#and it sucks cause you always dreamed od the fairy tale

[juunebuugs]

It's like 4 am I cant rlly sleep,,, I'm hungry and I'm grieving the fact I'll never fall in love,,

But I guess that avoids the stress of falling out of it!! /ly

[mrmallard]

Late night rant, might get a little messy.

People who can’t make a clean break from relationships.

Disclaimer, different relationships have different levels of context and backstory, no two relationships will be the same, and there’s no way to account for all relationships because factors like abuse muddy the waters. It’s not cool to tell an abuse victim that they’re weak because they couldn’t get out of their situation - that’s not what this is about.

My gripe is with people who have this pathological need to be in a relationship, and see the breakdown of a bad relationship as a failure of themselves as people to the point that they’ll threaten self-harm or act like their life is over because their relationship didn’t work out. People who will go behind each other’s backs and get upset at each other for those slights without addressing their own wrongdoing, who’ll post a cutesy selfie on facebook to celebrate their 3 month anniversary in the middle of a vicious break-up.

I think it’s our media - rom-coms and stuff that’s all about falling in love with one person, breaking up because they cause each other pain, but then one of them has a critical epiphany and gets back together with their partner because true love is absolute and weathers all storms. People see a path that deviates from the perfect fairy tale, and it causes them genuine distress because it’s a failure of who they are. They cut out perfectly healthy chunks of themselves and display them with an earnest desperation to hit that magical epiphany, instead of having the diseased flesh removed - they’d rather feel venom and gangrene to fit the desired dream instead of coming around, realizing that a diseased limb is bringing them down no matter how much they liked it when it was healthy, and getting it removed to stop the pain it was causing.

Of course, that’s an overly simplified exaggeration of what a relationship is. Like I said, relationships come with different sets of context behind them. And it sounds a bit misanthropic to compare a relationship to gangrene and diseased limbs. Relationships can be a source of immense joy, but people will roll the dice on their longterm well-being for a chance to have a slice of that. They’ll suffer through the worst storms and they’ll become so sick of dealing with it that they’ll cheat and lie and become awful people, all for a chance of that happiness, when five sides of that die are rigged to warp you as a person. And then they’ll turn around and smile, because they care so much about perpetuating the perfect relationship and making it work that they’ll stay trapped in a bad situation because of what it represents to them. They’ll cry to friends and threaten to drive into trees over a relationship, instead of taking a step back and viewing those three months of shouting, fighting and paranoia for what they were and realizing that maybe, despite your immense love and desire to be happy with someone, it’s objectively a better idea to make a clean break, re-group and go back to a life that’s less complicated and less painful to deal with.

And yeah - you get with a person, and you think you might be willing to be with them forever. That’s a valid expression of love. And a few years down the line, when things have gone south, you might still be dedicated to fulfilling that ideal. It’s not weak to save an ailing relationship, and it’s not weak to feel love and affection for people regardless of the circumstances behind your relationship. But there’s a point where being in a relationship is a net loss, and instead of making that hard call, people will anchor themselves to their relationship and get dragged down with it - give into petty grievances, fight over the same recurring issue without addressing it for what it is, change as people and do petty, spiteful things to serve one’s self and get angry when they get called out  - and insist that they were making the most of the best they had, and blame everyone else for their unhappiness. They can break out, revert to an earlier state to survive - in some cases, people still live with their parents, so they have some support networks to turn to - but because romance is the be-all end-all of existence, they have to hook their claws in and suck every last drop of juice out of it until there’s nothing left to stand on at the end, where they crash and shatter at full velocity instead of stepping back and climbing down when there was something left to climb down from.

That lack of self-awareness when a relationship becomes poison, that willingness to lash out at everyone and desire to die when a relationship breaks down, is something that immeasurably bothers me. I’ve been in one relationship that barely resembled anything, so I guess outside some incredibly potent crushes I don’t have a leg to stand on. And I understand that not all relationships are created equal, not everyone can drop their whole lives to re-organize after a break-up. This is a creed about the people who can do that, who with a bit of time, sadness and support, can break things off - who would be better off single, who would be in less pain with no partner, and who could do it with little to no financial/lifestyle negatives - but won’t, because the idea of being single again is a fate worse than suicidal depression, constant paranoia and complete and utter self-loathing and content at the expense of yourself and someone else.

I was on the sidelines of a breakup like that, where a girl was cheating on my friend and he’d be so upset about it, so sure that it was happening, to the point that he’d raise his voice and claim that she’s dead to him - but they were together for six months, five of which were spent fighting and being upset about the same things, and days before they broke up - in the death throes of their relationship - shared a happy selfie for their 6 month anniversary with all this “still so in love, #blessed” crap. DAYS before they broke up. So desperate to appear sane and normal, but self-destructive and mutually resentful of each other for five months. Why bother bleeding for five months, when you can feel fucking bummed and awful for a while but ultimately recover quicker when the relationship hits that level of quality - where text messages are being deleted, you’re talking to different people and you’re always fighting about it? If you’ll struggle and bleed for five months because romantic love is worth hating your partner for, then I think you’ve wasted five months.

My relationship ended pretty cordially, all things considered. My girlfriend tried to OD on vodka and painkillers, and that was a clusterfuck - that incident was the hardest part, and arguably the moment we disconnected, but it was a whole different beast compared to how we actually ended things. When we actually split up, she messaged me over facebook one day and called it off. I was fully prepared to tell it to her face and do it right, and she saved me the trouble. But I was going to go the hard way and talk it out, when it became clear that there was no more goodwill left. Maybe we overstayed our welcomes, but the time came to break things off - I became self-aware enough to see that there was more trash than treasure. And I think people need to have that moment, and apply it to their future relationships - be happy, be good to each other and don’t get bogged down about it, but stay self-aware and get the fuck out before it becomes a hollow, hateful lie that you keep up with for appearance’s sake. Maybe my account is just as bad as the case I’m trying to make, and that’s a fair point to make - I’m biased as shit. But I didn’t drag it out and I didn’t involve anyone else. The well ran dry, it became clear that it wasn’t worth keeping up the facade and that there was no happiness left, and it came time to end things. If I had done that in the first place, we wouldn’t have fucked up as much along the way. Even then, there was a minimum level of collateral damage, and I’m proud of that.

That’s all I have to say. Thanks for reading.