Photo Credit: Sex and the Ivy
"What people forget with labels is that they fail to capture the uniqueness of individual relationships."
Read the full entry at Sex and the Ivy
My friend Lara sent me a blog entry written by a Harvard student about the pressure of her friends and society at large to label her personal relationship. Today I had a conversation with a friend from home about the inability to label friendships.. as well as the impossibility to fully understand any relationship from the outside. Yet, towards the end of the summer, I was having several conversations with friends about the problems in their relationships with significant others. And I was offering my opinions as if I could predict the outcome of future actions. I do believe in the uniqueness of each relationship. However, I also believe in the truth of the human experience. As I've said before, we are unique in our combination of experiences and history. But not one of our qualities is completely original. When something goes wrong in a relationship (or even when something goes right, perhaps according to societal standards), friends generally take the 'I saw that coming' stance. Often, friends see the problems more clearly than the person in the relationship. Then again, relationships outlast fights and frustrations and overcome outside opinion and obstacles. So my question is... Who really sees relationships more clearly? The couple? Or their friends?
1 comment:
As I also read and completely agree with Lena's post on labels, just my two cents..I think that there are different ways to "see" relationships clearly. My view of someone else's relationship (esp if they are a close friend, like you said) is just as clear as their own view of that relationship. I think about this like I think about my own opinions: just because I'm feeling one way or thinking certain thoughts, doesn't mean that I'm not capable of feeling and thinking other, contradictory ways and thoughts. We people are such complex beings, we need to give ourselves credit for how we feel and view things. So going back to what you were saying about how you "believe in the truth of the human experience," our complexity is what makes us unique, but also paradoxically connected and similar.
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