For a long time now, I’ve been interested in relationships, crushes and all those other things that make us do silly things for totally illogical reasons. This is mostly because for a long time I was obsessed with the idea that I would not be a complete person until I found that perfect relationship.
Much of my middle and high school life revolved around that idea. It’s one of the reasons most of my life back then was utterly miserable.
Going back and reading my old paper journals, it is painfully obvious just how obsessed I was with that idea of romance as the end all and be all of life. Then I look around on a regular basis and realize that it wasn’t just me back then. It was a lot of people. And, perhaps more importantly, there are a lot of people now still feeling that way.
We are sold by our media, our culture and our friends on the idea that romance is what’s important. Finding that perfect guy or girl. Getting married. Having kids. If we don’t do one (or all) of those things, there obviously something wrong with us.
Or at least to common “wisdom” would lead us to believe.
The simple fact is, that is far from true.
As long as we go about thinking we need someone else to make us complete, we will rarely ever be happy. It is not until we realize that we are our own person–complete and whole in and of ourselves–that we can find happiness and real Love (as opposed to Romantic love, which has it’s place, for sure).
If you follow the links back up at the top of the article, you’ll see bunches of stuff I’ve already written about my own relationships, my crushes and, most importantly, what I’ve learned from them. You’ll see that I’m working on a book about the topic, How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You’ll see that I really haven’t gotten that far on the whole book thing.
What we’re going to be doing here is talking about those relationships we get ourselves into–and those we think we want to get ourselves into–and how we can use them to work out the most important and consistent relationship we’ll ever have.
The one with ourselves.
I am, of course, going to want feedback every step of the way and I’m hoping for some good stories of your own to come out through all this.
Next week, we jump in with both feet. 🙂
