Dating or Friend zone?
Thoughts on the Friend Zone and dating?
My wife died last year leaving two children under ten and me. The question on everyone’s lips or minds is “are you going to remain single or get involved with someone new?” Some go so far as to say I “have to” remarry , others say better wait and see, but hardly anyone says that I am better off alone.
A relationship means sex again which is a bit of a drag. If I am honest I would have to say that I was fed up of sex and couldn’t really be bothered with it.
It also means compromise. You can’t do the things you want because the person you are with doesn’t want you to.
Then the things that attract you in the beginning, while dating, almost always become the things that drive you mad later on. The same things you find cute and attractive become annoying and irritating.
Yes there is a magic when falling in love. The infatuation where every moment spent with the other person is bliss, nothing really matters, and they can do no wrong. They annoy you but you don’t mind because you think its funny. This is the best time.
The time before the life’s daily responsibilities choke the fun. You go out together putting everything else aside. You are simply together without worrying about things intervening because you have consciously switched everything else off. Nothing else matters.
There is a tragic beauty in lovers.
Still independent, time spent together, planned or spontaneous, blanks out the noise of reality. If you go to a movie, spend a weekend away, go out for a meal, or watch a movie under a blanket on the sofa it is the most important not because you planned it but because it is.
There is a conscious and subconscious putting aside of everything non conducive to being in love while with each other. You work better, harder, faster, get things so they don’t interrupt.
Then what happens?
The uncertain and spontaneous becomes certain and routine.
We are now a couple which may or may not, in itself, be terminal. Obligations and responsibilities become communal. Finances and practical day to day duties are shared. You can’t put life aside to go and be in love because you’re life is ow with the person you are in love with even during the annoying boring bits of life. If you want to go on a night out alone or with other friends it causes friction. Your whole life is now under scrutiny. Hobbies and personal activities that the other party may not like are either engaged in secretly or after an argument or under a cloud of guilt.
Duties, obligations, and responsibilities begin to pile up and there is no time left for you or love. Things that need doing, boring things like fixing the pipe under the sink or cooking dinner, become things that crowd life out. “I’ll just do this and we will head off somewhere fun later” turns into “I have this, this, this, and that to do and after that I will be exhausted so don’t even mention going out or having fun together. We can do that on the weekend”. Then the weekend gradually fills up and there is no time left.
You know it is all over when, just as you are about to do something that you would put everything aside for , someone says “we can do it tomorrow, or at the weekend” and convinces you to do just one more thing that will solidify your position in this world. Create more safety and security.
Then sex goes. There is no time for it any more and if there is you are too tired or uptight to really enjoy it. There is no longer that clear understanding and harmony between lovers. Frustration and anger creep in.
Things can’t be put off any more. Things that have to be done become the most important part of life. Fulfilling them keeps the other party happy. The spark is gone and it becomes just another humdrum relationship. The infatuation is gone.
Now you are ANNOYING!
Add children to that and what do you get? Two individuals that annoy each other but can’t escape plus one or two or three more individuals that annoy each other and can’t escape = harmony?
Very funny.
What to do? Start a new relationship or live alone, in my case with my children, and be happy living alone?
Living alone seems the simplest.
The fact is I am free . Maybe I should just keep it like that. What is the point in getting all tied up?
Of course there is the positive side. You have someone you can trust without fear they will turn into an axe murderer in the night. Someone who is with you. But are you sure they are? How do you know they, or you, are going to stay the same and won’t turn against you or hurt you? It happens all the time is betrayed.
I am not saying it is not possible to be with someone you trust completely and who would never betray that trust but it takes a long time and a lot of learning and understanding about someone to come to that point. I have people in my life that I trust completely and have had in the past.
What happens if I just want to do nothing, sleep all day, not make any money or spend all my money, move to another country, move to another city, hitch hike across Africa, play in a band, go off and live in a cave, or any number of things? All of these, and many simpler things, become difficult when two have to agree.
What is the benefit?
The companionship. That companionship is full of pressure when what we really want is companionship with another free independent, self sufficent being. Commonly known as a friend. If you want companionship get some friends.
Being in the friend zone is the answer. Don’t have sex with people you want to stay with. If you do have sex don’t move in with people you love. Don’t share money or obligations with people you love / like and want to keep loving / liking and don’t spend time with people who annoy or irritate you even if it seems cute at first (imagine the same annoying actions without the infatuation and honestly consider whether you could live with it).
If you don’t commit to an entangled, demanding, jealous, relationship then you won’t be stuck when it goes bad. Better to commit to an honest, respectful, understanding relationship so if things don’t work out there is no harm.
What about when you already have children? Adding a person is going to cause problems whatever you do. I have personal experience. It is like a huge zit on your behind. It won’t kill you but you can’t sit down.
Perfectly harmonious families with a step parent are the result of hard work. It is human nature to try and arrange our environment the way we want it. Each individual’s pleasure comes first unless they are incredibly selfless and enlightened. Bringing a new person into a relatively worked out situation can work but it needs work.
