Ok, I have a confession. As much as I'd like (well, love) to take credit for the following post, I just can't. It is superbly written and wayyyyyy better than anything this brain could come up with or these fingers could type. However, it was just too good not to share with my fellow blog readers... all 4 of you. Read it, think about it, soak it up, let it sit in the fore-front of your thoughts for awhile. It really is that good.
A Google Nation
by Augusten Burroughs
We are a Google Nation. Type in a few words on any subject and a staggering amount of information hurls forth in two seconds flat. In fact, if it's longer than two seconds, you call your computer a motherfucker and stab at the Enter key. A mere ten, fifteen years ago, if you wanted to research something you went to a library. You opened the unwieldy card catalogue, deciphered the geekishly long code, and walked a quarter mile into the stacks to locate a specific book, and somewhere in that book was the little piece of information you needed. Now, the only reason to go into the stacks is to have sex. And just last month, one of my out-of-town guests remarked of my local town library, "That building would make piss-elegant condos." My guess is that within the next decade, that's exactly what it will be. Libraries will be converted into more useful real estate -condos and coffee bars- and the librarians that work in them will be rounded up and re-trained to operate industrial espresso machines and cash registers.
I remember the day I bought a microwave, back when it was called a "microwave oven." I was nineteen, living on my own in San Francisco. I bought the microwave not because I cooked, but because it was the coolest thing in the world. It was the video iPod of 1984. You had to have it. Even if the only thing you could do with it was boil water. I remember watching water boil, timing it with the second hand of my Swatch watch. Sixty seconds. Miraculous! How lucky I felt to be alive during that magic time in history! Now, of course, I seethe at the lumbering dinosaur pace of the microwave. Sixty seconds for boiled water has been trimmed down to forty seconds which is still entirely unacceptable. There should be no wait, none at all. Just like hitting Send for my Google page, I want my liquid positively roiling the instant I hit that button.
We are a speed-obsessed culture. When the newer, faster, smaller model comes along, we toss the old one without hesitation. We cream our jeans when we read about a quarter-inch thin laptop with dual processors and ten hours of battery power. We go to the store and there's a waiting list. And in that instant the decision is made: We WILL get that laptop. And we do. We show it off to our friends. And for the first week, we even wash our hands before we use it, to keep the keyboard clean. But in a month, we'll be used to it. In six months, it will seem slow. We won't care when we drip instant Cream of Wheat onto the keyboard, causing a short. In a year, we won't carry it on the plane anymore because it will be embarrassingly obsolete.
So imagine trying to have a relationship in this environment. And by that I am referring to the arcane concept of the long term relationship. A marriage, even. Imagine living in this culture and not walking out the door at the first sign of trouble. The second you hear "WE NEED TO TALK" OR "I'VE BEEN THINKING," you hit the Eject button. Do you know the chances of celebrating your fiftieth anniversary? Something like 2%. Go ahead. Google it and see for yourself.
Successful, long-term relationships take two things that we, as a culture, have mysteriously become de-programmed to avoid: work and persistence.
We want our relationships to be great and great all the time. On their own. Work-free partnered bliss. As soon as issues occur, we think, "This one's not right for me." Or, "We're growing apart." Of course, the world is filled with psychos, and sometimes they are attractive and we end up married to one. Which is a pity. And in this case, leaving is a very good thing. But most often, we're just coupled with another normal person and experiencing normal problems and leaving is the easiest idea, not necessarily the best one. I think part of the problem is that we marry too quickly. We fall in love, and then trust our hormones and brain chemistry and we get engaged. Before we really know what we're getting into.
Our divorce rate hovers around 50%. Even I, with my few years of formal schooling, recall that 50% is most certainly an F in American Relationships. And it's because we're viewing the first marriage not as the final exam, but as the homework. The trainer marriage. The one where we can make all our mistakes. So that we can nail it the second -or third - time around. But guess what? The statistics don't show that. In fact, the statistics show the jaw-droppingly, sphincter-clenchingly opposite. They reveal failed first marriages, followed by failed second (60%) and failed third (73%). I should know. I Googled it.
