Whenever affection starts to rot your brains out, corrupting everything you've ever stood for your entire life, it is always a clear indication that, however saddening it may seem, your emotions are already beyond your control. In other words, you've been struck by Cupid's arrow, my friend. And although my inexpertise in the relationship department justifies my confusion on why this is the usual case, I have come to terms with reality that this is common for normal people, very much unlike myself.
A couple of months ago, I was summoned to become a friend to a colleague that just ended a five or six month's worth of a relationship (I forget). She didn't cry, but I can tell she meant every word, by the way her eyes "glistened with the ghost of her past". And although the humanitarian in me tells me to believe in their love still, my practical side dictates otherwise, that she is better off with someone else, for I believe that good souls never prosper with assholes, and assholes are just that, life's holes with asses. Yet even as I've said my two-cent's worth of advice and stuck with it, that usual gnawing-in-the-gut feeling I always feel after having shared my thoughts resurfaced, and I am now worried about having just given the wrong advice. What if their relationship was actually worth saving? Could I have ruined the chances of that? What if they were the fated ones destined to be together in the grand design, you know, in God's master plan? What if they were soulmates?
Oh yeah, I just remembered I don't believe in soulmates, which of course, supercedes destiny or fate as well. I believe in living in the present, and that you have to work at and for love, in order to make a relationship work. It requires patience, time, and most importantly, effort.
The many IQ and personality tests I have taken (actually, just five) have one common denominator: I am a practical, concrete and literal thinker. This means that I prefer sticking to reality, or what I know is real, however harsh it may seem. So I gave the right advice, then? That, I still don't know. I believe in what I see as true, and the situation at hand presents me with two truths. The first is that they really love each other, the second is that they really are better off with other people.
I have to ask myself, can two people really love each other so much, that they need to be apart to love themselves? I believe so, yes. And it's sad, but if a couple already leads a destructive life together, no matter how much they say they love each other, no amount of patchwork can save that relationship. And if the 2 parties are no longer happy, or have already lost the essence of themselves, isn't it time to consider dating and seeing other people? Because if you believe that you love a person, you shouldn't have to sacrifice that person's happiness, just so you could both be happy together. The martyr in me tells me so.
Academy Award winner Julia Roberts said in one of her less-famous movies, Steel Magnolias (according to my friend Elaine), "anything less than mad, passionate love is just a waste of time". I personally believe this, because love should be the easiest thing and the most wonderful feeling in the world. It should never be the cause of unhappiness. Just look around. Isn't the world sad and bad enough already for the rest of humanity, that we should only be focusing on "happy" love?
A couple of months later, the two "worked around their differences" and are back together. And although I strongly disapprove still, who am I to meddle in other people's affairs? I guess some difficult relationships just need the presence of a "new life" to make them start over.
:(
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Quotable quote, not exactly related to this post, but noteworthy nonetheless:
"The quickest way to ruin a relationship with someone, is to actually have a relationship." - Halley Martin, How to Deal...
