The Box Where Good Things Go to Die

I was speaking with my roommate yesterday about our differing lifestyles. I am in an open relationship and enjoy the company of men outside of my relationship. My roomie desires a monogamous relationship. We speak often of the differences, but yesterday morning, she made an observation which struck me as well, obvious, but was not something I had considered before that very moment. 

In my position it is easier to meet men, she said, because I am not looking for a commitment from anyone I reach out to, I have that commitment in the form of my boyfriend. It is harder for her, she explained, because she is looking for her one-and-only-person-commitment-guy. 

It got me to thinking about choices and how things come to be.

I try to always put myself in a position where I have a choice. My education, my jobs, my living situations, my mode of transport all reflects this paradigm. In this case, the open relationship chose me. I guess I am lucky. All of the choices that I had been making with my lifestyle presented me with a solution I had not considered, and for that, I am incredibly grateful.

Yes, it is easier for me to find men to be casual with, and it is always going to be harder to find a one-and-only. But I know that if I had had this one-and-only approach when I was dating, my boyfriend and I would never have met. I would never have had this opportunity. He would not have been interested, because that was not what he was looking for. 

I am just hypothesizing here, but it seems that the pressure you put on yourself, the pressure you put on another person, the idealistic vision you have of a person, might be the very thing that is keeping you from it.  Every time I have met a significant other in my life, I have absolutely not been looking for him. I don't know if this is universal or just my own dumb luck, but I think it means something, and is reflective of a larger and more important belief; approach life with curiosity. Approach the mundane and the everyday without the assumption that you know. Do not put anything in the box labeled: "figured out."

This box where you put everything you think you know, swallows shit whole. You lose opportunity in that box. You lose magic. You lose the ability to discover yourself. This is a very dangerous box. 

It doesn't matter what you put in it; relationships, people, jobs, whatever. Once it is in there, it is difficult to retrieve, and the item becomes more foreign to you as time goes on. Think about this for a moment. What is it that you think you know? Who is it that you think you know? It just might be that your beliefs/thoughts/ideas about a person place or thing might be keeping you from them.  

Give it a try. See whatcha come up with. Then, do me a favor and burn that box. Or take it to the dump site. Or recycle it. Just make sure you don't ever put anything in there again. 

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