Family has always been important to me. I realize that doesn’t make me special or unique, but it’s true nonetheless. I have had many friends and acquaintances throughout my life, but when I feel that familial bond with someone it makes it that much more important. And I don’t mean the people that share the same bloodlines as I do. After all, if you go back far enough you’ll find that we all have the same blood pumping through our veins. Before we educated ourselves, bloodlines mattered more than associations.

An old friend taught me a lot about what family really means. In many ways she was a completely different person than her adopted father. They looked different, spoke differently, acted differently, came from vastly different backgrounds, and had distinctly different interests. But she loved that man beyond measure. She was never apologetic about him and never afraid to show it. It was genuine familial love and it wasn’t based on blood.

Family bonds transcend family names or marital contracts.  I consider many of my friends to be as close as family.  Some of my friends are closer to me than people with my last name.  In an increasingly diverse society, it pays to not have such a limited definition of what a family can be.

But then there are those few that enter my life that become permanent memories. For better or worse, they become deeply engrained in my memory. I have these moments I remember about them, these things they do, that stay with me no matter who I am with or who I am around. Something as simple as an album title will plant a seed in my head, only to sprout as an unconscious song from my lips like some distracted and cheerful bird, repeating something it just likes to hear only to have another bird swoon over the sound.

I met someone like this recently, someone that I will always remember, even if we never meet again. She is close to my age, cute, clever, cultured, compassionate, cute, considerate, Californian, creative, and cuuu-ute. I have only known her for a few days, but something about her is strangely familar…like a cliché. These past few days have been the kind of days that we pretend don’t happen except in films by people like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and anything with Natalie Portman.

I am not a frivilous person. I do not believe in fate with a capital f. I do not believe in magic. I do not believe that people should act on their instincts because our instincts are tailor-made to making us do things we don’t necessarily have to do just because we get the itch. But I do believe in chemistry. And I do believe in attraction and affection and admiration and adoration, and I don’t think I’ve felt these things for a single individual…ever.

So, what does this mean? It means I need to keep my head on straight and not read too much into arbitrary things. Coincidences are just coincidences, right? Riiiight. Surrrre. There are such things as coincidences, but does it cease to be a coincidence when it happens repeatedly and in various forms? Who the hell knows. I’ll be better able to answer those questions in a few weeks or months, or even better, years. Honestly, I hope I have to wait years to find out the answer to these questions. This relationship has just been conceived, but it can be nurtured into a beautiful one if I just remember to take it easy. I have the rest of my Life to live, but I want to include someone.

A couple years before he left for Iraq, he made a documentary about gamers (of the Dungeons and Dragons kind). Since he is part of the command in Iraq, he has been in a relatively unique position. And being a filmmaker, he has decided to put his talents to good use. Though he has not officially announced it, he is currently filming a documentary about the life of the troops in Iraq. As soon as he gets back to the United States he will turn the footage over to his editor, and soon after that we will be setting up a site to promote the film. I’m looking forward to working on that project almost as much as I’m looking forward to seeing the film, but not nearly as much as I’m looking forward to seeing him home again.

Television, movies, books, magazines, and even rumors often speak of romantic love between people. As children we learn to love our parents, as teenagers we learn to love the feelings associated with flirting and sexual activity, and as adults we learn to love people in the most real sense. Until that time when we are old and mature enough to truly understand these feelings are we able to put it into perspective, and sometimes not even then. It is a culturally-derived idea that romance is the truest path to love, and this very well may be the case. But years or decades before this is even possible, we are pressured by our society to put romance ahead of all other factors when choosing a mate or a spouse.

Not everyone in our culture puts the same emphasis on romance, but a significant percentage of it does. Because it is and has been such an important aspect of our culture, we find its influence in the practices and rituals of modern life. Young women are particularly targeted by this, which can be witnessed by simply turning on a television. Most women used in advertisements, especially for products that closely relate to grooming and appearance, are young and seemingly attracted to the most superficial aspects of a man (229). The great influence this idea has over our society is also bolstered by its own success, allowing this shallow approach to mating to flourish with very little true resistance. Even people who have a very pragmatic view of the world can find themselves uncontrollably distracted by a pretty face.

It is undeniable that certain people may seem attractive to us (both on the physical and personal level), but this does not mean that we should necessarily marry them. This method of choosing a mate is highly unstable in that it forces people to focus on aspects of a mate that are irrelevant to the continuation of the relationship or the biological “success” of reproduction. Anyone can fall in love. Furthermore, because our society has a proclivity towards attractive people, young adults are often taken advantage of. From something as harmless as putting their face in a commercial to something like dancing nude at a strip club, our physical and other basic urges are used to serve purposes that have nothing to do with mating or marriage.

Though we may not be able to deny our instinctual attraction to certain things–or, to be more precise, people–this does not mean that romantic interest can accurately gauge the potential success of a relationship. Romance is a product of our passion which is a product of our ancient biological heritage, and as real as it may seem or actually be, that is all it is. It is like our urge to smash something when we are angry. Sometimes it is impossible to stop ourselves from bursting out (to whatever degree). Before, during, and afterwards we know that it changes nothing (except, maybe, the object we struck), yet we feel the urge to do it anyway. Romantic passion is the same kind of urge, and has just as much ability to affect the future as any other urge: none. To some cultures, the idea of leaving something as important as marriage up to young people is considered foolish (230). In our culture, we can only hope that the romance lasts as long as it can, and that a more realistic bond is formed during that time.

From a very early age our culture unconsciously trains us to seek romance (once we are old enough). We find it in many aspects of our lives, and it influences us all. Though this is not necessarily a bad concept, it is not a very good set of criteria to base lifelong partnerships on. Romance is real, and its effects are real, but it alone does not ensure a positive outcome. It is, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery, said in The Little Prince, “Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.”

