I've got two ideas for posts in my head right now, both having entered my mind at various points today, both seeming slightly too short to write about adequately in one post. So instead of being intelligent and writing two shorter posts, I'm going to put this all into one lumped-together mess of a blog post here. I wish you luck in making sense of what this jumble of a post comes out to be.
I'm glad I made this decision. It's one of, if not the, best decisions I've made in my life. I've learned about myself, learned how to get by, figured some things out, gotten hurt, fallen in love, made mistakes, paid the price. I've done a lot in that time. Particularly, I've done a lot I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pursued this possibility, taken this up. Some things about me have changed, while others haven't. I guess that's just how it works.
One of the silliest, most stereotypically young-adult phase sorts of things to change was that I learned to talk to people of the opposite gender. Well, actually...I'll amend that. I learned to be friends with people of the opposite gender. Prior to all of this, several years ago, all of my friends were the same sex as me. I could interact just fine with everyone, work with them when necessary, make idle chatter in the minutes between obligations or over work. But I'd never been friends with them. Hell, they were almost a different species as far as I was concerned, that's how little interaction I had with them as far as their potential to be my friends.
And yet, interestingly enough, my opinion on relationships hasn't changed much. It's developed and deepened as I've gained experience, but it hasn't changed. I remember how at the beginning of all this, in one of those conversations you have to have when you first start something, I said (I no longer remember in what context this came up) "I think relationships are different than being in love. Love is a feeling, it's an emotion or a set of them. It may come or go but doesn't require any action to maintain. Relationships, on the other hand, take effort. You have to put effort into them...just being in love isn't enough to stay in a good relationship."
I didn't really know too well what I was saying at the time, but ironically enough, younger me had a good idea there. One that I still believe. Relationships take work. If I've learned nothing else in the past few years, I've come to really appreciate that thought process. Any sort of relationship takes effort, commitment, and sacrifice. Be it a romantic pursuit, a friendly one, or a professional one. One of the most prominent examples of this is evident in romantic relationships and the road that they seem eventually to lead to--marriage.
This thought about arranged marriage was dropped into my mind today and somehow I remembered back to that one statement of mine way back when, which is the only thing that really ties this at all into the post...anyhow, back to actual writing. I read somewhere that arranged marriages have a lower divorce rate than, how to put this, others made by free choice. That, in my mind, supports the idea that making a marriage, or any other relationship, work is contingent on effort and cooperation, willingness to sacrifice and tolerance, rather than being in love or believing in fate.
Most arranged marriages (to my knowledge) are made in cultures that view this as essential and look highly unfavorably upon separation. That leaves the participants with few options beyond the obvious "make it work." So they do, most often. Yes, there are certain intolerable individuals who could not be in a successful relationship under any circumstances. But in most cases, both parties are willing to work out their problems, cooperate, sacrifice, and make the marriage work. Sometimes love winds up developing out of this mutual effort toward a common goal. I'd imagine that other times it doesn't...but that doesn't stop the relationship from working, from being functional, successful, and oftentimes giving rise to intelligent or successful children.
In marriages of choice (excluding those made for the sake of financial convenience, pure greed, lust, etc.), the primary motivation to keep the relationship functioning is the feeling of love. When things stop working and that feeling seems to dissipate, no matter how temporarily, the option of separation is always available, and people are more likely to take it because there is no cultural pressure on them to necessarily stay together. Certainly, people change, sometimes there really is no going back to a functional relationship, but in most of these situations, if people understood that all it took was a bit more compromise, effort, and sacrifice to get the relationship functioning again and get over a rough spot, how much more often would people stay together? But that's just my musings on the subject. Having no experience with marriage, I can't really claim to know much of anything about it.
It's interesting to think though, that after all of these years, the things I have learned most about, some of my views on really haven't changed. Most everything else about me really has. I'd like to say it's for the better, but goodness knows I've done things I'm not proud of, made mistakes I never figured I would, and hurt people in ways I wouldn't have thought of before. Yet sitting here, years later, looking back on the experience, I realize that all of the blood, sweat, and tears brought me where I am today. And I daresay that's a better place, or certainly a more experienced one.
I don't know about anybody else, but I don't find ignorance to be bliss. I like knowing things. It hurts me more not to know anything than to know things that may hurt. If I know what is before me, I can face it and figure out what to do. I don't like ignorance. I'd rather see the hell I'm walking into than have it obscured by a fog if that's the way it has to be. And honestly, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of the person I've become and the things I believe. I'll rarely admit it, but there it is. I am.
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