Relationships: Choice or Necessity? - PART 2

Relationships: Choice or Necessity? - PART 2

We are hard-wired to be social and desire companionship. Without human contact the brain can become impaired. Human interaction is necessary for our own sanity. So we build relationships – instinctively. This is in our nature.

Apart from it being in our nature, people get into relationships out of convenience, necessity, for monetary stability, to raise a family, to start a family, to have companionship, or to have sex to name a few.

While some relationships, like those with a friend or a co-worker are superficial, the ones we share with a partner can be carnal and profound.

A partnership/marriage is not a guarantee in life. Just look at the divorce-rate. Besides, some people are better off alone. It’s better to be happy and single than to be unhappily married.

From a young age most people are told the path of life is to get married and have children, grow old and then die. But this is not a reality for everyone. Not everybody finds someone to share a profound relationship with, often by choice, sometimes by lack of choice, and even other times due to circumstances out of their control. Some people will find many people at different points in their life – but they will have a laundry list of divorces, failed relationships and battle scars upon their heart to show for them. And perhaps this is why believing in a soul mate can be detrimental. But the point is that being alone isn’t the end of the world.

But if we are alone it is easy to question – what is wrong with me? What do other people have that I don’t? Am I un-loveable? Will I ever find someone?

Truth is, if you’re not happy with whom you are, you’re not offering other people a great deal. Sure, we all dream that our special someone will be able to see through our baggage and our hang-ups with some x-ray vision and see who we are deep down inside, but that’s expecting a lot. And having such high expectations before you’ve even met someone isn’t fair.

There are a lot of reasons to want to be in a relationship, but being in one because you don’t want to be alone is not a good reason.

Should you realize at a certain point in your life that you do not want to be alone, realize, that being in a relationship is a choice, not a necessity. It is not something we need, but rather something we desire. Whether it’s intoxicating love where you feel you cannot live without that person, or a blossoming relationship that may grow into a strong bond, or an arrangement of convenience – we find many reasons within this existence to choose a partner. You need only to find yours. We wouldn’t have been writing about it since the beginning of time if it weren’t a real part of our lives.