It was over coffee with a male friend that started it, followed by a great first date that amplified it, but over the last few days I've once again pondered the nature of love.
My friend asked me: "Can a romantic relationship exist without drama"?
Without so much as a moment's hesitation, I answered him in my most pshaw-ing, know-it-all voice:
"Of course it can".
And considering my love life has been anything but exemplary of such a statement over the last say, THIRTY YEARS... I had to stop and ask myself, what gives?
So here's my take on it.
Just because I think a relationship can exist without drama doesn't mean that it does.
(Small homage to the ones I've had)
Ah yes. 'Tis true. I am no stranger to patterns reminiscent of Shakespearean tragedies that have consistently followed me like a pack of unrelenting bloodhounds for the better part of my ENTIRE adult life...
So far...
So why the certainty that true love can exist without drama? Because it can. And more so - it SHOULD.
Anything less is not true love.
Oh shush, all you naysayers with your passionate embraces who cling woefully over the pendulum swing of pangs and ecstacies steeped in your negative relationship patterns.
If your feverish fantasies do not transform into the steady flame of consistent feelings of love, honesty and respect, then all you're getting is a little somethin' somethin' that will burn out as quickly as it flared up in the first place.
And if they don't and your pendulum keeps swinging in both directions, then I guarantee you will be relegated to an unhealthy emotional life whose imbalance may just cause you a heart condition for real.
But sadly, most people are addicted to their drama the way Canadians are to Tim Horton's coffee.
The question is... WHY?
Personally, I think it's because most people are bored.
They equate drama with excitement, the excitement eventually produces challenges (what comes up must come down), and this gives them a 'raison d'etre' - a reason for being. It occupies their mind, they keep 'busy' with fabricated problems, and nobody has to confront the meaning of their existence and do the work required to understand themselves and lead a healthier, more fruitful life.
I once dated a guy who, when he could not find drama in our relationship would create it out of habit. When I finally caught on to what he was doing during one of his tantrum-like obsessive tendencies, I turned to him and said:
me: "What are you doing"?
him: "What"?
me: "Do you realize how perfectly well we get along? We don't fight, we see eye to eye on most things and most of all, it's effortless. Do you agree how easy this relationship has been"?
him: "Yeah".
me: "Then why are you creating problems where none exist? You understand don't you, that you're unconciously sabottaging it"?
Silence
me: "If you keep it up, I guarantee it'll be over before you know it".
And sure enough, six months later, it was.
The same was true of the guy before him, who never felt as alive as when we were fighting, so would create uncomfortable situations that would eventually send me into a frenzy and when I was at my most exasperated, would sit there with a smug, satisfied look on his face as if something in him had just been appeased.
It took me a year to figure that one out.
A good relationship is one that is drama-free. Not problem-free as those are two completely different things, but drama-free.
Where one person does not throw things against the wall, where the fights are not like all-out wars based on mistrust and jealousies, followed by reassurances of absolute devotion that make Jonestown pale in comparison, and then topped off with make-up session of matching passions.
You can keep your drama. I don't care how good the sex is.
Next - redefining chemistry
