Relationships

I came to realise how influential relatives could be in marriages or relationships. Logically, relationships should be between the 2 persons involved, but many times it is not so due to interference by the relatives (whom Chinese termed as 三姑六婆). From the older generation of grandparents, to the aunties and uncles, to siblings, they all want to have a say in this supposedly-intimate relationship of 2 people. I have friends whose parents were not on good terms (either due to extra-marital affairs or simply love never existed or it had ceased) and were planning on divorce. Into the scene stepped the relatives who tried to stop and make them reconcile or similar actions. Not that I advocate families breaking up, but sometimes, it’s really for the better of everyone. And as outsiders (as in people outside the family), you would never really know what exactly is within the family. You may think it was merely some small conflict, but hello, do you live with the family day in day out, 365 days per year? Refrain from thinking you’re doing a good deed by helping the couple reconcile; you may be doing a bad deed instead. Being adults (mature ones I hope), I believe a logical couple would have gone through the various pros and cons before deciding on a divorce or separation. Come on, few would want their marriages to fail right? Anyway, back to my point, marriages are many times never between the 2 persons, particularly for Chinese. It’s never a 2-persons world.

 

Going on a similar line of thoughts, there are those who helped to ‘pull red strings’ between two single people. Be it in teenage years, young adults’ age or marriage age, such people exist everywhere. And like the relatives in the above, they think they are performing a good deed but are they really? It’s very hard to say. My personal experiences include the relationship with my first boyfriend (which was brought about by his best friend) to the more recent office-related one where a colleague tried to pull the line between me and a gangster-colleague. I understand some people feel they are merely acting as a ‘catalyst’ to the already occurring chemical reaction between the 2 people. But really, sometimes they caused more trouble to those involved. Why not nature take its course? If it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Ya, sounds a bit conflicting with what the dating agencies advocate about being proactive in pursuing relationships but I believe feelings are not to be forced.

 

I also figured out why there are only 2 categories of ‘together’ and ‘single’, no in-betweens. I used to think that the 3^rd category was existent, just that few people can cope with it. Consider platonic friends: they are single yet somehow together, being close friends. But I realized that such is indeed rare, and many times, temporary (for such friendships end up being boy-gal relationships or the two friends drift apart). And the females are the ones who usually find it harder to cope with, for they are the party that’s usually more dependent on the other party. As a result, they like to ‘tie’ the other party down with the word ‘attached’ (or ‘married), for their own security. Gals pour in their heart and soul too much usually. Disclaimer: this is a generalization. Looking into my life, I can see why my platonic friends disappear one by one. They either get a girlfriend, or we drift far apart (for being close platonic friends bring lots of people gossiping about it, which brings about discomfort with each other, which brings about distancing ourselves).

So much about relationships.

 

Had a horrible day, with the lack of sleep last night and the boring instructor teaching away. Mind was rather unfocused and disturbed as well. And to end the day, there was a last minute meeting at work, with a ridiculous workload and timeline for agenda. Maybe someone should find me a ‘golden tortoise’ and I’ll marry off just like that.