An office mate one day asked me how I would know if the person I'm dating or I'm in a relationship with is indeed "the one" of my life, the question referring to gay relationships. I told her that I'll never know. We'll never know.
Rational gay men, I think (lol), have a different context versus straight couples when it comes to lasting unions. To straight people, dating is a process of finding the right person to marry. But marriage only locks people together, marriage is not a promise of successful relationships. As most would say, marriage is a product of work. If marriage is that then why would one want to get into that? Well, because we're culturally wired to do so. Because marriage has societal and economic benefits. And so married people usually maintain marriage without looking after the real cause of the union - love. Straight people who rush themselves in dating are rushing themselves into their own prisons.
For me, how I see it, growing up with parents who struggled to keep their marriage until they became true friends, you know, how lovers become enemies and later on become friends out of respect for each other's relentlessness, marriage is a societal cage. You keep the marriage because it's "wrong" to dissolve it. Because God will get angry. People forget that marriage is founded on love. If love is lost, marriage will inevitably follow. On the other hand, married people who find bliss at the end of their marriage found bliss not because of the construct of marriage but because of the love they find in each other. Love is always the stronger institution, the stronger argument, the highest belief.
So from that context, how do I proceed then with finding my "the one." As I've said, I'm not looking for it. Whoever I'm with, if love stays, will be my "the one." And I'll never know if love will last until I've proven that love has lasted. Either at the end of it, or at the end of my human existence. Love, I think, is always the better marriage.
No comments:
Post a Comment