Selflessness and Responsibility, Where Hast Thou Gone?

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.  ~Oprah Winfrey

This is less my usual essay and more a post of a personal nature. Call it whimsical, ranty, me falling into the pit of the bitter, cynical unloved masses, whatever you will.

See, I can’t help but notice that lately, we are, indeed, living in the me-generation. You’ve heard it said before (most probably by grumpy grandparents recounting their lives in a shoe box, when they went to bed at eight and got up at six to clean their swamps with a toothbrush; or the even more unbiased journalists of the Courier Mail reporting on OUT OF CONTROL TEENS TERRORISING SUBURBAN BUS WAYS WITH LETHAL CONCOCTIONS OF BAD HAIRCUTS AND URBAN GROOVE), and you’ve all probably laughed, gotten a little indignant, flipped the page, and moved merrily on. And I’ll admit, I’ve done the same. But then came the events of these past couple of months.

I’ll share something a bit personal with you here. I just got dumped. Last night, in fact. By mobile. And that’s all fine and dandy, it was only a two week relationship anyway – I didn’t have too much time to get all attached and hopeful. Just that I did. Because you see, a month before that, I’d also just been dumped. Also after a two week relationship. This time by word of mouth. And I’m thinking you’re starting to see the pattern now – my track record’s not too great. (Ladies out there, I’m taking one for the team, be grateful.) So, back in October, when my best guy friend (call this Failed Relationship 1, or FR1 for short) decided he’d take the epic leap of overstepping the friend line and engaging in some cavorting of the most non-platonic kind, I was most taken by the promises of rainbows and fairytales and romantic walks on the beaches that he had promised. Until he stopped talking to me and I found out from a friend of a friend that he’d told the boyfriend of said friend that we’d broken up. And so, as you may have guessed, I was even more ecstatic when my other great guy friend (FR2) coincidentally confessed his undying affection for me not long after. Booyah, I thought. This one’s got to work. Here he is, a nice, normal, experienced, non-neurotic guy who would fulfill my need for love and affection. That was…until I got a phonecall from him saying there were family issues he had to deal with, no he appreciated the fact that I was willing to stick by him through thick and thin but “let’s not lie. I like you, but I’m not going to pretend I’m in love with you.”

Brilliant.

Which brings me to our topic for today. You see, I’m not so much upset by the being dumped as the false hope I’d been given by these two chaps. Because let’s face it. You go out, you get excited, you get dumped. That’s just a pain in the arse right there, all to end up back where I started: single.

 And the question that’s been playing on my mind at the end of all this is:

 ”Did neither of them think to consider the consequences of their actions before dragging me into this pit of biel?”

[Note on Terminology: Biel, n. BIg Effort Load, reading the five page descriptions of scenery in Lord of the Rings is a biel.]

Indeed, what happened to the days when you thought carefully before you said anything, knowing that you would have to take responsibility for the effect those words had on anyone who heard them? When you painstakingly took into consideration other peoples’ concerns before making any action of your own? Or when, in fact, you just stopped for moment and pondered whether or not you wanted to even date the bloody girl you were about to court.

I mean, imagine it. What would’ve happened if Romeo had turned around after being banished and decided that that Juliet girl really just wasn’t that great anyway. “Sorry babe, kinda got you all excited there for a bit. Killed your cousin, married you, promised you an eternity of love and happiness if you just estranged yourself from your family and all you knew…Whoops.”

But alas, by and large, we seem to be in the me-generation, where what Romeo wants at any point and time is what Romeo gets. And what Romeo no longer wants in the days after he throws away, because, after all, what higher duty does one have than to oneself?

But is that really the case? And even if it was, can this one, ultimate, higher duty really excuse you from just well, being a decent, considerate person? When does doing what you want to fulfill your own needs and wishes turn into preventing others from doing the same? What makes what you want at that point in time so much more important than the possible future consequences it could have on the people around you? You have a right to change your mind, yes. But do you have a right to make a decision involving someone, knowing very well that there’s a high chance you’d change your mind later?

More and more I can’t help but get the feeling that we’re living in a world full of persons singular, where relationships are just the bi-product of two individuals finding it mutually advantageous to share a set of experiences for a coincidental period of time.

I remember I had a conversation with my father once, about how the hell my grandmother and grandfather lasted together for so long. They’d been together since the age of 14, grandad died at 64, grandma refuses to have any man after that. That’s roughly the equivalent of serving 2 life sentences and a few petty convictions on the side. The answer was apparently that they worked together as a unit.

Now, at my tender age, I don’t profess to be a pot of relationship wisdom, but even to my inexperienced mind it seems like the way to go. They worked as a unit. How simple. And it was really. All they did was work on the concept of co-dependence. They weren’t two people using each other to make themselves happy. He wasn’t there to fulfill her need for romance, protection, and a man tall enough to reach the top shelf. And she wasn’t just there to cook, clean, provide companionship and look pretty. There weren’t commitment issues, or fights over who bought the nicest presents. If something was upsetting him then it upset her, and if she needed something done and couldn’t do it, then well, it wasn’t a question, he did it for her. I don’t know how to explain it in words, but you could see it just by looking at them.

And I think my friend encapsulated it best when he was talking me through FR2, so I think that’s where I’ll end this post. Because it’s what I hope one day I’ll be able to find, and I think it’s something people so easily forget.

“A relationship isn’t you worrying or him wanting something. It’s when you don’t think for a moment about yourself and just do all you can to watch his back and make him happy. And it’s when you know that you don’t have to think for a moment about yourself, because he’s there doing all the thinking for you.”