A Little on Relationships

For the first time a few days ago, someone recognized me from my writing and I have to say it’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever received. I haven’t written in awhile because I couldn’t decide on the topic. I wanted to write about something interesting and at the very least entertaining. So I am going to go with a discussion piece about relationships. I’m not in any way claiming to be an expert or to be giving advice. This is merely a thought provoking article about romantic relationships with a dash of dating in the dance community. Disclaimer: This is not about one single personal relationship I have had, it is a general discussion from experience and observation.

One general thing that I have noticed is that we expect too much and put way too much pressure on our romantic relationships. We demand a certain amount of attention or affection. We expect to be contacted within certain time frames. We want it to progress and move along with meeting parents, moving in together, etc within a given deadline and we follow all of these rules about relationships that read on social media and then we wonder why relationships feel like so much work? Because we make them work. We push ourselves to go through the motions or do things we don’t want to do to get that promotion in a romantic relationship. And if we don’t get that relationship promotion in a timely manner we are upset and seek advice about how to hurry things along. We expect all of this control and progression in romantic relationships and we are told to marry our best friends and yet, our friendships are completely different.

For example the frequency of contact isn’t controlled nearly as much in friendships. Some friends we see almost everyday, a few we might message everyday, others we don’t see for months, and maybe one we don’t see for years but whenever you do see each other, it’s like you never stopped talking. The point is, every single friendship is different and everyone is completely ok with that. Friendships have very little pressure. Sometimes we have to support each other or go out of our way to maintain the friendship but mostly, the relationship continues naturally. When I feel like calling up my best friends because something is bothering me or I miss talking to them, I do it. Maybe weeks after our last call or maybe I had just called them the day before. But it doesn’t really matter, we don’t spend 20 minutes complaining that they haven’t given us enough attention. We just talk about what we want to talk about and then we go about our day. Most friendships build up to spending more time together and doing increasingly inconvenient favors for one another, but in romantic relationships; you’re supposed to devote all of this time and effort from DAY ONE.

I have some of the best relationships with my best friends because the relationship grew naturally, sure they’ve gone through tests of time or a few disagreements, but eventually, we learned to trust one other and know that we would be in each other’s lives for a long time. Maybe romantic relationships would be easier if we stopped putting so much pressure and so many expectations on them and we just let them progress naturally. Take out the advice columns that list 10 ways to get your boyfriend to marry you or those dozens of memes we see everyday on social media telling us to “pick the guy that does blah blah blah” and every thought and judgement about how relationships should progress and just be patient for it to happen intuitively. 

But I understand that it’s difficult to wait. Most of us want to be happy with one person and build a life together. But we have to be patient until we find that relationship that we want and trust just like we would a best friend. Of course I am scared that I’ll be waiting for so long that I’ll never find what I want but I read a statistic the other day that said that 60% of couples that get married at the age of 18 will get a divorce, while only 30% of couples that get married at age 23 will get a divorce and a mere 5% of couples that get married at age 35 will get a divorce. What that tells me is that, as hard as it is, waiting to be sure is the best thing for me and it should be everyone’s top priority. We shouldn’t judge people for waiting to be sure. There isn’t something wrong with someone because they are waiting. It takes way more determination to wait and focus on yourself and the things you love to do and ignore the judging eyes of ‘why hasn’t she settled down yet’ than to just settle.

And speaking of doing things we love to do, I wanted to talk a little bit about dating in the dance world. It has been a long-discussed topic amongst dancers whether they should date another dancer or not. We are around each other almost four times a week so we get comfortable with each other. We are passionate and we are talented. It’s a recipe for frequent relationships to pop up. And a lot of them stay together; their relationship grows out of a mutual love for dancing and they understand one another’s desire to dance ALL OF THE TIME. And the jealousy is minimized because they understand that we also just love to dance and hang out with our friends. These relationships can be great and they have the potential to last but if it doesn’t last; now you have another ex in the dancing community and then eventually everyone has dated everyone. Which is why a lot of dancers don’t date other dancers. They want dancing to be about dancing and nothing else, so they date outside of the dancing community. But with that benefit; comes a cost. For instance, non dancers or beginner dancers may not understand you or your desire to dance. They may get jealous or worried about you dancing with other attractive talented people that you seem really close to spinning and dipping and being lifted into the air, while they stand on the sidelines struggling to do a basic turn from front to back. They start to feel bad that they can’t dance as well as you or as some of your friends and even though we console them and tell them that they are the one we want; insecurities and resentment soon develops from at least one side. From the dancer, if he/she stops dancing to appease their partner or from the non dancer if their anxiety consumes them. So what should we do then? Date a dancer or a non dancer? I don’t have the answer. But I do think that even though we’ve all experienced or witnessed the struggles from both perspectives, it’s important that we talk about them so that we understand each other and adapt our viewpoints so that in the end, we can find some happiness and achieve our goals.