On Relationships

Ever since a boy crosses the Rubicon and realizes the hand may be used for, ahem… well, other purposes, girls and women come to play a large role in his life. As he matures and comes into the early twenties, the desire to be in a relationship with a woman is a strong one, perhaps the strongest. (Of course, due to the surfeit of sex in cinema and television, the thresholds are reducing, but I speak of the average.)

Tune into SUN Music and every second one sees SMSs flashed on the screen which indicates that some X loves some Y. If you see SUN Music long enough, you would think that Tamil Nadu must be teeming with young couples. Whether that is true or not, one simple fact is that one sees a lot of people openly proclaiming their “boyfriend”hoods and “girlfriend”ships like never before.

It is interesting to see how all this starts. From common observation, I think the “Girlfriend getting process” is best classified as Darwinian. Every young man worth his salt starts off (or rather should start off) lusting after Aishwarya Rai or Bipasha Basu or whoever is the flavour of the day. After much struggle he realizes that the Ms. A. Rai or the Ms.B. Basu is out of his reach and downgrades to the Asin or Samiksha or whoever is the local babe. (An aside: I think what would put off a full blooded man from pursuing Aishwarya is not the threat of Salman’s muscles but rather the possibility of Vivek Oberoi’s effeminate “threats” over phone) He soon realizes that even they are out of his reach and now looks for the babe in his circuits. Even that is not so easy due to the “Hot Girls Date Only Losers” Theorem. Therefore, our wise and more importantly, horny hero settles for the policy of “Carpe Babeum” (Seize the Babe) and proposes to the first girl who laughs at his jokes and listens admiringly when he speaks of his tooth picking strategies.

Please do not mistake me. I do not intend any disrespect but I couldn’t help the sarcasm. And that sarcasm is because, I consider the “Boyfriend – Girlfriend” relationship as a strange one. For one, it is a loosely defined and predominantly convenience based relationship. If it were purely so, I wouldn’t have any problems. But for such a relationship the emphasis on fidelity is quite senseless. Due to this stress on fidelity, the relationship essentially is like a marriage without its main perk, the sex.

While the earlier part was quite frivolous, in the following lines I will talk about my idea of an ideal relationship. Put simply, the basis of the man woman relationship should be sexuality. But the problem is that sexuality encompasses many aspects namely, the attraction based on looks, intelligence, personality, fetishes etc. Therefore, it is highly probable that an individual (man AND woman) finds one partner inadequate. (Of course, if you are in a relationship and perfectly satisfied by it then you could be one of those one-in-a-million guys lucky enough to have found your dream partner. Alternately and more probably, your standards are too low.) Therefore, at least in the years before commitment, people would want to experiment in various kinds of relationships.

Therefore, in my “model” of the ideal relationship, we have at the core of the relationships, the “companion”. This “companion” is that someone with whom you connect and see a future with. But the future is distant and as far as today goes, the field has to be played and it is quite unsatisfying to settle for one person. Therefore, around this core you can build multi-dimensional relationship polygons. (Why settle for the old triangle when there exist polygons I say?). The aim is to experiment with various kinds of relationships. However, you have to work out an agreement with your companion wherein you agree to tell each other everything (a la Sartre and de Beauvoir) or choose not to say anything. The companion will also have his/her love polygon. Then each one explores relationships on his/her terms and after a certain number of years the both of them sit together and review the relationship.

Obviously there are many loopholes to such a proposition. The greatest problem is that of jealousy. It is for this reason that such an approach to relationships may not be suitable for everyone. Heck, in fact it will cause problems even to the most broad-minded. The next problem is the other partners in the loop may feel cheated, if they come to know, and this could lead to ugly situations. Therefore, the essential ingredients to such an arrangement are maturity and honesty. Another angle is marriage. Is such an arrangement feasible for marriages? I think not. I guess the willingness of two people to enter into marriage implies fidelity.

Despite all these safeguards, common sense suggests that such experiments, from an expectation point of view, are doomed to fail. Even a simple analysis of the situation indicates many emotional complications. Yet I wanted to articulate an alternative to the current trend of relationships, after all what are jobless thinkers for? ;-)