No Sacrifice

Was talking to a new mate yesterday about their love life, as I settle in to my new role of Agony Uncle To The Queer (nice DV conversation last week, potential affairs advice this morning) and came to wondering about the sacrifices we sometimes make in order to be in a relationship. Not FOR another person as such, not the 'I'll stop smoking in the house so you don't have an asthma attack' kind of things, but the. pay offs that leave us ever so unsatisfied, and how we negotiate within ourselves what is able to be jettisoned and what we need to stay afloat. 'Can I live with no sex if I get lots of travel?' 'Can I deal with a drug habit if I get lots of kink?' 'Can I survive with no adventure if I get financial security?' I mean, can you transfer one positive value, one plus point for a minus somewhere else, can you balance it up? 'Well, I can never have another play piercing but she's a good cook?' 'He may not let me see my mates, but he takes me to the opera?' What is non-negotiable?

Sure, you can't do everything with your partner (in most cases). This is why I have, and maintain, a menagerie of art mates and theatre mates and dancing mates and pub mates and blood mates and all manner of people for all manner of activities-- so its not that you can't get different things from different folk. Its when having a partner stops you from getting what you need at all that concerns me.

The conversation brought back a lot of memories for me, of plays I missed seeing and clubs that disappeared before I could get there, of people I lost contact with and practices I didn't engage in and hankies I didn't flag and politics and philosophies I ignored for long periods of time. Things that MATTERED to me, that were important to my my creativity and identity and intellect and community, and that I gave up little by little to pamper the egos and insecurities and laziness, the paranoia and limitations of past partners. The sadness and stunting I engaged in to try to maintain some sort of status quo. 'You're not the same as when I met you, you're clingy and apologetic and small and flat, you're nothing like the advertising.' NO SHIT. It an awful situation to have to censor whole sections of you life, amputate or repress large portions of one's psyche!

Which is yet another reason I am so happy to have Monster. Someone to explore with, to have adventures with, to become bigger and freer with and through and alongside. Yay!