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About a week ago, I posted the following status on another social media site which generated a fair bit of positive praise:
“I love wild and willfully imperfect people. I love fly by the seat of your pants with no regrets people. I love people who take chances, who live in the moment, and who are open to experiencing things they’ve never experienced before. In other words, I love people who are the exact antithesis of who I am. These are the people I need to surround myself with if I’m to live a life I can be happy with.”
What surprised me, at least in my initial thoughts after witnessing the positive responses (the number of “likes” if you will), is the number of people who seemed to relate to that status and those ideas who I never would have thought would relate to a truth like that. Now, whether they were positive because it was something *I* posted, or whether they actually related to what I was saying is something that I’m still trying to figure out, but my hope is that they found something within themselves when they read it that made them think “Yeah, that’s kind of me, whether anyone knows it or not”. MY truth, though, is there in black and white, regardless of why or how someone found something compatible or relateable: I love people who take risks, who take chances, who fly by the seat of their pants without worrying about what might happen in the immediate term and who open themselves up to new and exciting things that they may not have allowed themselves to be open to. This, as I said above, is the EXACT opposite of who I am.
I care too much about what others think (to the point that I sat here for the better part of this afternoon wondering if I should even bother writing at all, or just scrap the blog entirely and keep some pretty unconventional ideas to myself). I plan too much, and I’ve got deep anxiety about trying things that I’ve never tried before. I need to break out of that shell. I don’t live life, I observe too much without actually getting my hands dirty and living life. I willingly live vicariously through other people, for reasons that I’ll get into later in the blog, instead of actually getting out and finding my own way and my own experiences. I need to stop that. I really just need someone to care enough to try to pull me out of my shell, I guess.
Okay, long-winded preamble over. That was a very circuitous way of getting to the point that I’m an observer of people. I have, I think, a sense for people, whether they know that or believe it or not. I know a LOT of people in relationships, the vast majority of my friends are in long-term committed relationships, and in spite of the fact that most of them tell me they’re happy, I know for an absolute fact that some of them (granted, a relatively small percentage) are living a bald-faced lie when they tell me that. This actually led to a discussion with someone who I have all the time and respect for in the world, who only very recently accepted a job as a professor of sociology at Tulane University, one of America’s finer post-secondary institutions. The discussion happened, as they often do, on a particular social networking site where direct chat is allowed.
For a LONG time, I’ve believed that monogamy isn’t natural for human beings, we are generally too intelligent, and with intelligence comes curiosity about the world around us and the people who we surround ourselves with. I personally do NOT believe that the concept of “100 percent monogamy 100 percent of the time” as has been morally drilled into us over the course of most of our lifetimes is feasible, and it’s certainly not conducive to long-term happiness. Now, let me be clear, I DO NOT advocate reckless sex. I do NOT advocate “sport fucking”, and I especially don’t advocate for those things in a household or situation where children are involved. That said, if mommy and daddy, as two adults, make sure that the children in the house are made to feel loved and secure and provided for, regardless of what they do in their private time, it’s a VERY delicate balance, but I suppose it could be done happily. Nor, it must be said, do I believe in “revenge fucking”, meaning, I don’t believe that you should just go out and randomly do something with someone just because the person you’re with has somehow made you unhappy. Let’s have an open and frank discussion about relationship paradigms, though, and let’s start here. I’ve received permission from my friend to post our discussion about monogamy on this blog, so, for context if nothing else, here goes (again, this is a woman who has a degree in sociology, she studies this stuff for a living):
Me: “As someone who’s studied sociology - can I ask you a difficult question about a belief system that I’ve long held and it’s only become strengthened watching other friends in their relationships…? I just wanna know if my thinking is way the hell off base”
Her: “Go for it!”
Me: “True or False…we as humans are too naturally curious to maintain 100 percent monogamy 100 percent of the time..go.”
Her: “True! We argue that it is actually quite unnatural to be monogamous as most animal species are not. Rather, relationships are social constructions as there are many rules and regulations in place to uphold a heteronormative, sexuality script. If monogamy was so natural then we wouldn’t need to be conditioned by all these rules and regulations.”
Me: “LOL So I’m NOT way off base… lol whew”
Her: “Nope. Just the simple fact that affairs can be traced back to the beginning of written human history speaks volumes to the fact that we are not truly a monogamous bunch.”
Me: “Now - let me be clear…cheating is always bad…period…but - cheating to me is as much about the intent as it is about the act itself. Cheating is as much about "I’m unhappy so I’m doing this to hurt the person I’m with”. If someone meets someone, even within the context of a relationship they’re already in, that they’re intrigued by, I don’t think they should be scorned for pondering the notion of “doing something about it” as they say. I’d like to think that my viewpoint is kind of an evolved one.. lol but maybe not.. lol"
Her: “Well cheating is bad in the context of our prescribed social scripts. However, if we changed the scripts and realized that people grow and change and if you do not grow and change in the same direction then it’s time to move on, then I believe cheating would take on a whole new perspective. But we are usually too caught up in the idealized version of what society says a relationship should be, but as a sociologist, I argue that relationships as well as sexuality are not fixed and static but rather are fluid and subject to change over time. I always say,, NOTHING is forever.”
Beyond that we exchanged pleasantries and I thanked her for her viewpoint (told her she’s my new favourite conversationalist ha), but she’s bang on. I think much has changed in the world, different things make people happy now than they used to. Is it maybe, perhaps, time to give the whole definition of “commitment” and what works and what doesn’t in a relationship a re-think? An update? I’d like to see what “Relationships 2.0” would look like. With a 50 percent divorce rate statistically, clearly “Relationships 1.0” isn’t working very well, is it?