List of Works Cited:
Haviland, William A. (2002). Cultural Anthropology (10th edition)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary (www.merriam-webster.com)

I don’t think so, either. Not anymore, anyway.

The months after the Big Split were rougher on me than they ever were on her, and they always seemed to get better right before something reminded me just how much I missed her. Sure, I could think I was over her, but then she’d show up in a damn dream and all I could think about was her for the rest of the day. Even now, memories of her linger insidiously in my subconscious, waiting for just the right time to torment me. Not that I need tormenting, but something keeps putting me through all this.

I know it’s me, of course. Like the song says, you do it to yourself, and that’s why it really hurts. But, believe me, if I could stop it, I would. I don’t like feeling humiliation, even if no one knows about it. I don’t want to dream about her, even if she never finds out. It’s a tragedy that something as beautiful as unrequited love should rot away silently in secret. After all, how many people have a relatively sane, kind-hearted, and loving person who dreams about them? And how many people would like to have someone like that in their life? The odds aren’t in her favor, but I am, and that’s precisely my problem.

And, so I deal with. I bite the bullet, as they say, and try to live on, knowing that the void she created will likely never be filled. Though she is gone, the memories of what we had still remain. They may leave me feeling hollowed out, but they have shape and meaning. They are beautiful moments, after all, which is why I can’t get rid of them. I just take them out from time to time, suppressing the sadness and reliving the moment. I never imagined that a sense of aesthetics could foster emotional masochism.

It’s a good thing people can’t rummage through your mind as freely as they can your closet or computer. Like a nude painting, it’s much easier to let them assume that things are there for the beauty of it than to explain it to them. Explanations about our behavior seem so after-the-fact, so insincere. Even if you’re being honest, you’re still just covering your ass.

That’s how I felt the other day, watching a movie with my first lover since my last love. Halfway through the movie I wanted to get up and leave; afraid she might read me like the open book I was. Fortunately, she was more engrossed in the drama onscreen than the one I was quietly suffering through. Even though the plot of the movie was wonderfully unique, the production was oftentimes astonishing, and the acting was absolutely brilliant, I wanted it to end. The little details throughout the film really affected me. At first I simply felt like I connected with the main character (as we all tend to do with various works of art), but this was hauntingly different. Fights that never should have happened, eating Chinese takeout with chopsticks in comfy living room chairs, pages of journal entries that pour from my pen, music by a woman wailing in Hindi, changing her hair color to suit her mood, moments of rage and sorrow alone in my car, still leaving pictures of her on my wall…

By the end of the movie I realized I could write this stuff, if only to let my own misery pay the bills for some soulless movie company.

Damn. See what cynic I’ve become recently?

The worst part about all of this is that my closest confidant is the person who caused the problem. The only person I have felt close enough to these past four years to talk about this is the same person who told me to never contact her again. That’s cool. I can dig it.

I’m lying, of course. But, I did deserve it. Well, no. That’s not true. I didn’t deserve it. I made an asinine comment, and (not surprisingly) she didn’t take it well. Regardless of how she felt, it was an important moment for me. For the first time in the months since our breakup, I was able to be somewhat of an asshole to her. My comment really wasn’t that bad, and if she really knows me—which I believe she does—she’ll know it was harmless. Even so, she didn’t treat it that way. I haven’t heard a word from her since then, and that was months ago. But, what can ya do? The woman hath spoken.

The biggest problem I have had with our breakup, aside from accepting the reality of the situation, was how unfair it all has been. As our fourth summer together was beginning to heat up, we each went on separate vacations. I was visiting family and she was taking a quick summer class. For a couple weeks we were physically separated unlike we’d been since the day we met. I was alone on the west coast, and genuinely longed to see her again. Every couple I saw holding hands reminded me of how empty mine were. My memory of the first time I ever saw the Pacific Ocean will always be tied to my memory of writing, “I Miss You” to her in the sand. All I could think about was how much I wished she could have been there with me. But while that was happening to me, she was busy making other plans.

When I finally got back to town I went to our place, the tiny, stuffy two bedroom we’d lived in together for almost two years. I walked in the door and saw her beautiful face for what seemed like the first time in my life. She came to the door and forced out a small kiss on my cheek. Not exactly the warm embrace I had longed for, but my sister was with us, so I really didn’t pay it much attention. I put my suitcase in our room and came back to the living room. My sister stayed as long as manners dictated, and then we were alone. Knowing her like I did, I immediately asked what was wrong.

And then she did it. She didn’t say it, of course, but she did it. She said she had done “a lot of thinking” while she was on her quasi-vacation. She said the next step was marriage, as though clearly it was not an option. She said everything that needed to be said to make it clear that it was time for us to separate. And, this wasn’t one of those separations mentioned in the heat of an argument that never actually comes to fruition. This was It. I knew it when she said I didn’t have to move my stuff out immediately. Having no precedent on how I was supposed to respond, I just got up, grabbed my suitcase out of her room, left her house, and drove to my dad’s house. In one delicately terrible moment I lost my cats, my roommate, my girlfriend, my best friend, my lover, and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a wife…on our four year anniversary, no less.

That was nine months ago. She and her current boyfriend will soon be celebrating their tenth, eleventh, or maybe their one year anniversary. I now know that their relationship started while she and I were still together, but fortunately I was spared that detail until months after the fact. Not that it made it easy to accept.

I’m dating again, but even after this much time, it’s difficult. I want nothing to do with her, but I want what I once had with her. We maintained a stable and mature relationship that resonated with a warm and vibrant love. We had that once, that palpable affection. I think I miss that most of all.

Do I still love her? Yes, I always will. Am I still in love with her? No, not anymore. But, how do I know?