In my own relationship (now in its seventh year), there have been many times when I've said, "This isn't working," and felt like walking out. Lucky for me, my other half is more reasonable than I. He's patiently explained, "We have to work through this. We have a solid core and we can't just give up." So we talk about problems that come up. And if one of us (me, usually) needs to modify his behavior, he does so.
This is new for me. I was always a relationship serial killer. I ended them either before the other person could leave me, or because I decided the relationship had been a mistake in the first place. Looking back from the vantage point of my life with Dennis, I can now see those other people were, in fact, wrong for me. Some of them - the crack fiend, the married cop, the Guy All My Friends Detested - were life-threateningly wrong. So I learned a lot of bad habits. And when I finally did meet a person who was right for me, I continued to behave in the old bad-for-me ways.
When relationship experts say, "Relationships take work," they really mean it. Now, I find myself talking about things I'd rather avoid, having to face weaknesses of my own character head-on, sometimes at two in the morning. (The fact that Dennis likes to go to bed around midnight does not stop me.) To make a relationship work, you don't always get to win. And you don't always get to look good. And things are not always neat and organized. Compromise is another word that's bandied about, but what does it mean? It means, I really like to spend my free time home, reading quietly. And Dennis really likes to spend his free time traveling. And because it's important to him, it becomes important to me and off we go. I bring a book.
I never take Dennis for granted, because he's so damn emotionally healthy I worry he will trade me in if I start slacking. I've had respect for him from the moment we met, and I continue to respect him all these years later. In fact, the more people I meet, the more I realize how lucky I am. Because I found somebody who is willing to put up with me, even willing to stay with me even though I am seriously lacking in many ways. Dennis knows he could find somebody else that maybe had things a little more together. But he also knows we have a history together, now. He knows he can trust me. And he knows I try. It's true that we've both given up certain things to be together. (He more than I.) But the combination of us together, the "marriage" we have made makes up for a lot. I know I'm not the person he thought he'd end up with. And sometimes I do wish I'd thought to pick somebody who owed a fast food franchise so I could have access to a professional frialator. But it works, because we make it work.
The other week, I was in L.A. having a meeting with a Very Famous Person. I say this not to brag, but to tell you that this Very Famous Person is not married and has never been married and is just about to hit Middle Age. Truly, this is a person who has all the possible toys and luxuries anybody could ever dream of. But they don't have somebody to share all this with. And so, what do they really have? It's fine and dandy to fly everywhere in your own private jet. But when you can't lean over to somebody sitting on the seat next to you and whisper, "Aren't you glad we're not common trash anymore?" the moment is drained of its meaning.
Here's something else. There's always going to be somebody better looking than the person you end up with. Somebody funnier, smarter, richer. But if you're fortunate enough to meet somebody with whom you are compatible, you have to close certain doors. You have to recognize that yes, you may indeed meet other people you could fall in love with. But by sticking with the person you chose, you gain a level of intimacy that is not possible by hopping from one person to the next every couple of years.
And there's a payoff, you see. When you're old and pitiful and need to be pushed around in your wheelchair, you'll have someone to do that for you. And not only will they not mind at all, but they'll probably be happy to do it. They might even attach playing cards to the spokes that your chair makes a nifty sound. Even if you suddenly lose your money, and you're significantly uglier, they'll continue to push you around in your wheelchair because you have spent all these years weaving this sort of fabric together.
I take marriage very seriously. Even though as a homosexual living in sin, I am not allowed to be married and will most certainly be cleaning Satin's toilet for all of eternity in hell, just because I happen to share my life with somebody who also pees standing up. Even so, I do take marriage more seriously than I take anything else. And I honor it and I respect it. And I think that if you can make it work, you ought to make it work.
