My girlfriend said something wonderful to me yesterday. She lives in a state far away from mine and as a result we only see each other every few months. Though I am not a fan of long-distance relationships I like her enough that the distance is a condition I willingly accept and because of the condition of distance, I make sure I schedule enough time to speak with her each week. That is not the only thing I ensure.
I also ensure that I am never late (outside of emergency) for our calls, that I don’t forget to schedule them, that I respond to her texts or tell her when I won’t be able to do so, that I share my life with her and encourage it when she shares hers, that I tell her honestly when there is an issue, that she always knows the state of our relationship, that I don’t expect her lifestyle or feelings about this relationship to be the same as mine, that she knows she can ask for more attention if she wants it, that I am as available to her emotionally as I have insinuated that I intended to be. There is more but this list is already so long, it’s long for a good reason, what she said wouldn’t make sense without it.
She said: *I am surprised to discover that in this relationship with you I feel no jealousy, no insecurity, no confusion, I feel very comfortable, like I don’t worry about little things because you are so consistent and clearly communicative.*
It felt alarmingly good to hear this about myself. Especially coming from her because I’ve heard all her experiences of dating as a 26-year old woman in India and my goodness the girl has had it *rough*.
Dating, right now, seems terrifying. I did not know how bad it was since well, I am old and I date in a bubble. I haven’t been on the dating scene in a long time, I do use an app every now and then, but only to fuck when I am in a different city. For a person, actively looking to have relationships right now, it’s *woah-level* bad. I think there are several reasons for this, a part of it is the sheer number of options available on a screen, they convince you it’s a game you are playing as opposed to a person you may be seeking. We *play* dating apps a lot more than we use them. Also, maybe, as a species, we are becoming a lot more selfish, and in relationships that translates to some good things, like retaining your individuality and asking for your space, and some bad things, like feeling entitled to disagreeable, damaging behaviour because you just can’t deal right now. There’s also a phobia of commitment going around, I think.
Personally, I think “commitment” is a little misunderstood, I think it’s less about conforming to an ideal checklist of what should be offered in a relationship and more about conforming to what you offered and knowing exactly what you offer. For instance, I cannot offer cohabitation to anyone right now but I can offer regular communication, visits and access to my life. To me commitment is about keeping up with what I offer and communicating what I can further offer, not offering everything that is demanded. I think clarity is part of the problem as well. So many of the people I talk to who are actively dating right now are constantly wondering about what the other person *really* feels about them, what they want from the relationship or how to interpret an allegedly symbolic message. I find this insane, how can two people who are having orgasms in each other’s mouths be too sheepish to have the conversation about what they can offer and what they want?
Honestly, casual sex is great and casual relationships are perfectly fine as well but the idea that communication is only good for “serious” relationships is more conformist that you may realise. The idea of opening ourselves up to various types of relationships, I would think, would be to experience pleasant multitudes outside of social norms, not to have an excuse to treat one another like shit and reserve honest communication for just one traditional serious relationship. I don’t know how and when we decided that casual means asshole, but I think a lot of people are interpreting it like that. We are more shitty to the people we date than casual acquaintes and it is my personal belief that if you have to guard your emotions so vociferously that the mere instance of their exposure makes you vulnerable to catching feelings, you may not be commitment phobic or emotionally unavailable anyway, you may just be *scared* (and that is okay).
