quarter life relationship manifesto
Lately, I’ve been solidifying my viewpoints on relationships (at least at this juncture of my life). Not because I met a boy, but because I’ve been doling out a lot of “advice” to my friends who are in critical points in their relationships, helping people with research projects, and having good conversations over tea and the phone.
Be realistic, which means be pessimistic. Every single one of your relationships will not work until one does. If you have 10 relationships over the course of your life, 90% of them will FAIL. If you’re not in a relationship right now, you have a 100% failure rate. Kind of sucks, huh? Even if one does work out for a decent amount of time, it may end up falling apart eventually anyway. You can never really know. The only things you will have, in the end, are yourself and your support group (friends, parents, siblings, etc).
And selfish. Thus, you should be concentrating on yourself and focusing on fostering relationships with people in your support group. Don’t do stupid things like spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on someone if you know it’s not going to work out. Always think about future potential utility, and try not to think about sunk costs. Accomplish what you want to do in life, do what makes you happy, and don’t let anyone get in the way of it. Most of what makes relationships work is circumstance (and not baseline compatibility), anyway. No regrets.
But don’t be a bitch. Understand that you’re probably overly rational (perhaps to a fault) and that most people don’t subscribe to your way of thought. Don’t try to change people; you cannot hack people like you can hack interfaces. Protect those who want to date you by setting expectations up front and not letting them make life-altering decisions for you. I made the mistake of passively allowing someone to build his life around me once: it created way too much pressure and a weird co-dependent situation.
… or too much of a slut. The hookup culture is somewhat pointless: the first time with anyone is always the worst time, and being too casual can get kind of dangerous. Any extended friends with benefits arrangement will inevitably get messy. The best casual hookups are probably with acquaintances who don’t live in your city but whom you enjoy. Notice how I didn’t say “don’t be a slut;” just don’t be too much of a slut :P.
Anyway, I talked about these conclusions with a friend today over tea / sandwiches / cake (in giving unsolicited advice), and he concluded that I think this way because I am not in love like he is. In fact, I’ve never been in love, but I’ll probably talk about that in some later post where I psychoanalyze my life at some unnecessarily twisted angle.
Notes
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