In love or in a relationship?

So which of the two are you in, in love or in a relationship? Let’s analyze the common responses....

i)                    Neither, I am single – Well dude, you aren’t. Let’s deal with that in detail later on.

ii)                   Both; aren’t they one and the same —Again wrong. They can’t be more different.

iii)                 And if you say, you are in one but not other, maybe you are having some clarity about what I am getting at, but let’s sort it out anyway.

So what do they mean anyway, being in love or being in a relationship? Weren’t we made to understand that they are one and the same? Aren't all those romantic movies about this only, about people who fall in love and get into a relationship and live happily ever after? Doesn’t being in a relationship automatically translate into being in love with that person?

Well the first point of difference between the two is the number of parties required for either. Being in love is pretty simple and straightforward. You can fall in love with someone all by yourself. No need for any approvals here, no need for any reciprocation or agreement. If you fancy someone, you like their actions, their appearance and the way their presence or company affects you, you are in love with that person. That's why I ruled out the first response in the list above. Everyone is in love with someone or other, whether they let the other person know of it, or accept it themselves, this much is always true (now please don’t give me examples of ascetics; they aren’t reading my blog anyway!!). A relationship on the other hand entails two parties, with mutual consent. Though people get into a relationship due to mutual love for each other (or maybe because of peer pressure, as most of their friends are in a relationship too), the love part may not remain true or relevant throughout the relationship. Relationship by nature is a solid identity provided to a much more abstract concept of mutual love. Though the love still remains just between the two parties involved, the relationship part expands to encompass all the people who come to know of it. Thus a relationship is a much wider thing, as its existence is not just in the approval of the two involved parties but in the knowledge about the same of people around.

A second point of difference lies in the way either get terminated. Though a point of termination is hard to define in love, it generally happens pretty naturally. One fine day you realise that you don’t actually feel as strongly about someone now as you used to. Meeting them, talking to them, being in their company doesn't give you the same thrill as it used to. You may try to give reasons to yourself for that, and they may or may not be true. Maybe what I described above happens only temporarily, and things get back to the previous state pretty soon. But the point remains that, falling out of love doesn’t need any external actions, not even the need to inform or get approval of the person you stopped loving.

A relationship by nature is much more complex to terminate. It’s like a contract drawn out with many witness signatures, where the parties forgot to mention an expiry date or an exit clause agreeable to everyone. You may stop loving the person you are in a relationship with, but still for the rest of the world you two are in a relationship, which again compels you to hang on to that person. Many a relationships are bound not by love, but by this external expectation of being a couple. In these cases a relationship becomes not a room that encloses your love, but rather a prison which doesn’t let you escape from it.

A queer and interesting thing to notice is how people don’t really give much thought to either of the above terms, and often use them inter-changeably where actually they don’t exactly convey the meaning they expect. When you actually said “I love you” to someone, and they accepted it, what you started off was not your love with that person but rather your relationship. The love started much earlier and the sentence was just an expression of an already existing feeling. And similarly, you didn’t experience a love failure when the other person turned down your proposal, but rather just failed to get into a relationship. Again a breakup is not the culmination of love but rather the relationship. Breakup doesn’t happen at the exact point when you stop loving someone. You would have reached that point much earlier. Break-up happens when the process of putting up an act of being in a relationship with someone you don’t love, for the sake of the external world’s expectations actually becomes unbearable to you, and you decide to rather get out of it than playing along. That's why most breakups are a greater shock to your friends and acquaintances, than to you. The people in the relationship most times do have a clue. If they are still caught unawares, then it just means they were dumb enough not to get the clues or just didn’t want to acknowledge them.