I say all this smug bullshit with confidence now, because I have the stamp of approval from my girlfriend still fresh in my mind, but I think I have been a shitty partner as well. Eight years ago, I think I was a shitty partner. To be fair, I was in shitty relationships and they brought out the worst in me as well. I also feel like I had this tendency to believe that if I made effort in a relationship that didn’t feel natural, I was undermining who I am for the sake of a relationship, but it’s not so simple, I now realise. When she started listing the qualities that made me a good partner, I realised, I learnt all of them from my husband. Until him I used to believe that the effort of being a good partner meant that I would have to not be myself, that even the expectation of it was asking me to be someone else, but because of him I saw how it wasn’t a process that precluded individuality or authenticity. When I first started seeing him, it was the first time I experienced a genuine lack of unnecessary complications (ie: drama) in a relationship. He told me exactly who he was, what he could offer, what was going on in his life, how he felt about me and what he wanted to do to me (that one was a very explicit section, and boy did he). His intentions weren’t buried under layers of innuendo with just enough room left open to back-track. The thing that worked for me was not that he was willing to offer so much, but that he told me exactly what he wanted and could offer. It was amazing. It was the kind of amazing that made me instantly adopt that form of communication as a habit, like when you first discover you can squeeze lemons through your fingers to avoid having the seeds fall into your drink.
You could call it honesty but it’s a lot more than that. It’s the foresight to keep up with yourself, the respect to represent yourself truly so as to not mislead a person and the courage to be open about where you are even if it is unflattering to yourself. I also learnt from him the difference between offering your availability as an option and genuinely being available. For instance, I used to work very long hours so I was only available when I would be free and I never knew when that would be so I just didn’t tell people when I could be available (because I didn’t know), but I also didn’t tell them why I was being so flaky. I just felt like I had the right to be available only whenever it was convenient to me. In general, I think flakiness is a big problem these days, evidently people love to make endless plans and cancel at the last minute and the introvert angle of that notwithstanding, I think there is something disrespectful to this behaviour. My girlfriend finds it alarming that I call when I say I will call. She finds it ALARMING because no one else has ever done that. The lowness of this bar is seriously pathetic.
Look, I get it, you may have a complicated and busy life and you may have communicated that to all potentials and partners and they may be understanding of it, and in that case, godspeed, but I don’t think people actually communicate this well or give a fuck about others. My life, like many other people, is complicated and busy, but also like others, I schedule every aspect of all of that, why is it so difficult to make a partner a part of that schedule because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t know when you could make the time? Time doesn’t just fall in your lap and efficiency is the only skill of value in the world (okay, I took it too far, but my feelings about efficiency are too strong). If making the effort to make time for another person is too hard, maybe you aren’t really into the person or you just don’t care that someone else is putting up their time for you. Both, things to consider about yourself before you subject another to them.
Perhaps the most important thing that I learnt from my husband and from being with him is that reciprocity is a dystopian form of equality that benefits no one. It’s okay for one person to take lead in certain aspects of the relationship because of who they are and their role in the relationship, and for the other person to not do those exact things in response. For instance, it would be okay to ask why my girlfriend expects that I schedule the calls, she can do that too right? And if it’s always me, isn’t that a problem as well? Well, only in some relationships. I schedule the calls because my life is busier than hers and it is easier this way, but also because she is introverted and she feels uncomfortable pressing on people for their time. She may want to change that about herself or she may not. It’s not my business to dictate what constitutes growth for her, but I like this person, I care for them, and given that I don’t feel the need for the reassurance of a person scheduling calls with me or both of us doing things equally, I can offer that to her. It matters to her in a way that it doesn’t to me. It doesn’t hurt me to go the extra mile for her. It makes me feel good. It’s the towel and the closet.
Let me explain.
I leave wet towels on the bed. I know. My husband never closes the closet after he takes things out. He never gets annoyed at me about the towels, he just picks them and hangs them up and sometimes makes fun of me for it. Back when, I considered being annoyed with him about the closet but after thinking about it, I realised, I can just close it. We need different things from each other, we don’t have to give each other the same things in order for a relationship to be fair. Instead, I saw how he made an effort to give me what I need so I started to make an effort to give him what he needs, instead of reciprocating what I was given.
Sometimes that means one person is making more of an effort than the other and equal effort is overrated, it’s like income, your individual effort could be proportional to your income instead of equal for both. As long as both parties are willing to be available and open to each other (and genuinely into each other), the rest can be figured out with exhaustive, clear communication. So yeah, the answer, like always, is communication. Sorry I made you read so much to get there, but if you know me at all, you’d know I like to take the scenic route to everything.
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