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Author Topic:   It Takes Two, Baby
paras
Knowflake

Posts: 1375
From: the Heart of It All
Registered: May 2004

posted February 12, 2006 01:38 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for paras     Edit/Delete Message
WE ARE A GOOGLE NATION. TYPE IN A FEW WORDS ON ANY SUBJECT AND A STAGGERING AMOUNT OF INFORMATION HURLS FORTH IN TWO SECONDS FLAT.
In fact, if it’s longer than two seconds,you call your computer a ************ and stab at the ENTER key. A mere 10, 15 years ago, if you wanted to research something, you went to a library. You opened the unwieldy card catalog, deciphered the geekishly long code, and walked a quarter-mile into the stacks to locate a specific book, and somewhere in that book was the little piece of information you needed. Now the only reason to go into the stacks is to have sex. And just last month, one of my out-of-town guests remarked of my local library, “That building would make **** -elegant condos.” My guess is that within the next decade, that’s exactly what it will be. Libraries will be converted into more useful real estate – condos and coffee bars – and the librarians who work in them will be rounded up and retrained to operate industrial espresso machines and cash registers.

I remember the day I bought a microwave, back when it was called a “microwave oven.” I was 19, living on my own in San Francisco. I bought the microwave not because I cooked but because it was the coolest thing in the world. It was the video iPod of 1984. You had to have it. Even if the only thing you could do with it was boil water. I remember watching water boil, timing it with the second hand of my Swatch watch. Sixty seconds. Miraculous! How lucky I felt to be alive during that magic time in history! Now, of course, I seethe at the lumbering dinosaur pace of the microwave. Sixty seconds for boiled water has been trimmed down to forty seconds, which is still entirely unacceptable. There should be no wait, none at all. Just like hitting ENTER for my Google page, I want my liquid positively roiling the instant I push that button.

We are a speed-obsessed culture. When the newer, faster, smaller model comes along, we toss the old one without hesitation. We cream our jeans when we read about a quarter-inch-thin laptop with dual processors and 10 hours of battery power. We go to the store and there’s a waiting list. And in that instant the decision is made: We will get that laptop. And we do. We show it off to our friends. And for the first week we even wash our hands before we use it, to keep the keyboard clean. But in a month we’ll be used to it. In six months, it will seem slow. We won’t care when we drip instant Cream of Wheat onto the keyboard, causing a short. In a year, we won’t carry it on the plane anymore because it will be embarrassingly obsolete.

So imagine trying to have arelationship in this environment. And by that I am referring to the arcane concept of the long-term relationship. A marriage, even. Imagine living in this culture and not walking out the door at the first sign of trouble. The second you hear “We need to talk” or “I’ve been thinking,” you hit the DELETE key. Do you know the chances of celebrating your 50th anniversary? Something like 5 percent. Don’t believe me? Google it.

Successful, long-term relationships take two things that we, as a culture, have mysteriously become programmed to avoid: hard work and persistence.

We want our relationships to be great, and great all the time. On their own. Work-free partnered bliss. As soon as issues occur, we think, “This one’s not right for me.” Or, “We’re growing apart.” Of course, the world is filled with psychos, and sometimes they are attractive and we end up married to one. Which is a pity. And in this case, leaving is a very good thing. But most often we’re just coupled with another normal person and experiencing normal problems, and leaving is the easiest idea, not necessarily the best one. I think part of the problem is that we marry too quickly. We fall in love, and then trust our hormones and brain chemistry and we get engaged. Before we really know what we’re getting into.

Our divorce rate hovers above 4o percent. Even I, with my few years of formal schooling, realize that percentage is most certainly an F in American Relationships. And it’s because we’re viewing the first marriage not as the final exam but as the homework. The trainer marriage. The one where we can make all our mistakes. So that we can nail it the second – or third – time around. But guess what? The statistics don’t show that. In fact, the statistics show the jaw-dropping, sphincter-clenching opposite. They reveal failed first marriages, followed by failed second (6o percent) and failed third (75 percent). I Googled it.

