition of love. All throughout these experiments, some fun, some distressful, some unexpected, some disappointing, I was looking for love. But love for me is an ideal, something we can only strive for in the reality of our concrete lives. So in the failure of my past relationships, where many people would see expressed the intimate relation between love and pain, I have seen nothing but a path out of pain, a path toward pain-free love. Wherever I found pain, I knew I was further from love; whenever I felt happy, I knew I loved. How would I have known true love without the compass of trial and error, of bygone relationships?

This explains, I think, the root of my reluctance towards virgin heroines in (contemporary) romance. It’s not that I can’t believe it. This sort of thinking is what leads to finding “good reasons” for the heroine to be virginal, which usually end up being very bad, even less believable reasons (she lived on a desert island until her 25th birthday, was locked up in the basement by an abusive father, etc.). But, I am afraid I can also not countenance the opposite call for more realistic virgin heroines: she has just never felt like it. That is fair enough in real life, but it contradicts the romance genre at its core.

I have actually realized I don’t much care whether the heroine is a virgin or not, as long as she will jump in with both feet where the hero is concerned. My only claim is that, if she’s going to take chances with the hero, shouldn’t she be a chance-taking gal in general, and shouldn’t she have taken chances before him too?** I am very sorry to say, romance does not depict women as they are according to statistics. Romance is a genre with a message, and that is, that sex and sexual desire aren’t shameful, but enjoyable; that women can feel attraction, desire and act on it, too; that being adventurous, overcoming one’s prejudice, daring what “other women” (or the norm for what women should be) dare not do is good, and will be rewarded.

Romance almost always says it is better to be in “bad company” than alone. Because “bad company” are the words venomous tongues use to disparage whoever isn’t like them, does not abide by the rules, and makes them feel uncomfortable. Being alone is easy; it’s what we all are by default. But overcoming one’s fears, one’s insecurities, one’s doubts and other people’s judgments, opinions and tongue-lashing by getting together with someone who may not be right for you, but whom you happen to like… now that is not so easy. However, it pays off. Even when it ends, even when you have to admit you were wrong, even when you’re alone again and lost. It pays off.

Have you also felt like the “I’m single and I’m happy” discourse tends to become as moralizing as the one it supposedly criticizes? Why does defending one’s status (single or in a relationship) always have to include untruths and contempt for the other? And lastly, what can prepare someone for a successful relationship better than a string of failed ones?

* I am such a cry-baby. For fairness’s sake, note that I have also been known to have depression and panick attacks and self-destructive behaviour when I was single (perhaps even more so), and that during all my months of dating guys with mental disorders on medication and other kinds of crap, I have never let myself feel trapped, deprived of choice or freedom or burdened by the sole fact of being with someone. It was mainly the difficulty of dealing with people who don’t respond to normal emotional stimuli, who physically suffer from side effects or addictions, have very dark outlooks on life and express confusion about a number of issues. It would have dragged anyone down, yet it eventually also toughened me up.

** A very interesting option IMO is found in Sabrina Jeffries’s In the Prince’s Bed, in which the hero tries to seduce the heroine with the argument that she should have a basis for comparison before committing herself to another. Life is also like that, that the best and strongest attachments can begin on the most frivolous grounds!