Compromise

Lately I’ve been thinking.  Well, that’s a lie; I’m always thinking and dreaming up some theory or social critique or sexual hypothesis.  But recently, I’ve been wondering about what it means to compromise.

23 is a weird age.  Generally we have just graduated college, and are trying to figure out what to do with our lives amidst a small quarter-life crisis.

Most 23 year olds’ crises revolve around career.  Now more than ever, both guys and girls are freaking out about what they are going to do with our lives. 

The other freak-out option is relationships.  There are many reasons for this stress.  One of the reasons is the classic being together in college, and we don’t know if we want to make a concerted effort to focus on being together and maybe sacrificing one thing or another to be in the same place.  There is another one where you are dating and in the same place, but you don’t know if that person is a priority such that, as you are getting older and marriage, for better of worse, becomes something that would generally be talked about, you think you could actually spend the rest of your life with this person, or any person.  The number three option, and most interesting to me, is when you are single but you feel you need to get serious with someone because you are at that point in your life.  I’ll focus here.

It’s natural to want someone to be with.  Even the most independent of people need affection and love sometimes.  More usually, we crave attention from a lover, or significant person, girlfriend/boyfriend, whatever your title may be, most of the time.  Therefore, it’s not unnatural to want someone when you are single (although for some reason the grass always tends to be greener on the other side, but that’s an entirely different conversation).  The problem though, within this yearning, is that we are at an age where we tend to feel that our totally unserious dalliances are behind us, and we at least want to date someone we think we may be able to want to be with for a longer haul.  Whether due to convention or not, it seems this is a common feeling.  Where does this leave us?

The problem that I see with desire to be in a relationship is that it usually means a compromise to be in any relationship.  This then becomes comfortable and easy enough, and then you lose sight of the time when you said you would never date someone who played video games all day, had no work ethic, didn’t take care of themselves, or worst of all, has totally conflicting foundational viewpoints with yours.  One day you wake up and you’ve been with someone for a year that you don’t really love that much, and you are either too scared or too lazy to try and find something that you really want.

I’ve always wondered whether we should settle for someone that is less than 100% what we want in a person.  In theory, with six or so billion people in the world, and with our technology, this should be possible, yet we don’t even really strive for this.  There is a very valid school of thought that would say that 100% is not possible, and you need to find someone you are compatible enough with that you want to work to make things good.  Makes sense. Maybe 80% is a reasonable number?  I doubt there is a right answer.  This very subjective idea is something only you can decide for yourself.  I think with the millions of singular personality traits we seem to express, it would be hard to like everything a person does, and for someone to never ever annoy us.  So, then we must choose the person who annoys us the least, and we love the most?  But, there are also some relationships where the couple argues like crazy but it somehow seems to make sense.  How do we explain that one? 

To me, two things are most important.  First thing is that you are truly friends with that person.  That you have a friendship where you can be honest with them.  Express how you feel about everything like you would hanging out on a hungover Sunday with the group you went out with the night before.  Second, is that you are really, really sexually attracted to that person.  What is a girlfriend/boyfriend anyway?  It’s a best friend that you have sex with.  From there I guess it is really up to you how much you need to agree on, or share in common.  But, I would argue that if you have to compromise any part of your most happy, then you should reassess.

Generally compromise has a positive connotation.  It’s certainly good to be generous, do things for others, work to reach an agreement that suits both parties.  But, I posit that compromise is not necessarily a good thing at all.  If you don’t like that your partner kisses you a lot in public, then this can be talked about, and a good compromise can be reached.  This is not a huge issue. But, what if your priorities are are just completely opposite of your partner?  What if you have vastly different view on religion or politics, which for one reason or another are extremely important to many people.  What if you’re about to have a baby, and your views on raising children are totally contrasting?   What if your idea of a balance between hanging out with your friends and hanging out with one another is not the same?  What if one of you does drugs or drinks and the other doesn’t?  What if you hate each other’s friends and families? I refer to these types of things as fundamental view points.  If you find yourself in a relationship where you are compromising a lot of these things to be with someone, and not only that but you are constanly complaining about these issues, you may want to reconsider your large compromise, which has taken on the form of a bad relationship.