This is a letter I wrote to a friend in 2022. I have long thought of publishing it, I just took a years to remember to ask for permission and then finally do so. It’s been so long, in fact, that my friend is now married! My views on love have evolved somewhat since then, however I am grateful for how I interweave and reference key sources which have forever informed my perspective on matters of the heart and how we decide to spend the rest of our lives with.
My friend, you asked me last night if it was too soon in a relationship for this. The question is not whether or not it is too soon, but whether or not this makes sense for you. Is this something you want to turn towards and are prepared to turn towards over and over again? Or do you want to turn away?
Time is inconsequential in these sorts of matters, as we have already discussed. Regardless, by either measurement of time, it makes fantastic sense for this sort of thing to occur now. Scientifically, you have had time to get to know one another after two months, and now the true issues can show themselves. Enough time to show whether or not it’s worth the honesty, and if it ends now it will have only been two months lost. Imagine if this sort of thing happened right before your wedding day. Significantly more inconvenient, hurtful, and all around troubling for everyone (and it would be everyone!) involved. As unfortunate as this is–and it is very–let us all be glad this is occurring no later.
Emotionally, this is not soon. From what you have told me, you two have had significant intimacy over the past couple months. You have spoken and planned together a life you both want. A shared vision, a foundation, that you hope to build beautiful things on. To be told out of the blue “sorry, not really seeing it” must be an incredible shock! After years of life you have found someone who shares your wants and desires. I imagine this hurts on multiple levels. The pain is physical as much as it is emotional.
I can’t help remembering last year, I attended a talk about mentoring youth. They mentioned the moment that a child pushes their mentor away. The moment a youth screams and says you are the worst and I never want to see you again. Adults who were experienced in mentoring–the ones who coach the mentors–talked about how excited they got whenever that happened, because that means the kid trusts their mentor and is scared. “They trust you now! They care for you! You are IN!”
When the first person I had a crush on liked me back, I wrote a whole four page spoken word piece with a recurring theme of setting things on fire. This had little do with the person in question. It had everything to do with my history of receiving affection. To acknowledge affection would be to acknowledge I could receive it, that I could be something other than annoying or problematic or difficult or any of the many names I’ve been called and still believe. All that was happening was me being seen and cared for, and it had unwittingly caused an identity crisis! It was very overwhelming. I had a choice. To turn away from what was happening, the cause of my discomfort, or to turn towards it. I turned towards it. And that was the beginning of my last relationship, which unfortunately did not end very well. I’m still very glad for how I dealt with it though, because I know that I can turn towards hard things–and in my case, the hardest things of all to turn towards are the good ones.
John and Julie Gottman, the love psychologista, says that is what is key in relationships. The ability to turn towards each other. Sliding door moments, they call them. For 66% of people, those moments are harder than others because we have learned that sliding doors will close on your hand, won’t open, will unpredictably do either, or might drag you inside and down the road to hell. 66% of people have an insecure attachment type according to research. It makes intimate relationships hard.
Personally, I think we all deserve love. But that doesn’t mean that anyone is obligated to love us. To insist it is obligated because it is deserved is a slippery slope that devalues intimacy and threatens others’ autonomy. My crush stuck around, even as I read–in public!–about my fear of having feelings and wanting to burn them and the entire concept of romance to the ground. He didn’t have to do that. I deserve that, sure, but just because we deserve something, it doesn’t mean it is anyone’s responsibility to make it a reality. (Lord, obligating others to fulfill someone’s wishes just because of an ambiguous “deserving” is a slippery slope that justifies many horrors in our world. For example, people deserving sex resulting in rape. Slavery / wage labor. The list goes on.) Nobody is obligated to show up for us. And that’s what makes it special. Because he did. He chose to show up for me.
That’s how I view love. Love is a choice. We choose to share our lives with someone. It’s a philosophy I took from a letter Tolkien wrote to his son about how to know if someone is the love of your life. We don’t know if someone will be the best option. There is no way to guarantee that. What we can do is decide this person will be my future, and there is power in that.
Perhaps you are seeking some objective method to advise your reasoning. If that is the case, I have many to offer. One of my favorite love-related videos is a TED talk in which Hannah Frye, mathematician, breaks down the best strategy for dating based on statistics. Or you could go by the strategy outlined in Daniel Sloss’s comedy special, Jigsaw, which has broken up thousands of couples because they realized they weren’t that into each other. (This is what I watch when I question my intimate partnerships. It’s on Netflix.)
You deserve love. You deserve someone who sees you and accepts you and turns towards you and works with you. Is this someone you want to turn towards? Or is there an unidentified someone that could fit your life better? This is something only you can decide. You will always have the ability to turn away. You will always have the ability to close doors. And please, never feel guilty for closing a door you don’t want open. Sometimes that is what we need to do. You get to decide. This is purely based on what you want. As your friend, I will support you and whatever choice you make.
Writ Works 