Relationships

This article in the New York Times is well worth your time.

Dan Savage is an advice columnist whose columns deal primarily with sub-cultural relationship problems. I don't always agree with him, but his advice is generally pretty solid and backed up by a wide knowledge base.
This particular article questions the point of a relationship: stability rather than monogamy, perhaps? Everyone does it differently, but I think it's important to realize that people have different needs. 

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a relationship and what kind of relationship I'd want. (I can see you rolling your eyes right now. It's fine. I rolled mine when I started writing this and rolled them again upon re-reading.)

I've been more or less single since my last serious relationship came to its natural conclusion in January 2010. So a year and a half. I've had plenty of dates, and semi-boyfriends, in the months since, but no one has ever materialized as potential-long-term-partner material. 

I'd desperately wanted freedom. I found that, and have loved it immensely. I love being able to fall asleep knowing that I don't have to move my computer, or the stack of books I share a bed with. 

And yet lately, I've been starting to really question the idea of "partner." Through that questioning, I've begun to crave it. But perhaps with age comes selectivity, because people aren't managing to hold my attention as they should, or as I'd like them to.
The biggest test for me is errands. I find it romantic. I want someone who I will enjoy going to Costco with, someone who makes buying a blender exciting, or at the very least, less mundane. 

Of course, there are the few that manage to keep reappearing in my life. From a December party, at a friend of my then-boyfriend's apartment until now, we've maintained this strange and delicate relationship. It began with harsh words, thrown out off-handedly, then my answering, equally harsh lecture, then Mexican food, then this or that and a few other things. Flash forward to this January, actual consumption of Mexican food and then the strange events of that evening and Englewood. Then to April. I flew off to Chicago with few expectations, no presumptions, and came away tear-stained and puffy, joyous and fulfilled, hauling a backpack full of clean clothes. It was wonderful and terrifying because the glimpse of what I could have had screamed of normalcy. Here I am, off again, to walk on the edge of expectations and to figure out if my future lies therein. Is that the normalcy I've been seeking?

But what am I getting myself into? What is this? What will it be? We can't answer these questions because we're not sure if that's even where we want to go. "We"? Is there a we? Could there be one someday? What if it fails? The phone conversations are growing in length, in depth. What do I want? What does he want? I fall asleep with tired smiles on my face. I feel like he shares that (unless he doesn't, so that'd be awkward). It's weird to be on the same page, to have somehow gotten lost and landed there, separately. 

Jesus, this is ridiculous. 

But I like it. 

So I guess it's going to be alright. Or at least an adventure.

Ten days.