relationships
i think i’m about to post on a controversial topic with this post. i’m sure i’ll upset some people and get into arguments. but i’m curious to see what others think. i’m not saying i’m right (and actually, i would even say i’m likely to be wrong about such stuff since i have little experience in the matter) so i just want to see what others have to say.
when you start to date and get into a serious relationship, how intricately linked are the two people in the relationship? should they share all friends, activities/hobbies, and spend as much of their time together? in my (non-expert) opinion, both people should still be individuals and therefore, have their own friends, activities, and hobbies. because they’re in a relationship, these individual friends, activies and hobbies may start to overlap and be shared, but i feel like there should still be distinct “his” and “hers” sets (there can, of course, be a new 3rd set of “ours”, but “ours” doesn’t replace “his”/”hers”). i’ll use the made-up “ophelia and baritone bob” to make my post less he/she/his/her confusing (julie’s suggestion for the name).
friends: it’s cool when couples share a common group of friends; it makes hanging out less awkward for both. but i think it’s only natural that friends may be closer to one person, say ophelia, over the other. i think sharing friends is scary if the relationship ends badly. the shared friends will be put the awkward position of having to pick sides. Say baritone bob and ophelia’s shared friends are pretty much ophelia’s original friends. baritone bob made the attempt to hang out all with ophelia’s friends. he might lose touch with his own friends and if the relationship with ophelia were to ever end, suddenly, he’d be without close friends since all the people he’d been hanging out with recently were ophelia’s friends! (hopefully, his old friends would still be there… but you never know. maybe baritone bob and ophelia moved so baritone bob’s old friends are all somewhere else) or how do baritone bob and ophelia handle picking between friends? what do they do when they encounter the age old dilemma of 2 parties to go to on the same night? what if ophelia always ends up going to baritone bob’s friend’s party as opposed to her own friend’s?
activities/hobbies: i hope if i ever get in a serious relationship, my boyfriend and i would enjoy the same things. but what happens if interests don’t align exactly? you’ve heard of the phrase whipped (in the context of guys). how do you balance that? say ophelia likes the opera, but baritone bob hates it. i don’t think i’d consider baritone bob whipped if he took ophelia out to the opera for special occasions. but what counts as a special occasion… what if baritone bob and ophelia like to celebrate weekly anniversaries? (“like oh my gosh! it’s our 71st week anniversary!”… i think baritone bob would kill himself) more subtly, how do they spend their day-to-day time together? what if ophelia always goes shopping with baritone bob, but baritone bob never watches football like ophelia wants to.
independence: i hate it when girls, who i know are independent, suddenly lose their ability to be independent when they start dating a guy. suddenly, she’s not able to open ANY jars (granted, i know there are really hard to open jars… but not ALL the jars are like that are they!? what did she do before she started dating?), drive ANYwhere, etc. etc. or, for both genders, he/she’s not able to make any decisions without conferring with the other. i understand that when you’re in a relationship, the focus is no longer on the individual but on two people working together, but there are some people who take it a little too far… seemingly calling their significant other every few minutes! making plans (so this goes back to friends and activities again) is also difficult. say you want to make plans with ophelia. granted, baritone bob is always invited, but the invitiation was specifically for ophelia. maybe you know that ophelia is free that day. but when you ask her, ophelia’s immediate answer is let me ask baritone bob. that’s ok… because you don’t want to exclude baritone bob. but then ophelia comes back with the answer of oh, i’m not sure baritone bob can make it… he has to run an errand/work late/something not requiring ophelia to be there. so suddenly, ophelia’s answer is no, she can’t make it. it feels like a diss. it’s understandable if baritone bob has a wedding, a family gathering, or a party, which ophelia is his guest to. but when it’s something that doesn’t require ophelia to be there… is it so wrong for ophelia to go hang out with others without baritone bob? she is a separate person from baritone bob. just because baritone bob isn’t there, doesn’t mean she can’t be there.
