The Real Deal-Breaker

I’m bored with my relationship. Sometimes, I don’t even know why we’re together. And I don’t know how to fix it. Could it be that we’re done? Is “3 months” my new “serious relationship”?

Historically, whenever I’ve started seeing someone, it has been for their smarts. Everyone I’ve dated has surprised me mentally and, since my sex organ has always been between my ears, it has resulted in fun calisthenics between the sheets. 

Now i’m dating someone not for his smarts but for his warmth, for his innate goodness, for his ability to make me feel safe. I am dating a person who has been a friend. it’s a whole other ball of wax. Movies have it wrong - friends don’t suddenly become someone you fancy after that first kiss. I mean, they do - but only for a short period of time before the clock strikes twelve and everyone reverts to their pumpkin shaped lives. And while in all new relationships, one has to work towards finding comfort and safety, here one has to constantly work towards finding the passion.

And I miss the sizzle-pop-sparkle of new love, and I’m not mature enough to say that I’m happier with the old-comfortable-shoe-type love I get. 

Just yesterday Aaren came over to my place and we laughed. Imagine my shock when I realised that I hadn’t laughed like that - y’know, the tickled funny bone laugh - in ages. I’ve been doing the polite laugh and the exasperated laugh and the you’re-so-weird laugh but not the oh-my-god-that-was-such-a-funny-and-surprising-take-on-the-world-and-now-it’s-just-going-to-get-funnier laugh. You know the kind where you try to impress each other with ever-zanier ideas, and both get pulled along for those breathless hiccupping laughs, yeah? Those ones.

And it’s not just the laughs. I miss rolling my eyes with someone over the shared disdain of the world, of people, of the bad jokes, over stuff that’s politically incorrect to be disdainful of but we are anyway. I miss having a common filthy secret closet where we keep all our demons and bring them out to play every now and then.

But None Of That Is Important. 

The truth is, when two people decide to be together, each one comes with their own idea of what an ideal relationship should be. Each comes with their version of what happiness and safety and freedom looks like with someone else. And the only job of both people within the relationship is to provide that fairytale for the other. Yes, that implies two simultaneous relationships going on, one real and one playacting. It’s also how people grow within the relationship, by trying out the roles their partner needs, seeing how to best feel comfortable in those roles, and working towards finding the best way to perform that role as realistically as possible. 

That’s growth, and that’s the commitment one makes to oneself and the other - to stick around to play the multiple roles the other needs and do the best possible job of it as you can. And the only time it’s boring is if both people are not bringing their A-game to that particular stage. 

I know all this.

Intellectually, mentally, yada - I know and understand all this. It does not however inspire me to bring my A-game to the table at this stage. Every day, I'm just a little bit more bored, and a little bit more guilty when I have A-game or even C - game level conversations with someone else. It just makes me feel like we're both missing out on something that could be so amazing if we just gave it a shot. Like, a real shot.

Maybe that would happen if we truly respected each other. If we truly trusted that the other had our back and that the change that is demanded of us is for us, and not only to make their impermanent stay with us a bit more comfortable.

And that's the real deal-breaker. Not the lack-of-laughs, not the monotony, but the fact that we refuse to push our boundaries wider to include them in our world and allow them to change it. 

Sucks.