Funny to look back on an old (let’s be honest with ourselves - relatively fresh) outlook on life that you were so sure of, so cocky in. Just when I started to feel like I had figured things out, I ate (most of) my own words. Couldn’t be happier I did.

30. Mar. 2011 “The Like-Minded Couple”

It’s time for a little rant.

Recently, one of my friends (and let’s not get into unpacking that loaded word), has been bragging all over his Facebook about his newfound girlfriend. While I’m all for living vicariously through your exciting, public romance novel as i sit in my holey PJs with a pail of IGA vanilla fudge ice cream, there’s one thing I just can’t wrap my frozen brain around, and it’s the main thesis and fundamental foundation of his newfound happiness: she is just like him.

I mean, but they have the same ideas on life! The same dreams! The same political views! The same method for scrubbing the shower! I bet they read the same magazines when they take shits. Please.

Why do you want someone who is exactly like you? What kind of inflated ego do you have, what kind of narcissistic disorder - and honestly, I’m more tempted to call it a masochistic disorder - has taken over your mind and driven you to search for your female doppleganger? Put me and someone extremely akin to me in the same room for ten minutes and I guarantee we’ll be in a heated argument for at least seven of those minutes. Could you imagine that constant competition to be better at the same passion? Could you imagine two meek hermits living a fulfilling life together? No, of course not. Not everyone can be “it” in the game of tag, or it won’t work. It doesn’t continue. That’s not how it works.

I’m not saying it’s not important to have some semblance of similarity between you and your partner. But for the majority of your happiness to stem from their likeness to you? It boggles my mind.

How are you supposed to grow if you can’t challenge each other, if you can’t teach each other? Relationships of any kind can and should be like a game of tag. One running ahead of the other, in all different directions, sporadically, teasingly, just out of your reach until finally, gasping, you’ve caught up and tackled them to the ground and you both collapse, feeling full and content and new. Each with their own skills, blocking, checking, two-stepping and tackling. Opening, tripping, passing, and giving.

Two people with two separate passions in life make for a beautiful convergence of late night arguments and, most likely, amazing sex. Sure, fine, grow in more or less the same direction, but chase that light in your own way. I don’t give a shit if your passion is World of Warcraft unless it interferes with my Thursday night Big Bang Theory ritual. Discovery should always be a part of your life, and if you’re thinking of sharing your life with someone else, you better damn well have something left to show them which they haven’t already seen. We are such diverse beings - and at the risk of sounding trite and conceited I’ll wrap this up soon - and picking someone you effectively already know is like staying in your hometown your whole life. Go for the gold, man.

To me, that’s what a relationship should be. But maybe that’s just because I’m a poet, and if my significant other ever tried to trump me with a poem of his own I’d straight up rip his weave out (or give him cause to need one).

Oh, and no one has the same dreams. That’s a simple impossibility.

———-

At least I got some things right.
Hah.