Finally one major point of difference, and the most controversial of them all, is the number of parties you could be in love or relationship with. Though love is made out to be exclusive and draped in a veil of purity and chastity because of this exclusivity, the truth of the matter is that it is the most non-exclusive feeling. You could love more than one person at any time. That's because you don’t actually love people, but rather the character traits that they embody. You love the personality type that they represent, and this personality type is actually a reflection of your own self, the way you see yourself, the values that you hold dear, the actions that you deem acceptable. In loving someone, you are actually looking out for a part of your moral standards in them, and you can’t help loving everyone who meets these standards.

Relationship on the other hand, is built on the premise of exclusivity. As it’s a social structure, and not exactly an individualistic one, the rules of engagement of a relationship keep changing with the prevailing social standards of the day. Thus in the Arabic world polygamy is an acceptable relationship standard, while the same thing is considered taboo in the Hindu or Christian way of life. The way you look at a relationship thus is not dictated by just your preferences, but also by the kind of society you live in. Though relationships have evolved over the ages under many tags, from arranged marriages, to love marriages, to live-in relationships, or just being committed with someone, the basic premise still remains in the quest for social acceptance and trying to define something abstract and thus bringing in more stability to something which otherwise is too undefined and volatile. While this tag does lend stability, it also may acts as a limiting force as we discussed above.

Finally, it hardly matters what you call anything, as long as it feels right. Just ask yourself if you are personally happy with something or someone and you aren’t in it just because that's the right thing for you to do according to someone else’s standards. If the answer is yes, you don’t need to define it. Just go ahead and experience it and life would be good.

The cute girl and the dirty puppy

There was once a cute girl. She was just like any other cute girl you see in the town; cute, attractive, lively and fun. She had a dirty puppy. It was like most other dirty puppies too; dirty, ugly, with quite a few infections and quite a few queer traits.

But both of them had a strong bond. The puppy loved the fact that the cute girl would take such good care of it, even though it was so ugly and smelly. She was giving it attention, even though there were quite a few dirty puppies in the town to take care of. The girl loved the fact that the puppy was so pathetic and hopeless. It had nowhere else to go, and was latched on to her, and she loved this sense of hopeless attachment.

The girl liked to take the puppy out on walks every now and then. She loved the way the puppy used to follow her every step, and go everywhere she wanted without a question. She loved the way it used to bark and get all worked up when any other dirty puppy on the road got too near her. She loved the silly manner in which the puppy would run ahead of her sometimes, and then look back, thinking that she is actually following it. She laughed to herself during these moments, because the puppy kept forgetting that the leash was actually with her. This convenient forgetfulness made the puppy feel happier and more independent than it actually was. Very rarely, the puppy used to discover some interesting scent on the road, and used to run behind it, forgetting that the girl was with it. During these times, she just had to tug on the leash once, and the puppy got back on line. As much as she loved pampering the puppy, she also secretly loved the sense of control that such tugs on the leash made her feel.

The puppy also loved such walks. It felt a sense of pride on the kind of companion it had. It loved the look of desperation, and envy on the faces of the other dirty dogs on the road. Seeing this, it felt a new surge of liveliness and got a spring in its step. It would bark aloud at any other dirty dog on the road that dared get nearby. But then the cute girl had too big a heart. She often used to stop by when she saw a dirtier, more pathetic puppy, and play with it for some time. She used to tend to its wounds, while also laugh freely at the kind of antics the other puppies used to do. The dirty puppy used to hate such times. It used to try barking at first, to show its displeasure, then tried whining to show that it was hurt, but no use. The puppy had no hold on the girl. It even tried getting into a fight with the other puppies, but then it just made the girl notice them more. She would even shout at it for being so dumb and inconsiderate.

When they got back home, the girl loved feeding the puppy. It gave her immense satisfaction to be the one who fulfilled such an essential need. She used to get whatever food she thought was best for her puppy. She would place it in the bowl and wait for it to eat. The puppy sometimes didn’t eat immediately, which would make her sad. She would almost get tears in her eyes thinking that she had taken so much effort for it, and it is not even honouring that. Finally, miraculously, the puppy used to get around to eating the food, and then stand looking at her wagging its tail. That's when she would give it the nice cuddle, and pat in the head that she knew it was waiting for. Sometimes when she called the puppy for food, it would bring with it some bone, or some piece of chicken from the trash, place it on her feet and wag its tail. She never used to understand what it meant, but would simply throw it out, and drag it inside.

