The Power of Like

We give relationships way too much power. Especially when we were younger, the nebbiest little two week relationship's demise gives way to a pain that seems like it'll never go away. Then we get older, two week relationships don't even count, and suddenly every relationship is open to the question "is it serious?" Which is a really interesting question because the older we get, the less time is a factor of the answer to that question. You can be much more "serious" after two weeks than two years - it just matters where you're going with it. And somehow, everyone else knows that you're "serious" too, as if your noses light up to indicate such or something. And then you get invited to weddings with each other, and people don't invite you to parties or Shabbos meals without the other, and you are taken seriously, instead of ridiculed for spending your time with someone with whom you are not "serious."

Of course, when the relationships do end, everyone wants to take credit for it. No one wants to have been "dumped." And why should they? Who wants to feel like they're not in control of their own destiny? So breakups become this thing where one person initiates it and the other one jumps on the bandwagon with a "yeah, I totally agree, I was thinking that too." Which is nice, in it's own way - unless you really hate the guy (or girl), it doesn't feel so great to be the one cutting the cord either. Everyone saves face. Voila! At least until the anger sets in, and suddenly, the story changes.

I remember feeling immeasurably horrible after some of the dumbest relationships of my life. Two weeks, still - yup, I was still doing the two-week thing straight up till college. Two breakups that stand out as terrible, unsettling, unnerving. Days of rethinking myself and my time and my life. And they were nothing, wouldn't register on my radar if I hadn't dated so few guys in my lifetime. But I couldn't get past the feeling that I failed, and that I should be able to fix it, which I so pathetically tried to do.

But all relationships are work, even the great ones. The difference with the great ones is that the work gets you somewhere. If you spend the time working trying to change someone and nothing gives, you've wasted a lot of time. The one thing I remember from physics is that if you're pushing an object, and it doesn't move, then your work equals zero.