The "Perfect" Relationship

I think we've all had those relationships. The ones where everything is just so up and down, good and bad, happy and sad. You meet someone and within a matter of months you can't imagine life without them. And then one day they're gone. Either they left for school or a job or you grew apart or you tried to hang onto something that just wasn't going to work until every trembling piece of it fell apart before your eyes. You spend the next few months or years thinking about how great things could've been, and how you could've let the one person that mattered to you most go. How could they let you go? And maybe in the end you find it was for the best, but then what was every fight, every kiss, every "I love you" worth? It was worth everything. All of it. Even if following the initial break-up you found yourself thinking that you were a dumb ass for ever falling for him in the first place. Dammit.

Relationships aren't supposed to be easy. People seem to have this preconceived notion that the perfect relationship is a consistently happy one. That every minute you're with this person you're happy. But that isn't the case. I do believe that the person you love should make you happy every day, but not necessarily all day everyday. I mean, hopefully they make you happy almost every day all day. The point is, relationships without fights or complications really confuse me. The people I love most piss me off the most. And I don't expect any less from my future husband.

There are different aspects of relationships you have to fight for. But if relationships are all about compromise, then how come I often see one person giving their all and the other just doing their thing?

The first time I asked my mom what her relationship with my dad was like when they were younger, the first thing she told me was that when they broke up the first time she was essentially the most pathetic person alive. And I've seen the proof in writing, my mom was, and still is, head over heels for my dad. I remember always wanting that. I still do want that, because don't we all?

I find that very often people I know are wrapped up in completely crazy, roller-coaster romances. One minute they're happy, and the next they're not. But at the end of the night they always know if the fight or the tears are worth it. If that person is worth feeling every sort of emotion for.

Emotions are hard people. They really suck sometimes. My friend and I were talking about "perfect" couples last night and I just got so annoyed. If being the "perfect" couple means never having a fight or having your stomach in knots because the person you love has made a mistake, then I don't want to be the "perfect" couple. EVER. If you don't fight for your relationship or what matters to you, then what's the point? Where's the passion? I'm not saying "OMG couples that don't fight are weird, couples should fight all the time." Because NO NO NO that is not the case. But a good fight that leaves you bawling every once in a while can sometimes serve as a reminder of how important a person is to you. Want to know why? Because when you fall asleep the night following a fight, you realize there's no one else you'd want to fight with. Unless of course they really screwed up... in which case, it's completely acceptable to reach for the pint of Ben & Jerry's.

So that "perfect" relationship? 

The perfect relationship is when you can laugh like you do with your best girlfriends, eat copious amounts of food without judging one another, drool in your sleep, be your most imperfect self and not have to worry about, well, anything. The perfect relationship is fighting for the things that matter to you, even if they're small, and getting that "I'm sorry" call a few hours later. Or making that "I'm sorry" call. We've all been there. The real perfect relationship is the one you feel invincible in. It's the one that makes you wonder, "How on earth did I get so lucky?" It's the one where you never have to question if he'll pick you first. Because he will, every time.

p.s. WHY aren't they together?

Happily Never After?

So, here's the thing. This isn't going to be some generic "here's who I am and what I do" introductory post. Personally, I think those are dumb and should really just stick to the unbearably corny "About Me" pages. Don't worry, I don't plan on having one of those for the time being. But for now, here's what you need to know. I'm in college, I'm as single as single gets, I'm 50% bitter about it and 50% content with it, my friends are awesome, and I've just entered into the not-so-promising decade of being 20.

Anyway, the other night I was at a 21st birthday party (one of many I've attended in the past three months). I love birthdays, I really do. But 21st birthday parties are kind of just on my shit list. What bothers me about 21st birthdays is that they tend to be huge parties, which is all good and fun if you know everybody. But nine times out of ten my night ends up with me either a) barely knowing anyone and therefore deciding to get rip-roaring drunk Nick Carraway style, or b) knowing everyone, disliking everyone (superficiality and spray-tanned men don't really appeal to me), and therefore deciding to leave. The latter of which usually results in me coming home and writing up something on my laptop about our generation (the millenials) sucking.

(*Note: I truly, honestly love birthdays-- and I love celebrating them with my friends. But rather than having a lot of relatively close friends, I have a number of very close friends that I can count on my two hands, and I'm just not really into big parties anymore. The birthday dinners with the people who matter most to me are what I most look forward to.)

Here's the thing though. We don't really suck. Truth be told, I'm actually proud to be a millenial. We've made so many amazing moves toward progress, and yet at the same time we've taken so many steps backward. I think in the long run it's going to be fun trying to figure out a way to incorporate the good values of the past with the promising values of the future. But that's a tangent and besides the point. What's really on my mind? The nonsensical, never-ending game that is dating/hooking up/seeing/talking to someone. (I mean, what is "dating" really anymore? Can you even be dating someone if you're not sleeping with them? Is that a thing?)

What the FUCK people? When did this get so complicated? From what I've heard, back in the day, it went a little bit like this. Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy falls in love and asks love-sick girl to marry him, head-over-heels chick says yes, and boy and girl live happily ever after, just like Cory and Topanga. But no, apparently modern day human beings don't have souls. Or if they do, their souls are now guided by their penis/vagina rather than their heart. There's a serious lack of Cory-perfection going on here.

This is the thing that ticks me off. In college, I see the same patterns repeated and repeated. I'm even guilty of some of them, which ticks me off even more because I try not to be. I try to tell myself that the fairytale happily ever after is only a myth, that it doesn't really exist. Because really, no relationship I've seen between two people my age has been as simple as it is in the movies. And maybe it's not meant to be. But does that mean we have to settle?

Does this far-too-optimistic view of "happily ever after" mean anything anymore? Or are we just kidding ourselves by constantly going through the ups and downs of toxic after toxic relationship to discover if there's even a chance of it being a reality? I don't know. What I do know is that I am constantly blaming men when it comes to potential relationships that fall short of a happy ending.

"He didn't want to be too committed."
"He wasn't ready for a relationship."
"The last girl he was with broke his heart, he's not sure when he'll be able to trust again."
"Well, I really like him, and of course I wouldn't want to see him with anybody else, but for now I guess we're just hooking up."

Anybody ever heard their friends say anything along the lines of the above? I hear it all the time. Sex seems to be everything in college. For someone who doesn't spend her weekends looking for someone to take home, it's a little hard to wrap my brain around. I get it, we're all horny wanna-be somethings one day, constantly chasing after something we don't think we could ever get.

When's the chase going to stop though? When are the 20-something men and women of the world who are genuinely looking for love, genuinely looking to settle down, going to realize that while sex may be a great way to catch someone's attention, it provides little to no guarantee of the future. Sex used to be something important. It used to be intimate, and now it's just... sex. Immediate pleasure and satisfaction used to fill a void that most of us don't even realize is there. Why is our generation so closed off to love? To romance? Why is our generation making strides in so many other spheres, and yet one of the things we seem to be most skilled at is fucking up our love lives?

We know so much about where we should be in our careers at 20-something, but so little about the importance of having someone who loves you (mom and dad excluded) beside you to share in your triumphs and help you through your defeats. Am I the only one who thinks there's something wrong with that?

And on that note, Olivia Pope said it best.