- Boyfriend: You watched Mad Men without me again?
- Me: Did you want to watch it? Here, let's watch it right now.
- Me: You're not watching! You're still sitting at your computer.
- BF: I don't care about all these drama parts of the show. I'll watch when I'm interested in something.
- Me: The drama parts are what everyone loves! What interests you about this show?
- BF: The comedy.
- Me: Comedy? Oh, you mean Roger.
- BF: Who?
- Me: The guy who looks like Anderson Cooper.
- BF: Yeah him. I only like scenes with him in them.
- Me: Mhm. Never watching Mad Men with you again.
Sharing your life with another person is never easy. It’s hard enough handling your own issues, but relationships force us to combine the problems of two people and hope that neither person is permanently damaged by the other. To be in a relationship is to let a relative stranger in on your deepest, most disgusting secrets, and hope that they still want to be in the same room with you after. There’s a constant battle going on with yourself and also with the person you profess to love, and it’s not clear that this struggle will ever let up. Some days you find yourself wondering if any of this will really be worth it, and maybe you’re better off living alone, trading companionship for solitude.
And then other days you play your boyfriend in a motorcycle racing game where you totally kick his ass, and you think to yourself: yeah, I could keep doing this for the rest of my life.
Can you truly be satisfied with one sexual partner for your entire life? Is it better to have sexual experiences with multiple people before settling down with one person for the long-haul? Is it naive to think that monogamy works? Is it lazy to think that it doesn’t?
