Never Walked In High Heels

I know we love each other because we can scream at each other without worrying that it will ruin our friendship. Despite anything we say or might disagree about, or no matter how deep the issue runs, before the sun sets it will all be fine. Secure love, the best kind of friendship there is, can survive through rough waters even when going through dangerous territory is self induced. It has taken me several years to come to this conclusion, but in fact the people who you love the most are the ones you can allow to see you at your worst. Anything short of that and the relationship is built on very unstable ground.

There is of course a cliché that any couple doubtlessly believe when they first get together, and that is the idea that “we will never fight.” We hear this particularly as girls in our infancy seeing Disney movies and countless happily ever afters. All of this is infinitely harmful to our idea of what love is. More often than not, young women (and probably men, although I can’t speak from first hand experience on this one) will do anything to avoid conflict just for the sake of living up to hopelessly high expectations. Not only do they change small preferences such as what items they would normally order off a menu in order to seemingly agree with their date, but eventually it reaches into other areas as well. What they say, what movies they prefer, what books they read, and eventually what ideals they hold. All of this to be able to give the illusion that indeed, together with their mate, the two are the perfect couple.

Our idea has changed from the notion that love conquers all except for conflict and disagreement or, better yet, love can conquer anything except pure honesty. What this does is shatter our expectations of what love is. If an honest opinion is something that love won’t stand, what hope does love have to conquer any struggle?

Too often I have witnessed my female friends trying to soften the blow of truth when a situation is particularly sticky. They wind up selling half truths and reinventing the situation for someone who they are attracted to in order not to shock their potential soul mate or at the very least, to coax their lover into agreeing with their own opinions. If you have to do this, then your problem is not breaking news to someone, your problem is the entire relationship being on unsteady ground.

During one of my favorite moments in the film “Juno”, the father states “In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly who you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is going to think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person worth sticking with.” His statement doesn’t sound romantic at all, but it’s true. Every relationship is going to go through periods of conflict and that is the basis for sharpening each other, making each other better, more loving, and more human than the two of you could be on your own. This is the beauty of a relationship that works.

I’ve often heard it said that lover’s quarrels are the worst kind of verbal fights around, and in many ways, true. That’s how they should be. After all, if you can’t really fight with the person you love the most while understanding that the freedom that tomorrow is another day with new challenges and testing new boundaries of your love for each other, there’s really not much hope of any relationship surviving.