I was seeing this guy recently, but ended up breaking it off last night. I didn't feel it. It was nice enough and we got along and all, but something felt stilted. In the end, I didn't feel we clicked. I don't think he did, either, though when I said that, he told me you can't go expecting to click with everyone.
I don't. Nor do I think I should accept that magic, that ephemeral spark that people write songs and books about, is a myth. Obviously, a good deal of fantasy goes into every great love story, and dating experts actually warn against partners where it feels too intense. All wildfyre, you end up with a ghost of a town.
I don't think you need wildfyre, but I do think you need a spark. I also don't think it's something crazy to expect. Life seems a bit too short to just go along with things because they're decent enough. It seems to me far too many people just settle down in a relationship that's okay and good enough. Just because something fills a hole in your life well enough shouldn't mean you take it.
This idea that after you've been burned enough, you give up on finding a spark altogether unnerved and depressed me.
If you're willing to search for your people in friendships, then why in hell would anyone settle for less in romantic relationships?
What do we walk away with from relationships?
On my way home, I got to reminiscing about past relationships. A few years ago, I went on the best first date ever with this guy I'd met online. It wasn't one of those "this is my person" love at first sight crazy moments, but everything just clicked. We always had a great connection, talking to each other was fun and came easy and there was great attraction. Falling in love with this person was magic. It ended in tears. I was bawling so hard, the Uber driver had to stop the car and comfort me. Bear in mind, it was at my initiative, the break-up, so it wasn't like he hurt me and I remained hung-up or anything. Our goals simply did not align.
Yet as sorrowful and hard that ending was, in my memory, the beginning and much of that relationship continues to be magic. Something I hope to feel again with somebody. There's something so rewarding and satisfying about meeting a person you click with. And as long as we're insisting on a monogamous lifestyle, I don't think we should give up on finding such a person to fit that romantic role.
It is, however, very much a matter of what we walk away with from a liaison. You can remember them solely for the good. Or exclusively for the bad. You can, sometimes, remember both and hold a balanced account of that relationship in your mind and soul.
There's a moment I often think about from Fleabag, where the title character's walking along with a priest, discussing Heaven and Hell. And the priest asks her if she believes there's nothing out there after we die, she says yes, to which the priest exclaims,
But why would you believe in something terrible, when you can believe something wonderful?
That appealed to me. Life is 90% about the stories we tell ourselves. Because we're largely thinky creatures. So how we tell a story matters so so incredibly much.
I came back to that quote often while processing heartbreak. And much as it hurt, much as I wanted to be done with it, to be the victim, to be self-righteous in my pain, the little voice always pipes up...
Why believe something terrible when you can believe something wonderful?
Why would you leave a relationship thinking "what a jerk" when you can think "I met someone magical and special, but for whatever reason, it didn't work"? Because it makes you partly responsible? Because it feels that much shittier? It does. How could it not?
So-and-so was a jerk. Magic isn't real. Genuine human sparks suck.
Those are easy, dry stories. But at their core, they're underwhelming, disappointing stories.
This song is my idea of how it should be. That wanting to know every stupid little insignificant thing about the person, that exists. It's not around every corner that you meet people like that, but you do. You can. If that's not worth holding out for, I don't know what is.
