Wading in the Velvet Sea

OK, so naturally there’s no one answer. It’s your basic, annoying, open-ended question that can have a myriad of possible, probably, and altogether technically “correct” responses. I just wanted to see if I could come up with one that wasn’t. And I succeeded. Thank you, Gold Bond.

But I also said it because any discussion of this question should, in the end, have a perspective to it. We’re not trying to solve the Middle East crisis here. That being said, at times, an interpersonal relationship can seem as hopelessly unsalvageable as the situation in Bahgdad. That being said, let’s all agree for the purposes here today that the stakes, while high, are not as high as they might be over yonder. The most you’ll lose if things go sour in a relationship are some shirts, your favorite comb and a few inches off your hairline, which means the comb isn’t really needed that much anyways. There. Perspective achieved. I feel good about this. Moving on.

The question of questions today came up the other night not out of some deep recess of my brain, plucked through a combination of conversation and circumstance that produced just the right sparks across exactly the right synapses until a light shone upon a heretofore unknown area of my brain. Rather, it’s something that’s been on my mind for oh, ever. Well, least as long as I’ve considered relationships in anything more than “Man, I gots to pass that girl a note during pre-calculus.” At first it largely took the form of, “There are far too many women to shag to ever be tethered down.” I’d love to report that phase passed quickly, but sadly, it took nearly a quarter-century to enter a new attitude towards monogamy, which I suppose can be best categorized in the same way I approach broccoli at a dinner party: “Well, fine, I’ll try it, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

During this phase, the same with the one I’m currently in, I could intellectually see the benefits to this “one girl fits all” mentality. Less work, less energy expounded, fewer insanely expensive first dates that were clearly the start of something very small…course, in its place were more fights, more blood vessels bursts, and an overall lack of newness. Oh sure, I made her dress up as Madeline Albright every once in a while, but besides that, it was hard to keep the spark going. (I’m kidding about the Albright thing. It was always Gertude Stein. Youch, what a looker.)

And the question regarding monogamy’s claim to being a “natural” part of our general coexistence on the planet gets down to the tension between the intellectual and the emotional, with the social as a backseat driver telling you a quicker way to get to the supermarket. Watching “The Last Kiss” was in a way refreshing, because at least someone in a major motion picture said, “I don’t know if this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me or the worst.” OK, Zach Braff never said that verbatim, but it’s essentially his plight. And the plight of nearly a dozen other characters in this movie. Problem is, NOT ONE OF THEM ever said, “Yes, this is the best.” The closest towards happiness any of them ever get is “well, this sucks, but it’s better than the alternative”. Yay. Pass the popcorn. And the very sharp knife. I need to insert it directly into my neck.

But points to the movie for at least addressing the issue in a non-superficial way. It’s a completely unbelievable way (the bad kind of unbelievable, not a “Bridge of Khazadum sequence in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’” sort of way), but at least it’s not superficial. The reason I think these characters can’t get past the compromised solution lies not only in terrible writing, but in a broader sense, by the fact that we encounter characters at a point in which no one’s said anything meaningful to each other in far too long. Reconciliation is simply not in the cards for any of them at this point. By avoiding the 800-pound gorilla, by avoiding the white elephant in the room, and avoiding the, um, flaming porcupine on the loveseat, they’ve grown too entrenched in their own neuroses, which leaves them too separated from anyone else to connect.

Which is why I posed the question the other night in the bar, and why I posed it on the blog, and, when I’m feeling brave, posed it to The Girl on occasion.

I don’t pose it rhetorically, and I don’t pose it from a position of authority/inside knowledge. But I don’t think it’s a bad question to ask, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing to respond, “No.” Because I’m not convinced it is. Not only from a Darwinian perspective (we’re a few genes away from throwing poop at each other, and honestly, in certain frats right now, that’s still going on), but from a sheer sociologically/psychological perspective. If you’re like me, you’re in an urban atmosphere, teeming with more people than you could ever possibly meet. If you’re not like me, you’re in a suburban/rural atmosphere, which, while lacking in the sheer population density of a major metropolitan area, still has plenty of people you see, some on an everyday basis, producing closer ties than your city counterparts. If you’re not like either of these groups, you’re The Unabomber, and really, I’m not including you in my discourse here.

At the heart of admitting monogamy might not be a natural state is admitting the not-so-original realization that relationships take work. It’s one of those things that they don’t tell you when selling you the “married with two point five kids with a dog and a white picket fence” thing as a kid. Some people go to “Jesus Camp”, and the rest of us go to “Happy Hetero Camp”. But some of us are gay and some of us don’t want kids and some of us don’t need to pay $125 per plate to publicly prove our love and some of us wanna bang sixteen people even while staying physically loyal to one person. It’s messy and effed up and causes us to drink and smoke and screw and screw up a lot more than we should be there we have it, life in all its miserable and glorious essence for the world to see and dissect and occasionally view on “The Smoking Gun”.

In the end, admitting we don’t know the answer prevents us from ever truly asking the question in the first place. Doesn’t solely rest with this particular question. We stop before we start because we don’t know where we’ll end up. And I hate not knowing. Just hate it. But avoidance isn’t the answer, for this question or the 482 others currently percolating in my brain. Taking them one at a time, as best I can. Which is all any of us can really do. On our good days, at least.

I’m looking over at The Girl as I type this.

And I can tell you it’s a good day.