In myown relationship (now in its seventh year), there have been many times when I’ve said “This isn’t working” and felt like walking out. Lucky for me, my other half is more reasonable than I. He has patiently explained, “We have to work through this. We have a solid core and we can’t just give up.” So we talk about problems that come up. And if one of us (me, usually) needs to modify his behavior, he does so.

I was always a relationship serial killer. Looking back from the vantage point of my life with Dennis, I can now see that those other people were, in fact, wrong for me. Some of them – the Crack Fiend, the Married Cop, the Guy All My Friends Detested – were life-threateningly wrong. So I picked up a lot of bad habits.

When people say “Relationships take work,” they really mean it. Now I find myself talking about things I’d rather avoid, having to face weaknesses of my own character head-on, sometimes at two in the morning. (The fact that Dennis likes to go to bed around midnight does not stop me.) Compromise is another word that’s bandied about, but what does it mean? It means: I really like to spend my free time home, reading quietly. And Dennis really likes to spend his free time traveling. And because it’s important to him, it becomes important to me, and off we go. I bring a book.

I never take Dennis for granted, because he’s so damn emotionally healthy I worry he will trade me in if I start slacking. I’ve had respect for him from the moment we met, and I continue to re-spect him all these years later. It works, because we make it work.

Here’s something else. There’s always going to be somebody better-looking than the person you end up with. Somebody funnier, smarter, richer. But if you’re fortunate enough to meet somebody with whom you are compatible, you have to close certain doors. You have to recognize that, yes, you may indeed meet other people you could fall in love with. But by sticking with the person you chose, you gain a level of intimacy that is not possible by hopping from one person to the next every couple of years.

And there’s a payoff, you see. When you’re old and pitiful and need to be pushed around in your wheelchair, you’ll have someone to do that for you. And they’ll probably be happy to do it. They might even attach playing cards to the spokes so that your chair makes a nifty sound. Even if you suddenly lose your money, and you’re significantly uglier, they’ll continue to push you around in your wheelchair because you have spent all these years weaving this sort of fabric together.

I take marriage very seriously. Even though as a homosexual living in sin, I am not allowed to be married and will most certainly be cleaning Satan’s toilet for all of eternity in hell, just because I happen to share my life with somebody who also pees standing up. Even so, I do take marriage more seriously than I take anything else. And I honor it, and I respect it. And I think that if you can make it work, you ought to make it work.

So though I’d like my water to boil faster, and though the computer I bought nine months ago is painfully slow, and both of those items will soon be delivered to a landfill where they can infect the environment, in my relationship I’m willing to sacrifice speed for quality.

-- Augusten Burroughs, Details Magazine

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All great truths begin as blasphemies.
--George Bernard Shaw

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pixelpixie
Moderator

Posts: 3028
From: Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 2005

posted February 12, 2006 01:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for pixelpixie     Edit/Delete Message
Thank You so much for that.
That was awesome. I read it aloud to my husband.
Thanks.
(good to see you back, giving us your truth, and other's truths that jive with your truths and that become others truths.)

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proxieme
Knowflake

Posts: 5589
From: Southern 'Bama
Registered: Aug 2002

posted February 12, 2006 01:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for proxieme     Edit/Delete Message

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LibraSparkle
Moderator

Posts: 5800
From: Vancouver USA
Registered: May 2004

posted February 12, 2006 02:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for LibraSparkle     Edit/Delete Message
It's sure nice to have you back!

That was excellent!

I wish my hubby were here, I'd read it aloud to him.

Good idea, Pix!

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CancerianMoon
Knowflake

Posts: 774
From: Sydney, Australia. Cancer Sun.....Gemini Moon.....Aqua Rising
Registered: Aug 2003

posted February 12, 2006 04:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for CancerianMoon     Edit/Delete Message
BIG THUMBS UP!!!

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Planet_Soul
Knowflake

Posts: 717
From: The Universe
Registered: May 2005

posted February 13, 2006 05:56 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Planet_Soul     Edit/Delete Message
~applause~

Indeed (:

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purple_scorp
Knowflake

Posts: 355
From: Australia
Registered: Sep 2004

posted February 13, 2006 06:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for purple_scorp     Edit/Delete Message
Oh paras, what a great article. Thank you for sharing it.

with love
purple_scorp

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