Reflecting on Relationships

It starts sometime in elementary or middle school–a romantic or more-than-friendship interest in another human being. And once it starts, it rarely seems to stop. Flirtation. Crushes. First boy/girlfriends. Unrequited obsessions. Dates. Romances. Relationships. 

In recent weeks I’ve found myself in a recurring conversation. It started with my sister and best friend. In one of our daily WhatsApp conversations she commented that she’d had X number of relationships in her lifetime and reflected on their diversity. She added some thoughts from her teenager daughter, my niece, about what constitutes a “relationship.” My niece said that if you remembered him/her, remembered the relationship, then it counted. I couldn’t agree with this definition. I have an excellent memory and can remember the name of most every bloke I ever went on a date with. But a date does not, in my book, make a relationship.

So who or what DOES count? What qualifies as a “relationship?” Take a moment and see how you would answer or define this for yourself before reading on. 

I decided to message my niece for clarification. She said that both people of the relationship should value/view it similarly to have it qualify as a relationship. Hmmmm. I still couldn’t agree. If he mattered to me, made an impact on me, altered my understanding/experience of what it meant/means to be in relationship, then I think he, and our “relationship,” counts. It is possible that he may or may not remember my name, or that he doesn’t perceive me as having impacted his understanding or experience of relationship. But that does not erase him from my memory, from my history.

I’ve gone on to ask colleagues and friends for their opinion on the matter in the days since that first conversation with my sister. Here are the responses/definitions that I received–some from women, some from men. It’s a relationship if:

• • that other person changed or altered an understanding or knowledge of what it means to be in relationship;
  • it is monogamous;
  • it includes on-going sexual relations;
  • it is exclusive to the two people involved.

I can see these points of view. But I can’t subscribe to any of them…..exactly. In the end, as with many things in life, it is up to the individual to define what constitutes or qualifies as a “relationship.” I have made lists, adding, crossing off, rethinking. I’ve looked up words in the dictionary (formative). I’ve followed those words to their synonyms (constructive). Why does one man make the list? Why does another not qualify? 

After contemplating the “list” of men I’ve dated or carried on with in some way, I came to the conclusion that there are 12 that I count as “relationships.” 

Let me be clear about something here–sex does NOT have to be part of the equation for a person to make my list. There are some of the twelve that did not include that component. For you the qualifications or prerequisites may be different. 🙂

For example my first high school crush whom I “dated” only briefly was the first guy to buy me flowers “just because.” I watched him for weeks, passing his locker every chance I could, making up reasons to walk by that hallway before sharing with a mutual acquaintance about my interest. We went out a few times. I wore his class ring very briefly. But then we both moved on. He is, in fact, married to the classmate whom he began dating directly after me. And yet, he counts for me. He was a sweet “first.” I’ll forever remember riding to school in his blue Camaro and hanging with him and his friends. Us gals were freshmen; the boys were juniors. We listened to The Cure, Midnight Oil, and Depeche Mode, and navigated together the angsty time that marks most everyone’s teenage years. 

Perhaps one of the most impactful relationships in my life was an unrealized relationship. Yes, you read that right. He thought it was unrequited love. When we began, I was young and unsure of myself. We COULD NOT get our timing right. When I was single, he wasn’t, and vice versa.  I remember all the nights we stayed up late talking–in person after our National Guard drills, or on the phone. We shared a love of literature and of writing. We knew each other deeply and spoke easily and freely with one another. Our connection was soulful and other-than. He met my family. We saw “Pulp Fiction” together. I drove his race car late one night and on another evening experienced the thrill of a nitrous-induced slide down asphalt with him at the helm. He was a poet and a gearhead and we had a mutual fascination with one another.

Late one night we stood in rural Pennsylvania next to a lake. We listened to the bullfrogs croak and felt the humidity heavy in the air beside our attraction to one another. We played out all the possible options IF we could have made different choices. A month later I moved to Idaho. That was 1995. From time to time we’d reconnect through snail mail or email. Then we’d lose connection. I found him once again in the spring of 2004. A few months later he unexpectedly, and unpredictably, died. I cried for weeks, and I yet feel that heartbreak. Most people have a “what if” person or persons from their past. The one that got away, as we say. He was mine. Was. In a “sliding doors” alternate universe I can see the life we would have created, IF we could have made different choices in pivotal moments. But alas, we did not. He will forever be the IDEA of a relationship in my remembering, and I carry him with me always. 

There were boyfriends in high school and college that I dated for periods of time. But then they wanted to settle down and have babies, and I didn’t. Or the interest became unbalanced or unequal, as so many relationships can and do. So we would part ways.

And then there are the three men I married, at ages 24, 26, and 41. I quit each of those upon discovering that I was married to a person that had no interest in growing and developing as a man, as an individual, which therefore limited our ability to grow and flourish as a couple. I cannot spend time with someone that lives with resignation on a daily basis. That is depressing and a NO GO. Life is far too short to be squandered or settled for.  

On my list of counted relationships is even a “holiday romance.” He had an impact on me. He altered the way I love, the way I want to be loved. Yes, I guess my understanding of “relationship” is different from others. And that’s OKAY. It’s my list, my understanding, my life. I’m grateful for the gifts I received in each of these unique relationships. They have molded me as a human, as a woman. 

When I started this blog I shared that it was for my “new life” which began with a move to Turkey, and with my transition from being married/partnered to being single. For more than 20 years I had a husband. I transitioned from one to the next with no dating between. I seemed to stumble and fall from one “love” to the next. I am consciously working to NOT DO THAT AGAIN.

That said, if I am calculating correctly, I have not been single since I was 23 years old. I can’t remember exactly when I moved in with the man that became my first husband, but it was around ’96 or ’97. Now in my mid 40s the dating landscape has changed. Completely. I didn’t have Facebook or WhatsApp then. Shoot, the last time I was “dating” we didn’t even have cell phones!! The dating of now is overwhelming and I haven’t even truly dipped my toes in that pool. I know about the various apps or sites to assist in dating, but I am NOT participating in those. Yet? I end that with a question because maybe I will try them. Or maybe I won’t. I prefer to meet people–friends and romantic interests alike–in an organic and natural way. Is that possible in this day and age? I hope so. I think it must be. We are yet human after all.

As my first full year of living solo begins to wrap up it has me thinking about meeting a nice guy and entertaining the idea of dating. I do not want to live with someone, nor will I marry again. But I do want romance. I do want love. Who doesn’t?

This thinking about how to navigate the dating landscape, and how to express what I do and don’t want in/from a relationship, has me reflecting on the past which is where this post began. I do not want to repeat past patterns. I am not the same woman I was when I was 23. And so I predict my relationships will shift and change as well. The world is a diverse landscape with a huge variety of people to meet and get to know. If my recent endeavors in friendship are any reflection of what relationships can be in this day and age, then I am hopeful about dating as well.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts or reflections on any of my comments (or those I have paraphrased from others), OR if you’d rather share your definition for what makes a relationship in your personal history, please comment here. Until next time, I wish you all the best in life and love! <3 Heather