On Relationships..and Other Things I Don't Understand

  
The other day, someone close to me accused me of being unromantic. Actually they went as far as to say that I somehow 'quenched' romance. It really got me thinking. I had a couple of longer car trips this weekend, usually the place that I do my best thinking and I was feeling...well...I can only describe it as 'raw' or perhaps fragile, like some part of me was left exposed. Picture a busy morning where you alarm didn't go off and you threw your clothes on at top speed, improperly fastening the buttons in wrong holes causing your shirt to gape open. I felt like that exposed skin where the button wasn't plugged in the right hole.

What was wrong with me?

It started off with a perfectly innocent remark.  I said that I've always loved that song, "I'd Really Love To See You Again" by England Dan and John Ford Coley because there is clear intent in the words, the man tells the woman in the song that he just wants to see her again that night, he's not trying to plan the future, "he won't ask for promises, so you don't have to lie". It's the clarity that I love in the words. The woman in question won't torture herself waiting for a phone call or a text (if the song was written today) that will never come. He's just talking the present, "I want to see you now" They can take a walk or watch TV...whatever. The receiver of this remark thought it was horrible, how I'd seemingly condensed romance into what they presumed was a one-night stand. For the record, I've never thought that was the intent of the song at all. And this person said I'd managed to completely destroy romance. To say I was wounded was an understatement.

Over the years, days after a date, or a job interview, or even just a meet up with friends were an obstacle course of me going over just about everything I'd said or done. I'd analyze the silences, fret about nuance or hidden meanings.' Had I chosen the right clothes?' 'PLEASE GOD, tell me I didn't have anything in my teeth!' It got so miserable that I gave up. I was weary of wondering if I was likeable, desirable or....that most serious of all things...lovable.

That song, always gave me hope that maybe one day, a rare sort of man would come along, with clear intent, no games, a guy who saw romance in the "warm wind blowing the stars around".

What are personal relationships anyway....what's the deal?

Damned if I know.

A big part of Improv is the emphasis on personal relationships and recently I took a workshop on realizing the 'who' of situational comedies. It dawns on me that this isn't just something I need to master in improv, this is something that I frequently miss in my personal life. I'm often so busy concentrating on the 'what', I just leave the 'who' to its own devices.

I think of it as 'life triage'. I must stop the bleeding, i.e., literally when I worked for the veterinary clinic, or metaphorically now, do the distribution, scrub the app, finish the report, update the spreadsheet. The 'what' has taken over my life, to the extent where my scenes were clunky and awkward because I would take the scene so literally, caring more about the thing we were doing then the relationship between us. And it carries over to my life, I'm better at the 'what', more self-assured, more in control, so I concentrate on that. Mastery of spreadsheets, insurance law, pet care, Star Wars trivia, anything that will keep me from the realization that I actually need people and more than that desire them in my life.

But that means the agony of vulnerability, having to be willing to put myself out there, to explore the double edged sword of the fears of rejection and failure.

Lately I've been trying it, with mixed results, I'm still awkward, but maybe improv has made me a little more willing to fail, more willing to even experiment, to flirt, to try...