relationships

In a person’s life, there are many relationships. Seppo and I got to talking late last night about our relationships with our parents and friends and with each other, and how each of these affects the other ones.

Generally, I think there are two or more phases to the beginning of a relationship. There is the phase where you are getting to know each other, having a great time, taking it easy, and generally trying to figure out if you are gonna end up caring about them in a bigger sense. Then there can be the phase after you’ve decided that you do care enough about them to work at the relationship. This is the beginning of a sense of commitment. Then you may or may not move into a long-term commitment.

I think that what I notice about myself in the past and in my friends is the desire to slip into a feeling of commitment before the two people involved even know if they like each other enough to really genuinely work at it. People want the best of all worlds: the rush of the courtship, the security of commitment, the comfort of familiarity, and the excitement of mystery, and we want it all at the beginning. But that’s simply not reasonable.

I think it’s important to take the time to enjoy the first phase for what it is (a getting-to-know-you phase — even if you are friends who are starting to date, it is important to realize that there may be different expectations in what you want from a friend and what you want from someone you are dating). I think it’s easy to jump ahead and wonder if you can make things work in the long term with the person, and keep yourself from enjoying the process of getting to know a person. This part shouldn’t be work. If it’s work at this point when you are just getting to know them, then I feel like it may not be worth trying.

The important thing to realize is that someone that you are great with in phase one is not necessarily someone you want to work at a relationship with, and it may not be someone you want to evolve into a long term relationship with. You have to decide that there is enough mutual caring with someone that you are both willing to work hard at making the relationship work. No relationship will be without work.

I think that when I was younger, I assumed that if I liked/cared about/loved someone, it automatically meant that it was a committed, life-long relationship, and that I couldn’t just enjoy it, evaluate it, and learn from it. You can love a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean a relationship will work with most of them.

I think I’ll leave this half-finished and get back to this topic later. It’s been on my mind a lot lately.