Welcome back to The FLD Three, a monthly shortlist with one loose theme. Like this format? Catch up here and here. —FLD
Now that I’m married, I thought it appropriate to pontificate about dating and relationships. I’ve always found the subject fascinating. A psychologist might pin it to my parents’ violent divorce when I was eight. I think it’s because the thrill of romantic acceptance—or rejection—outpaced that of earth science and geometry. I paid attention to what made me feel something.
Friends often come to me for advice, and I reply in ways that suggest they should stay a while. I’m the friend in the chat writing paragraphs when a sentence will do. (I haven’t ventured into voice notes, but never say never!) I’m also the friend who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings because, who am I to say? Maybe he or she is a good catch. Maybe it will all work out. Maybe your situation is different.
Probably not, though.
This week’s three are personal truths I’ve accumulated over sixteen years of dating and two months of marriage. (Yes, two.) Believe me, I went through it. I’ve had short relationships, long relationships, and non-relationships I wished were relationships. I’ve had my heart broken, and may have cracked open one or two myself. I’ve been the chaser and the target, the ghosted and the ghost.
A final note: I don’t do soul mates. Among eight billion people, there have to be several we could each live happily ever after with, or at least commit to decades of sharing a refrigerator. If you haven’t found one of yours yet, I hope something below helps.
DO THEY, OR DO THEY NOT? THAT IS (ACTUALLY NOT) THE QUESTION
If you’re left wondering whether someone likes you, the answer is: no, sorry. This is especially true for women dating men. You won’t need to study his texts, scrutinize his behavior, or reverse-engineer timestamps to figure out how they map to his day. (No? Just me?)
There are few things less ambiguous in this world than a man in pursuit. He’s in your phone saying good morning. He’s in your apartment, wincing at your dirty stovetop or picking you up for a date. Once, a man baked me a cake for no reason at all. Think of him like a hungry cat at mealtime—circling your legs, yowling with increasing urgency, sitting on your keyboard and chewing through wires. OH MY GOD, why are you so obsessed with me? you’ll think.
Any time I had to wager on it, I lost. It takes years to accept this truth, but once you do, it’s freeing.
WE’RE ALL VILLAINS HERE
No one is wholly good or bad. Past basic decency, we treat people according to how much we value them. And value, as it turns out, is a moving target. We’ve all been someone’s prize and another person’s sore story.
My husband is a solid guy, but I’m sure there’s a woman out there who remembers him as kind of a dick. I’m also sure the guy who slid a ring from my middle finger to my ring finger “just to see what it would look like” on a flight to Fiji—only to hit up my best friend on a dating app months later—is now a loving husband too, or will be one day. Wow.
KINDNESS WINS
Sorry for the Pixar ending, but it’s true. And boy, do I wish it weren’t. One thing about me is I can take a person down with words. Leave me unchecked in an argument and I’ll make a comment so snide, deliver a monologue so cruel and biting my opponent is left to question if I am warm-blooded after all.
But being a bitch is never the way. (This bitch is different—a misnomer, really.) It doesn’t earn empathy or respect. It just chips away at whatever frame holding the relationship up in the first place, until it gives out and you’re left to stare at the mess.
Kindness, on the other hand, is disgustingly effective. It’s the only bridge to resolution, even if that is “we’ll never agree, but I no longer wish to yell.” Some people are born kind no matter what. The rest of us must treat kindness like prescription medication: deep breath, count down from three, throw it back like a shot of something bitter and herbal. There are no contraindications and the effects are fast-acting. My shoulders unclench and my tunnel vision dissolves. Suddenly, I’m less interested in winning than in what’s for dinner.
That’s the three! Until next time.
