Ultimately, we all want to know how many peaks per week are normal.
We fear mediocrity, even in relationships. We want to believe that what we have is special. And looking for it in other people's relationships is falling into a trap.
PalmMy friends don't know this, but sometimes I have an internal competition to see who has the better relationship. It's my secret vice, frivolously analyzing where my boyfriend and I are better and where we're worse, compared to everyone else. I'd like to say it's my way of taking the pulse of my relationship, of knowing what works and what doesn'tAlthough it really seems more like a reflex, an involuntary tic driven by the need for immediate gratification. A form of entertainment. And I'm sure we're not alone. Comparing ourselves is one of the things that makes us most human. Nothing makes us as fragile and rational as believing ourselves to be better or worse than someone else. We constitute ourselves in this exercise, in relation to others. Otherness ultimately defines us. That's why we need to understand it thoroughly.
Like in fieldwork, I studied the dynamics of my friends with their partners. I know them because they confide in me or, if I'm lucky, because I can witness them. I don't need to take notes. The tone of voice they use when asking, "Do you want me to help you make dinner?" is etched in my memory; as is the level of wit in their inside jokes; the times they seek each other's gaze; and whether—in public—they shake hands to connect or to hold back. As if these gestures revealed a hidden and definitive truth. I look at them and, sometimes, admire them. I try to find parts of ourselves in them, in what I like most and what I like least.
I observe their methods and review our own, as if reading sentences by running my finger over them. I draw parallels in my head, a simultaneous translation, I add subtitles: where they do this, we do that. I listen, for example, to her calling him "Love," with genuine tenderness, and I think about the tenderness I lack. I appreciate her efforts to choose her words carefully and I remember my tone of voice, like a spring, impertinent and unfair, from Monday to Friday. I absorb the immense care in her nonverbal language, in her consideration for each other, and I'm horrified to think that my boyfriend might have felt helpless with me. At times, I want to apologize for all the times I haven't sheltered him and for the times I've been stingy with affection, as if it were limited. Also, at times, I want to confront him, to demand without reason that we prefer things this way, unconditionally.
All the things I think make us a better or worse couple
My friends tell me about their relationships and I listen, with a touch of selfishness. Inside, I can't help but... seek answers and conclusionsAs if I were the one needing a diagnosis: "What if we have this problem too? We're so lucky we've already overcome this. I can't be so demanding of him. Clearly, we're much more fun. My inner dialogue just wants to know what tests we've passed, what we need to improve, who loves more and better, who's who, in every relationship. I measure the quality of my relationship by details I look for in our favor, like that secret the other couple is hiding that I'm convinced we'd share; or how our Spotify Wrapped videos, each year, are becoming more and more alike, while our relationship is, in a way, about rekindling the romance, confirming why we chose each other, and savoring, once again, the feeling we evoke in one another. As Leonor Cervantes says in one of her latest articlesIf in doubt, he doesn't like you.)"When you fall in love, you feel special, and when you're dumped, you realize the horror: you're just like everyone else." We're afraid of mediocrity, and that applies to relationships too. We want to believe that what we have is special. Looking for it in other people's relationships is falling into a trap. We don't realize that we'll find a mirror there, reflecting our own fears, our own uncomfortable doubts: How do you get over infidelity? How many times a week is it normal to have sex? Which of us should give up more when we have children?
A relationship is like that: a duality between being a team and, at the same time, rivals. There are days when our infatuation is so great that it makes us feel better than anyone else, like Jacob and Margot in Wuthering Heights (not Cathy and Heathcliff, because Emily Brontë's novel is another story), subjected to an unconscious enchantment. There are days when we just want to be Margot: to touch each other among the victims and be left alone. And there are days when we love each other so fiercely that we do it against the other, as an insurmountable difference between us, like the violent reproach that Jacob possesses. The point is to know that neither of these makes us better or worse than anyone else.