The puppy never used to enjoy the meal times much. The cute girl, out of all the care for it, used to get it all sorts of things to eat every day. But it was never something which it wanted to eat. It used to try and bark and let her know, but she never understood. It even tried to make her understand by not eating what was placed in front of it, but then that just made the girl sad. This was one thing the puppy couldn’t take, and would eat whatever the hell was kept in front of it, and then wag its tail as if it liked it. This did make the girl happy, and she used to give it a nice pat and a hug. The puppy did enjoy this part, and was willing to do whatever it takes so that such hugs keep coming. Sometimes the puppy felt that it wasn’t doing much in return for the girl. Just like she was getting it food every day, maybe it should also get her something in return. Maybe she would like it, and they both could have it together. In this expectation it fetched her the best of the bones it could find, and fight with the other dogs in the trash spot to wrestle away the best chicken piece there. But she never seemed to like what she saw, and always threw it away, without even a glance at the puppy. This did make the puppy pretty sad, but it never knew how to express it, and even if it did, the cute girl never seemed to notice. The puppy thought maybe it hadn’t done a good enough job, and used to try that much harder the next time.

The cute girl had a beautiful little family. She had a loving mom, a caring dad, adoring brothers and sisters, and lots of friends and relatives. The girl loved spending time with all of them. She loved talking about all of them to the puppy. She loved taking the puppy along when she was meeting them. It just made her feel happier. She felt like she had all the various parts of life pretty close together and in place.

The puppy too had a father and mother, but it never cared about them. Which puppy ever did? Sometimes they used to howl away in the distance, and the puppy too would reply back with a howl, but then it never spent much time thinking of them. The puppy also had a few friends. This was before the girl had picked it up from the road and brought it home. Now it hardly had any idea what was up with them. Sometimes they would come to the gate and bark at it. The puppy could never understand what that meant. Were they angry at it, or laughing at it or just plain envious? It assumed the latter and just continued on. Bloody jealous hounds, can’t even tolerate someone being happy. Anyway the puppy was way too obsessed with the cute girl to take notice. It didn’t like being taken along to her parents’ place though. It seemed they never liked it. They were always having a disgusted look on their face. They would even tell the girl to stop playing with such dirty dogs, and that they would get her one belonging to a good breed. The girl just smiled at them, and continued on.

Every night, after having played with the puppy for some time, she tied it outside and went in to sleep. Not that the puppy would have escaped if she hadn’t tied it; it was way too attached to her for that. But then she just loved to know that she indeed had complete control. She never felt bad that she was having a comfortable sound sleep here while the puppy was outside. It never occurred to her that the puppy needed anything more. Wasn’t she being generous enough already, sparing all the time she did.

The puppy just dreaded the nights. That's when she used to leave it outside and go in to sleep. Just before she did that, she used to play around with it. She used to give it a nice warm hug, talk all sorts of sweet little things which the puppy never understood but always loved hearing, and show that she really cared. The puppy loved these moments, but just when it was craving for more, it would find itself locked out. It never understood this part. Not that it was so enthusiastic to get into her bed, but just that if she really liked it then why this forced distance. Was it supposed to mean something? It quietly waited out in the dark. Sometimes thoughts of running away did occur to it, but then it quickly dismissed them as signs of weakness and stayed on. After all, didn’t they say, every dog has its day.

Now for those who understood what the story actually meant; bravo. You atleast realise the soup you are in. For those who think this is a sweet bedtime tale from Aesop’s fables, well I hope you guys have gone to sleep already.

There is no moral to this story. Draw your own conclusions. I just wanted you to realise that life is a bitch and men always remain the underdogs!!