that’s just some of the questions i have about how to handle relationships… i don’t really know how people manage to balance relationships… what do you do when you have 2 parties to go to? i mean, you want to spend the time with your boy/girl friend so it’s not like you’d split up to go to both parties (actually, i’ve known couples that’ve done that). i know some couples will go to one party and leave a bit early to head over to the other party… that seems a good compromise. i think what ends up happening is that one side does have to “win”… one person will end up spending less time with his/her own friends/activities/hobbies and more time with the significant other’s. i can’t say that’s bad exactly. i think as long as the person giving up his/her stuff does it willingly (maybe he just hits it off with her friends so it’s as if they were always his friends… or maybe she starts to like the same activities that he does), it’s a pretty healthy relationship. but i think it’s really important to maintain the individual stuff too, even if it’s just one little party with his/her own friends or going out to do something he/she really enjoys without the other every once in awhile.
i think it’s easy for a single person to say yeah, people in relationships should be able to maintain their independence and their own set of friends/activities/hobbies. maybe it’s not realizing how difficult it is to maintain that balance or perhaps it’s just a wrong view believed by someone who’s never had to consider someone else’s friends/activities/hobbies as valuable as their own… is it the selfishness of a single person? i think people looking in on other’s relationships that often see the negative- a friend “lost” to a relationship. (disclaimer: i don’t really believe that… i don’t ever think i’ve lost a friend just because he/she started dating.) since i seemed to have been the resident 3rd wheel expert with all my friends, i had multiple friends (single and those in relationships) come to talk to me about when another friend started dating and how they felt left out and ditched for the significant other (bros before hoes! eh… i don’t know the girl equivalent). it’s weird too because many of the single people who would mention their concerns over being left out would tell me “when i start dating, i’m going to make sure i don’t do that to my friends”… only to proceed to do that to their friends once they started dating. so it must be something with how difficult it is to maintain and certainly not by choice that someone would ignore their old friends, right? not to sound bitter or angry, but i can think of a lot of times where i got ditched or got some lame excuse from some of my dating friends about hanging out. i had friends make plans for a double date when it was just the five of us hanging out (way to include the 3rd wheel guys!). nine times out of ten, i don’t really care. i understand that you’re in a relationship so i understand the important of your significant other over me. but c’mon! making plans for a double date in front of the lone single person? is that really necessary?? making up a lame excuse for not hanging out? just tell the truth! worst yet, making everyone change their schedule so that your significant other can also participate? not to say we don’t want to see your significant other, but really it’s YOU we want to hang out with! so here’s where i probably piss off all my friends in relationships… i don’t think many people do a good job of balancing their relationships. maybe it’s just not to be?
criticize. argue. flame away. those in the know, please share your knowledge! (questions/issues in bold so you can cut down on the reading)
in response to comments: (wow, nice long interesting comments!)
jar opening was a bad example. i think my biggest concern with independence isn’t with jar opening or driving or whatever exactly. but it’s when someone might refuse to do something they’re able to do excessively to the point of inconvenience to their significant other. asking a guy to open a jar to include him in the cooking process or because he could open it in 5 seconds as opposed to several minutes is fine. driving together makes sense when it is convenient and saves gas. but i’ve heard stories of people making one person drive out of the way to pick them up, go somewhere, then drive out of the way again to drop the person back off at home, nearly doubling the amount of travel time.
i agree romantic relationships are much more difficult to balance than regular friendships (which i have trouble balancing already)… there’s much more that needs to be invested in a relationship than a friendship. what i don’t quite understand is those who invest solely in relationships… isn’t that dangerous if the relationship doesn’t work out? it’s like all your eggs in one basket! hahaha, that sounds like i’m advocating being a player and dating around 
it’s definitely a learning experience, but i gotta say, from the “left out” party, some times it feels like there’s little effort being done. not to blame just those in relationships only, those feeling left out are also to blame… of course you can’t exactly tell ophelia “don’t pick baritone bob! pick me!!” but if it really eats away at you to be left out and if your friendship with ophelia is something you truly value, there must be a tactful way that you could voice your concern (besides complaining to another person who can’t provide much relief other than being a listening ear). some of my dating friends, after seeing this post, suddenly starting asking me if everything was ok and if they were making me feel upset about relationships. so it’s obvious they aren’t aware of anything they might be doing to leave out people. relationships being a learning experience, they’re still trying to figure out a balance between relationships and friends and wanted to know if they were doing anything “wrong” (not really wrong… i don’t think it’s really a wrong)
p.s. i’m not actually angry or pissed about anything. haha, i don’t want to scare anyone into thinking that i’m actually mad or anything. this was just something that came up in a couple of conversations and i’d been thinking about recently.
