''It's not always Rainbows and Butterflies, it's compromise, it moves us along'' - Maroon 5

Now, under normal circumstances,this belief goes against all my idealistic views on love: I want it to be 'Rainbows and Butterflies' and all the things the songs tell us that love could be. However, being a member of 'the single people club', I get constant reminders from my attached friends just how 'lucky I am', and how they 'envy the freedom' that I have. I, in response, question why? They, in turn, respond thus: 'Alan mate, you get to go where you want, when you want, and don't have to answer to anyone.' This is normally followed by some gentle ribbing about said friend being 'under-the-thumb' and other cliches that single people use. Now, over the last few months I have tested this 'freedom' theory. I have done what I want, where I want, when I want, with who I want. I think I can safely say that I miss having someone to come home to. Someone I can spoil. I tell my friends that the life that I have, that they mock-envy, is a prime example of the grass not being greener. What they think they lack in 'freedom', is more than compensated for in companionship, trust, and having someone care for you and care about you. This is totally backed up by the fact that for all their protestations and complaints, these friends stay with their partners, go home to them, and share life with them. There must be a sprinkling of 'Rainbows and Butterflies' keeping them there. I was discussing this with another friend of mine, who is a true advocate for being single. This guy can literally not see himself in a relationship at all and, when asked why, he retorted that he 'wouldn't want to compromise himself'. I explained that not all girls would make you compromise who you are, that the girl who manages to make him want to be in a relationship would be one that would want him for who he is, not who she could turn him into. I shared that I felt a successful relationship is one where you take two independent people and entwine their lives. They keep their independence and identity, do what they want to do with no guilt trips from either party, and generally support their partner no matter what. You can't really ask for more than that. His response was that a woman who would let you be independent doesn't exist. Well I suppose you can't convert them all. But I do think that if he, or anyone, finds someone like that - then there will be more 'Rainbows and Butterflies' than you thought possible.

Alan

'Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder' - Loudon Wainwright

The question I ask is: Does it? Yesterday I was privy to two of my very good friends saying goodbye to each other. The scene: we were at an airport - classic. The story: Boy and girl are good friends. Girl has boyfriend. Boy starts to like girl. Girl starts to like boy. The unspoken is obvious to all but remains unspoken. Girl breaks up with boyfriend. Boy and girl spend some quality time with each other, as boy has to leave to another country. Participant C (myself) - a good friend of both boy and girl, plays chief listener and advisor. Participant C invites girl to come to the airport with both himself and the boy to say goodbye. Participant C says goodbye to boy and makes his excuses to leave boy and girl alone to say goodbye (I really didn't need a bottle of water from the shop). Participant C peruses books for ten minutes before returning to a glum looking girl. Cliches are thrown back and forth until a conclusion that sometimes 'life just gets in the way' is reached.
Now, as a romanticist, my hope is that whilst the two spend an indeterminable amount of time apart, within that time Loudon Wainwright's sentiments ring true. That they pine, that they yearn, and that they miss each other in general so that upon their reunion they take that step that was unspoken about - that they become a couple. My worry is that in that interim, life will indeed get in the way. People forget. People move on. I've done it myself. If anything, you could say time is the healer that people will need to recover from said heartbreak. Memories of happy times past, rather than serving as a reminder of where you've come from as a couple to where you are now, become exactly that: memories of past times. Times from a different, never-to-get-again time. And that those times get consigned to being just another stage in their lives that, because of life, they have to move on from. Some of my fondest memories from my younger years were ones that I had to move on from, and it was time that helped me do that. Absence forced me to move on. However, through such experiences, I think that when love seems so hard to find, that those people you share such happy times with are an absolute rarity, then no matter what life circumstances there are you should do what you can to keep that special person in your life. To stop them from being absent so that Loudon's theory doesn't even get tested - or at the very least work to keep them from being absent no matter what the distance. Why give up on something that could be amazing because of something so trivial? If that person you yearn for is worth the yearning, absence certainly shouldn't get in the way. That is what I hope for girl and boy. Are they right for each other? Is their sadness at this time apart justified? Only time will tell.

Alan