At the beginning of every romantic entanglement, I overhaul my life like week-old laundry. I sift through each quality with razor-like objectivity and label it through the lens of my lover. Which habits do I chuck in the washer, what abrasive quality is worth another wear, which memory won’t make it through, etc. Which vulnerabilities do I fold away and keep? I piece this lens together in every interaction. Every stray comment, sideways glance, lingering laugh is an indication. Every pause is reflective of some large, festering wound that I must lay salve on, if we are to survive. Every moment is one of reckoning.
It is common, natural, even, for one to wonder about their perception in the eyes of their loved ones. It’s why we fight with friends, hold back with lovers, circle through the motions with our parents. I find it to hold especially true in the case of romantic relationships and the vulnerability they demand of us, the ask to lay oneself bare to scrutiny.
Such intimacy slams into us at times. Jars us into momentum by revealing what we truly desire. What need we are seeking to meet, what insecurity we find too big to bypass, what the parameters of a successful relationship are. I find that my parameters can be fairly shallow. I want us to look good together. For passersby to glance at us and think, hmm. Makes sense. If at all leagues exist, I need us to be in the same one. I want a partner who adores me, I think. I would struggle to feel fulfilled with someone who did not verbally affirm their fondness for me day in and day out. That is shallow, I think. One should trust their partner to love them? Idk.
Also, I think a successful relationship is when both have partners who keep them accountable. Not by way of their behaviour or perception towards the other, but simply as a result of who they are. A partner who makes one want to be better for the relationship as much as for themselves. Maybe the need I am seeking to meet is my own lack of comittment to my life. I don’t know.
I find that my insecurities crop up often, and in the most unexpected of ways. I am constantly surprised by how they choose to rear their head and how they refuse to leave. I am afraid of being seen, quite literally. The experience of being looked at is mortifying to me, the idea that someone’s eyes may linger on the curve of my stomach or the droop of my jowls. I am afraid of building something with love, of some kind of domestic intimacy. The sheer power that rests in the palms of they who cook a meal, fold a sheet, or those who take a nap with me.
I am also ashamed at the banality of these fears. How small and quitodian these vulnerabilities seem against all that life has to offer, as if I do not have the vision to see how wonderful existence can be. I feel mildly pressured to expand my purview of life, I think. To think about it outside of the boxes of the models taught to us, whatever it may be. Stability peppered with mild resentment, cream quilted curtains bought with salaried living, annual lukewarm beer by the beach. I am reluctant to wade into the waters of this life, afraid of what happens if I enjoy it too much, maybe turn complacent.
My resistance stems from the fear of this fondness being unfeminist. It is gendered, I think, this obsession around love. The humiliating need to build something that weathers all storms and carries you into the night and the willingness to sacrifice oneself in the process. I am afraid of how easily I may turn into someone who forgets who she is. Gosh, I wish there were an algebraic formula for compromise. A mathematical way, perhaps, to determine the potential of a relationship and therefore decide how much of oneself to lose to it, how much to give. Some sort of risk-reward ratio would help me, I think. I loathe the thought that I have to put all my cards on the table and have the other person make of them what they will.
All of this is to say, dear reader, that I am terrified of vulnerability, which is CRAZY to me. I was convinced that my literature reading, indie music listening, sappy movie watching self was fully in touch with her emotions, at the zenith of self awareness, as healed and ready to rumble as one can be. Evidently, I was wrong. The vibes here are as messy, random, and explosive as it gets, much to my chagrin. I am mercurial, often invasive, and mildly hypocritical. I have recently realised that I possess immense capacity to be selfish, unkind, and cynical. I am also yet to have my dream life, so every relationship that is remotely promising seems ambiguous and premature to me.
I wonder what my partners, lovers, friends, feel. If there are fears I can help assuage or aspects I can accept to love them better. I wonder whose cards I have knocked off the table, what is non negotiable for me.
A song.
A poem.