So though I'd like my water to boil faster, and though the computer I bought nine months ago is painfully slow, in my relationship I'm willing to sacrifice speed for quality. It's a formula that works. Google it. You'll see.
by Augusten Burroughs
We are a Google Nation. Type in a few words on any subject and a staggering amount of information hurls forth in two seconds flat. In fact, if it's longer than two seconds, you call your computer a motherfucker and stab at the Enter key. A mere ten, fifteen years ago, if you wanted to research something you went to a library. You opened the unwieldy card catalogue, deciphered the geekishly long code, and walked a quarter mile into the stacks to locate a specific book, and somewhere in that book was the little piece of information you needed. Now, the only reason to go into the stacks is to have sex. And just last month, one of my out-of-town guests remarked of my local town library, "That building would make piss-elegant condos." My guess is that within the next decade, that's exactly what it will be. Libraries will be converted into more useful real estate -condos and coffee bars- and the librarians that work in them will be rounded up and re-trained to operate industrial espresso machines and cash registers.
I remember the day I bought a microwave, back when it was called a "microwave oven." I was nineteen, living on my own in San Francisco. I bought the microwave not because I cooked, but because it was the coolest thing in the world. It was the video iPod of 1984. You had to have it. Even if the only thing you could do with it was boil water. I remember watching water boil, timing it with the second hand of my Swatch watch. Sixty seconds. Miraculous! How lucky I felt to be alive during that magic time in history! Now, of course, I seethe at the lumbering dinosaur pace of the microwave. Sixty seconds for boiled water has been trimmed down to forty seconds which is still entirely unacceptable. There should be no wait, none at all. Just like hitting Send for my Google page, I want my liquid positively roiling the instant I hit that button.
We are a speed-obsessed culture. When the newer, faster, smaller model comes along, we toss the old one without hesitation. We cream our jeans when we read about a quarter-inch thin laptop with dual processors and ten hours of battery power. We go to the store and there's a waiting list. And in that instant the decision is made: We WILL get that laptop. And we do. We show it off to our friends. And for the first week, we even wash our hands before we use it, to keep the keyboard clean. But in a month, we'll be used to it. In six months, it will seem slow. We won't care when we drip instant Cream of Wheat onto the keyboard, causing a short. In a year, we won't carry it on the plane anymore because it will be embarrassingly obsolete.
So imagine trying to have a relationship in this environment. And by that I am referring to the arcane concept of the long term relationship. A marriage, even. Imagine living in this culture and not walking out the door at the first sign of trouble. The second you hear "WE NEED TO TALK" OR "I'VE BEEN THINKING," you hit the Eject button. Do you know the chances of celebrating your fiftieth anniversary? Something like 2%. Go ahead. Google it and see for yourself.
Successful, long-term relationships take two things that we, as a culture, have mysteriously become de-programmed to avoid: work and persistence.
We want our relationships to be great and great all the time. On their own. Work-free partnered bliss. As soon as issues occur, we think, "This one's not right for me." Or, "We're growing apart." Of course, the world is filled with psychos, and sometimes they are attractive and we end up married to one. Which is a pity. And in this case, leaving is a very good thing. But most often, we're just coupled with another normal person and experiencing normal problems and leaving is the easiest idea, not necessarily the best one. I think part of the problem is that we marry too quickly. We fall in love, and then trust our hormones and brain chemistry and we get engaged. Before we really know what we're getting into.
Our divorce rate hovers around 50%. Even I, with my few years of formal schooling, recall that 50% is most certainly an F in American Relationships. And it's because we're viewing the first marriage not as the final exam, but as the homework. The trainer marriage. The one where we can make all our mistakes. So that we can nail it the second -or third - time around. But guess what? The statistics don't show that. In fact, the statistics show the jaw-droppingly, sphincter-clenchingly opposite. They reveal failed first marriages, followed by failed second (60%) and failed third (73%). I should know. I Googled it.
