Before cooking the perfect relationship, don't you have to know what your favourite ingredients are first?

Wow, it has been A WHILE since I last wrote something on here, huh? Glad to see you guys are still checking it out every now and then!

Now, on to today's topic...

I've been carrying out an investigation on polyamorous relationships and I have found out some very interesting things... And, although I will not post them here until I am finished, I have come across some ideas that have definitely got me thinking.

When I was little, I, perhaps as many of us have, dreamt of a romantic disney-movie-like love story; of course, as I grew a bit older, it got a bit more explicit, no longer PG-13... But still with the same ending! A life with someone special I'd love more than anything in the world, both of us doing what we love and earning enough to have a place to live and enjoy our lives. Perhaps, some time later, we'd adopt a child and raise him or her into an amazing person... But, what happens when the fairy tale doesn't quite work out? Worse still... What happens when you realise that this fairy tale is not the ONLY possibility?

As I was interviewing one of the participants in the study I mentioned before, I realised that, very often, people like me just accept that we want this or that idea just because that's the way we have been taught all our lives... Like, how can you possibly consider that, say, chocochip cookies might not be your favourite flavour ever when it is the only thing you have eaten all your life?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to rush into a non-traditional relationship just because I met a couple of people who have tasted other flavours in the fridge... But, rather, it has got me thinking about how judgmental we (and, by 'we', I mean 'I') can be. When I met one of the participants (about 7 years ago) and he told me of his relationship (where they are a couple who will, every now and then, have a third boyfriend they get emotionally involved with... or perhaps each of them might have a different boyfriend on the side as well), I was beyond shocked! How could that possibly be? Love is ONLY between two people who share absolutely EVERYTHING!! In fact, they are supposed to be SO "meant to be" that there is only ONE person in the WHOLE WORLD that is right! Oh, but that's fine, they'll break up and have so many issues they'll surely regret it! ... ... ... Or at least that's the way I thought before. Today, they have been together for 10+ years and are happy as can be, sharing a life and planning a future that fulfills them both.

Does this mean I want to do it too? Not really. To me this only means that having a relationship with someone is like cooking your favourite dish (not that I do it that often, but it's the first example I could think of... Perhaps I'm hungry?), someone gives you the recipe the first time but, when you taste it, it is rarely as good as you wish it were... At that point you have two options: you either stick to that recipe or take a chance and modify it. The latter will certainly disappoint you a few times, it might even make you sick or blow up your kitchen... But when you find it, the moment you know which ingredients make your favourite dish perfect... Well, I guess it's all worth it!

Is that the happy ending we were all hoping for? Perhaps... Of course, eating the same dish might get boring with time... And, when that happens, you just need to modify the recipe again! 

"Till death do us part" he said... But I'm not that patient...!

This is a topic I hadn't thought of until today. I mean, on the one hand it is very common... You know how most things nowadays have to be updated like every other week in order to catch up to our fast-moving lives? I mean, you buy a computer or software and, the second you walk out the store, the new one is already out! However, I had not considered how this can be applied to the very important issue of relationships and commitment.

Last year, while attending a conference on sexuality and gender studies, one of the experts commented that the idea of 'marrying someone for love' is quite new, about 100 years old; before that, people saw it as a way to obtain material gain and/or mantain/improve their social status - it was just a contract. 

And still, today people have this illogical idea that marriage is and always has been based on love, since the dawn of mankind! Absurd!

On the other hand, I must admit that, deep down, I too dream of the fairy tale ending and a 'happily ever after' - mind you, I have come to terms with the idea that it is more important to have a stable life than a wild passionate romance that lasts an eternity... But what does that mean? 

Until like a few hundred years ago people lived to be around 40 or 50 tops... By the time you turned 20 you were already halfway to the other side... But now, if you marry someone when you're, say, 27... You might have to be with them about 60 more years! I really don't think this contract was devised for such circumstances...

One of my teachers was telling me about a theory which says that the new generations will have about 4 stable partners (I won't go into the details of why, of course...): One to experiment and discover what it's like to be with someone; one to have children or create something with; one to have fun in a mature way; and finally, one who you will be with till you're old and die. The interesting thing is not whether this is true or not, but rather how we have no idea what relationships will be like in a few years! I mean, that already sounds to me like you get an iBoyfriend and in a couple of months you either upgrade this one or get a new model altogether! 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. I think it is quite sensible to be able to know whether you are happy with the person you are with and be mature enough to accept that it might end in a different way than the "happily ever after", and act accordingly... While the alternative is staying together forever because divorce equals sin and you'd rather live in hell here but get a wonderful afterlife...

A long time ago I heard a priest say that the whole "till death do us part" had been modified to accommodate the needs of a specific time (when they didn't want people getting divorced) despite the original idea being "till the death of love do us part" or something like that... Which is a much more reasonable clause...

In my opinion, these changes are the inevitable evolution of relationships in an ever-changing world and must be taken according to what each individual needs... As long as all the participants are informed and agree, I think they can lead their lives as they please... What do you think?