An open question

Following on from a previous post there is a question that arises when talking about relationships, that is the definition of the relationship itself and what it pertains to.  Given everything I said about the revelations I made, there is a question of whether or not the answer for me would be to pursue an open relationship as a solution.  I don't think this would be wise for me personally.  Whilst having trust issues would be less of a factor in a relationship where it is not possible to "cheat" on the other person, if that is the reason for pursuing that type of relationship I think it would be doomed to failure as it is basically an admission that you don't trust the other person.  This, and the fact that trust in a relationship is about more than who you sleep with, you can still trust, mistrust, and betray the trust of a person who you are in an open relationship with.

For me personally there is a romanticism in the traditional perception of a one on one relationship where two people pledge their lives to each other.  For me that's not about patriarchy or societal constructs, it's a choice.  As a gay man there are a lot less expectations of me with regards to institutions and the expectations of society.  You're not as pressured into the idea of settling down, marrying, and having kids.  You can do that and there are many that do, through surrogacy or through adoption etc. but it remains something that is statistically less prevalent in the LGBT community.  Although having said that, most countries are experiencing population declines and stalling birth rates so there is the question of whether this is becoming less of an expectation for straight people too - again I can't speak to that as I'm not straight and I don't know enough straight people going through that stage in their life to be able to remark.

The idea of a relationship for me hinges more on the concept of cooperation and collaboration.  Life is hard, and there are many things it will throw at you that can be difficult to deal with.  The romanticism of a relationship stems from the idea that you would not face those trials and tribulations alone.  You would have someone who was there for you and had your back and was there to support you through it.  As I said in my previous post though, I already have that from other people in my life so I am not entirely sure why this is such a fixation for me.  I've even written here about the difference between being alone and being lonely, and neither of these are a reason for me to pursue this fixation, that's not something I would hope to overcome by being in a relationship.

Normally I like to find some kind of resolution when writing these posts or to end on a question giving you or me something to think about.  In this case there is no resolution.  This is something that is ongoing for me, and has been for well over a decade now.  If I haven't been able to find a resolution in over ten years then it was unlikely that I was ever going to find one in a few hundred words.  In life some things never get resolved.  In the movie Casper one of the staples of the plot is the idea that when someone dies, if they have unfinished business then they come back as ghosts, otherwise people move on.  I never really understood why that meant Casper remained a ghost as he originally stayed behind for his Dad but he was long gone by the time of the movie.  Nevertheless, the idea of unfinished business in itself I think is a romanticism, it implies that there are people who live their lives and make it to the end with resolution - I don't think that happens much, if it has ever happened at all.

There will always be questions that go unanswered, there will always be things we wanted to know, and there will always be things that we could never know, no matter how hard we could have tried.  This is the mentality I have right now.  As much as I wonder about these things and they give me a lot to think about, I don't think they are questions I will ever get an answer to, at least not one that will satisfy me, or lead to a thousand more questions.