Can I stay single?
Why do I want to get involved with someone again? Is it just sex? Sex is such a small part of a long term relationship so it can’t be that. Companionship we discussed above (Get some friends!).
Friends with benefits? I never saw that film. Maybe I should or maybe not as I can guess the scenario already. Both parties do what they want when they want, be with who they want when they want but they are best friends with this person and have sex now and then. I personally don’t like the idea as I was never one to engage in gratuitous sense pleasure just for the sake of it and preferred to be in love so that wouldn’t work for me.
As soon as there is sex the whole friendship thing is over. If there is no sex then the friendship thing can last but it lacks the intimacy that we all desire. Why can’t there be pure intimacy without any of the anger, envy and jealousy that always accompanies intimacy.
You are friends with someone and love being with them. They make you laugh and smile. You eat with them, work with them, are open with them, reveal secrets about your personality and life without any fear that they are going to hurt you. Enjoy time laughing, talking, just being.
Something changes after sex. You have made yourself vulnerable. You are both at each other’s mercy. You feel pleasure and intimacy which you want to feel again yet it is not the same as inviting the other person to go for a coffee because it is such a deep part of our physical existence. It complicates things. Only a really free or internally very mature and self realised person can remain the same after getting so close to someone.
The best way to have really strong relationships is to start right from the beginning by being honest about yourself and that way there will be no anger later that you didn’t tell them.
Also make it clear that you are probably not going to change in the future. That you are who you are and that a leopard does not lose its spots. If you haven’t changed for anybody all these years you probably aren’t going to change for them. It is better that the other person realizes that you are who you are and that the faults you have now are going to be there forever. If you like sleeping a lot or your house is messy then you are going to like sleeping a lot and having a messy house 20 years from now. Pretending to be someone you are not just to keep the other person happy is a recipe for disaster because sooner or later you will get tired of pretending.
Of course we want to please people we love and we will change to make people we love happy but that is a choice we make out of love.
People don’t’ actually change for someone else. They just make compomises to get what they want. You may agree to go and see a film you don’t really like just to be with the person you are going with but a time will come when you won’t go and see a film you don’t like with that person because you are with that person enough already.
There are times where you would give up going to something you really want to go to in order to do something but there will come a time when what you want to do, your hobby or whatever will be more important than anything else at that moment. There will be times when you just don’t want to have your own space to do your own thing.
When you give up your own freedom for the so called union of two into one then that is the beginning of the end. There is no point in compromise or change because you have what you want. You have made it. You are now a couple and bound to each other. There are now expectations, promises, debts, duties, etc etc etc. There is nothing to gain from compromise except keeping the relationship going or in other words prolonging the suffering.
It becomes work work work with no payment. Take the kids to school, clean the garden, mow the lawn, make money for the holiday, carry the bags on holiday, go shopping and stand around watching while someone checks all the aisles that you have absolutely no interest in, attend social functions you have no interest in going to and speak to people you really don’t want to speak to just because it is right to do so.
Then there are decisions to make. Where to live. You may want to live in one place but the other person doesn’t. If you are independent you can make decisions based on what is best for you or what you want. But if you are in a relationship you have to make decisions based on what is good for the whole.
If you aren’t a couple is something wrong? Do you really need another person you can rely on, someone you know will care for you if you get ill, someone you know will be there for you in your time of need? Is the price you pay for that really worth paying? Hollywood films would have us believe that it is worth paying. That at the end of life if you have compromised enough and sacrificed enough then you can die happily with all your family around you holding your hand. If it works out like that. Do you need to sacrifice so much to get that? Surely true friends will do that too?
Do you really want to die with a lot of people, who are just there because of a biological or contractual connection, around you?
If you are alone you can go off and die in any old way you want. You can go to the Himalayas, find a cave and meditate. You could go and live in the amazon or out in a forest. You could sit at the door of a temple and hand out flowers to the pilgrims or sit in a coffee shop with friends. There are a million ways you could die. If you don’t have much money you could just find a simple situation with nothing. A partner will usually demand that you don’t give up. Will insist that you have obligations all the way up to the end and that you would be selfish just to go off by yourself to die. You are going to die anyway at some point so to be harassed into dying the way others want you to sounds like perfect hell.
Better not be in a relationship. Better to be free to relate to other free people and enjoy life without caging yourself or others. Better still why don’t we redefine relationship and remove all the built up nasty parts and leave the essence of love and freedom?
I don’t know the answers but lean towards being alone. You don’t have to answer to anyone although you can consult others. People can tell you what to do and you don’t have to do anything to keep them happy.
It would be great to meet someone who didn’t want to complicate things. Who was happy to be with you whenever you were around and you were happy to be with them when they were around? Who was happy to give and take a present here or there or have a coffee together now and then, a meal, a day out, travel, visit places, help each other overcome life’s problems when that help is asked for. A real honest friendship without strings attached. Someone to love as another free person.
Is that possible? Society frowns on it. You are supposed to suffer it seems.
My conclusion, for now, is that the friend zone is the best zone to be in.
