Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
–Anaïs Nin/The Diary of Anaïs Nin
The other day, a guy I’ve been talking to online who seemed really interested in me emailed to let me know that he didn’t care to pursue a relationship because I am still friends with a few of my ex-boyfriends and because I have men friends. For him, that is a deal breaker.
I won’t go into details of what he said to me in particular, or what I replied. It was very civil, mostly, and I understand his reasons even if I could not disagree with him more completely. He seems to be looking for someone who is exactly like me in pretty much all respects but this one. He does not believe that men and women can be friends. His theory, basically, is that having friendships outside of a relationship takes away from the relationship. He wants the couple to be everything to each other. He wants a storybook love and is willing to wait for it. It is a very idealized vision of what love is. I can understand the appeal.
He said a lot of very sweet things about me before ending on an offensive note when he compared having a relationship with someone like me to having a relationship with a drug addict in terms of how damaging it is to a couple.
So, it’s done. I wish him well, but I think he’s going to have a hard time finding the kind of love he is looking for. He’s never been married, so would guess he knows that already. I hope he is very patient.
The thing is, someone who is like me–quirky, smart, funny, sexy, modern, creative, true hearted and kind–is going to have friends. Some of those friends are going to be men. Some of them may even have been romantic partners at some point.
What he doesn’t realize, maybe, is that she is going to be who she is, all of those amazing awesome things he likes, *because* of the people in her life. That includes the friendships with men which he disapproves of so strongly. All of those experiences, and people past and present are exactly why she is the person she became. Take that away and she becomes someone else entirely. Probably not as interesting. Or as insightful.
She is going to know that love is infinite and should be shared. And she is going to know the difference between loving her friends, her family and her lover. She is not going to be willing to put limits on how much love comes into her life, or how much love she gives.
Her friends are going to be important to her.
I suspect any women like me who he might find will tell him what I did:
My friends are my family, regardless of what gender they are. I love them and they love me. They are not disposable and they are not expendable, especially to meet someone else’s expectations about an impossible romantic ideal.
Someone like me would tell him that love feeds love. Loving creates more love. The more love you give, there more you have. Limiting who you love doesn’t benefit a relationship. It simply means there is less love. Do you love any one child less because you have another one, or does the amount of love grow to include another child?
Love is big. The biggest thing there is. It’s capable of infinite expansion.
There can be valid concerns about leaving the past in the past. There are definitely relationships outside of a couple that are bad for a couple. It’s something we could have had a good talk about. It’s something I have personal experience with. Something I have made bad choices about at times. Something I’ve learned from. Something that helped me become the person I ended up being.
There are a lot of people from my past who I’ve left in the past for various reasons. There are others who I have allowed back into my life for various reasons. They add to my life. Hopefully I add to theirs in some way.
What makes me sad about this, not for me but for him, is that he seems to believe that by holding onto this vision of a perfect and exclusive love that he will be blessed with more love. A bigger, better love. An Epic Love, as he put it. That isn’t how it works. The people who are going to be able to love him as much as he wants are the ones who have loved, and continue to love. Who’ve had lives in which they’ve had love grow by sharing love.
Someone who has limited herself to loving her family and her female friends probably won’t be able to love him half as much because that is someone who sets limits on love. How can you do anything without limits by setting limits on exactly that thing?
Obviously, anyone who knows my history is well aware that I am no expert on romance and marriage.
I don’t pretend to know much, but I am pretty good at loving people.
I am also smart enough to hold onto the people in my life who are worth loving.
Letting go? Well. He might be a little bit right about that. Letting go is harder, but I don’t think I have anyone in my life right now I need to let go of.
I hope he finds what he’s searching for.
I think I am more likely to, though, because what I want is real.