In my own relationship (now in its seventh year), there have been many times when I've said, "This isn't working," and felt like walking out. Lucky for me, my other half is more reasonable than I. He's patiently explained, "We have to work through this. We have a solid core and we can't just give up." So we talk about problems that come up. And if one of us (me, usually) needs to modify his behavior, he does so.
This is new for me. I was always a relationship serial killer. I ended them either before the other person could leave me, or because I decided the relationship had been a mistake in the first place. Looking back from the vantage point of my life with Dennis, I can now see those other people were, in fact, wrong for me. Some of them - the crack fiend, the married cop, the Guy All My Friends Detested - were life-threateningly wrong. So I learned a lot of bad habits. And when I finally did meet a person who was right for me, I continued to behave in the old bad-for-me ways.
When relationship experts say, "Relationships take work," they really mean it. Now, I find myself talking about things I'd rather avoid, having to face weaknesses of my own character head-on, sometimes at two in the morning. (The fact that Dennis likes to go to bed around midnight does not stop me.) To make a relationship work, you don't always get to win. And you don't always get to look good. And things are not always neat and organized. Compromise is another word that's bandied about, but what does it mean? It means, I really like to spend my free time home, reading quietly. And Dennis really likes to spend his free time traveling. And because it's important to him, it becomes important to me and off we go. I bring a book.
I never take Dennis for granted, because he's so damn emotionally healthy I worry he will trade me in if I start slacking. I've had respect for him from the moment we met, and I continue to respect him all these years later. In fact, the more people I meet, the more I realize how lucky I am. Because I found somebody who is willing to put up with me, even willing to stay with me even though I am seriously lacking in many ways. Dennis knows he could find somebody else that maybe had things a little more together. But he also knows we have a history together, now. He knows he can trust me. And he knows I try. It's true that we've both given up certain things to be together. (He more than I.) But the combination of us together, the "marriage" we have made makes up for a lot. I know I'm not the person he thought he'd end up with. And sometimes I do wish I'd thought to pick somebody who owed a fast food franchise so I could have access to a professional frialator. But it works, because we make it work.
The other week, I was in L.A. having a meeting with a Very Famous Person. I say this not to brag, but to tell you that this Very Famous Person is not married and has never been married and is just about to hit Middle Age. Truly, this is a person who has all the possible toys and luxuries anybody could ever dream of. But they don't have somebody to share all this with. And so, what do they really have? It's fine and dandy to fly everywhere in your own private jet. But when you can't lean over to somebody sitting on the seat next to you and whisper, "Aren't you glad we're not common trash anymore?" the moment is drained of its meaning.
Here's something else. There's always going to be somebody better looking than the person you end up with. Somebody funnier, smarter, richer. But if you're fortunate enough to meet somebody with whom you are compatible, you have to close certain doors. You have to recognize that yes, you may indeed meet other people you could fall in love with. But by sticking with the person you chose, you gain a level of intimacy that is not possible by hopping from one person to the next every couple of years.
And there's a payoff, you see. When you're old and pitiful and need to be pushed around in your wheelchair, you'll have someone to do that for you. And not only will they not mind at all, but they'll probably be happy to do it. They might even attach playing cards to the spokes that your chair makes a nifty sound. Even if you suddenly lose your money, and you're significantly uglier, they'll continue to push you around in your wheelchair because you have spent all these years weaving this sort of fabric together.
I take marriage very seriously. Even though as a homosexual living in sin, I am not allowed to be married and will most certainly be cleaning Satin's toilet for all of eternity in hell, just because I happen to share my life with somebody who also pees standing up. Even so, I do take marriage more seriously than I take anything else. And I honor it and I respect it. And I think that if you can make it work, you ought to make it work.
So though I'd like my water to boil faster, and though the computer I bought nine months ago is painfully slow, in my relationship I'm willing to sacrifice speed for quality. It's a formula that works. Google it. You'll see.
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