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
thanks for the bolding…it helps.
In short, i think for the first few questions, it’s hard to say because every couple is different– every relationship is different because people are different. Think about your friendships with people – your friendships with different people are unique because the people involved are unique. That said, I agree that it’s not healthy for one person to completely give up their identity in a romantic relationship, but there does have to be more compromise and sacrifice of identity than there is in a normal friendship relationship.
It’s true that most of us probably do not do a good job of balancing relationships with friendships. Relationships are hard work in and of themselves, and balancing friendships is an added factor of complexity. I’m not saying it’s okay that people aren’t good at balancing things, but rather that relationships, like friendships, are often a learning process – you learn how to have a relationship with a person and what works with them and what doesn’t, and unfortunately, it’s often easier to focus on the relationship and friendships become a secondary commitment. Sometimes, it’s actually important to invest the time into the relationship. I think people take different approaches to the balancing thing. For me, I felt that it was very important to balance friendships in the beginning of my relationship and made a concerted effort to not be exclusive, but as we got more serious, it just became natural to become more exclusive. Maybe some people are the opposite and invest in exclusivity in the beginning only to branch out later. Relationships are by nature, exclusive, while friendships are more open to inclusivity. People are different. Some of us are learning to balance friendships with relationships; some of us are just focusing on relationships.
Regarding the 2 parties question: It really depends on the people and the situation. I would opt to try and attend both, but if that’s not possible because of timing and/or location, I might consider how often I see the people at the particular parties, how much fun/how comfortable we’d both be, and this is me, but I would prefer to attend the parties with my significant other. This doesn’t happen to us often – we share a lot of friends.
Regarding the independence issue: I agree on this. But I have been guilty of some of these things myself. I think it for me it sometimes becomes an issue of laziness or wanting the other person to contribute. Sometimes I want my significant other to open the jar for me so I feel like he’s contributing to making dinner and I don’t feel like I’m doing everything by myself.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Good post. I had a friendship in college where the start of the relationship really killed the friendship. While we are still friends, the relationship took total priority over the friendship. I hate that with some relationships, you know that if the significant other doesn’t want to go, the other person won’t go, even if they won’t be using the time to spend together. It’s like they don’t want to hang out with people if their bf/gf can’t be there.
However, I have some friends that do an excellent job of balancing both. While everyone does exclude themselves from some events for alone time with the bf/gf, it’s good when one will come alone.
The third wheel phenomenon is freaking hard – again it depends on the couple and your friendship with them prior to and during the relationship. Then again, it’s almost harder when it’s all couples and then you and another single person of the opposite sex. Whether or not yo are interested in them, it becomes awkward very quickly.
Oh, and it doesn’t matter whether Bob likes the opera – if he goes along with celebrating his 71st week anniversary (or 1st week for that matter), he’s either whipped, a moron, or a head case. Blech.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:16 am
Hey, it’s not that women are not being independent, cuz we know y’all are … most of us guys like women with independence and are not too needy. Take the jar example: It makes us guys feel needed and wanted (think fragile ego.)
And it gives us an opportunity to practice “servant-leadership”.
Anyways, I pretty accept the fact that I won’t be seeing my guy friends as much. It is nice when I get to know the gal as well, even better when I know her before they are dating; then we’re all one happy family. The lack of time gets worse when they start having kids. It’s all a fact of life. I see my best friend from college every once in a while. I get along with his kids and his wife. They treat me like an “uncle” or brother, respectively. Ha-ha, she even feed me!
Maybe it just makes it all the more special when I do spend time with my guy friends who are dating/married.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
ok…for me with the jar thing. as an independant woman, i can open a jar on my own, but it will take me a good ten minutes to run it under hot water, bang the edge of the lid on the counter, and twist/squeeze using a rubber grippy thing and all my might to get it open. if i have a guy around, i’ll totally hand it over to him if he can get it open in two seconds, haha.
but i’m like you, i hope, i’d like not to ditch my friends…hopefully, and i’m learning, i really value my freedom….stupid boys….