D is for Doe Eyes

I've been noticing how many story lines in soaps and just stories in general have been creating these great tales around love. These stories are great, especially love triangles where everyone takes a "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" style stance on who they want to get with who.

However I have noticed in mainstream circulation of narratives there only seems to be two ways love goes, either Disney style everyone ends up with who they love (or in the case of love triangles someone gets together so there is still a romance) or a romance occurs in a form but something drives the two beings apart again and spills tragedy on their lives (such as with The Fault in Our Stars). Nothing is wrong with either of these, but there is a lacking of the third option which I believe is both the more realistic and more common. That is no-one ends up together or the love is one sided. Now here I don't mean in the sense that a guy yearns for the girl but she goes off with another man and he is left heartbroken (although this is also frequent). The point is that someone in that scenario someone still ends up happy.

Quite often a relationship can never blossom because the feelings from one (or possibly even both) is kept a secret. It is actually very difficult to admit to someone you have feelings for them if the circumstances aren't right. A typical example here would be in school if you 'fancy' one of the cool kids and your in the nerd group. You can't admit your feelings because you will be laughed at and humiliated and probably labelled as a stalker or something simply because people look for any weakness to exploit. The other situation would be the typical 'Friendzoned' where you know your friendship would be ruined just by admitting.

Here is a little video by Hank Green on the subject of the Friendzone, if you like give it a watch, but then I will get to the main point of this post:

So now to the main point of this post. I decided to try and add to the prose that expresses this third and sad option that love can present. Now I've done this as a poem. I am not a natural poet, I have never written much, and I am aware there are structuring issues with this, but the important thing to get from this poem is the feeling, a feeling I believe from my experiences as the agony uncle of many groups, to be extremely common and hopefully relate-able. 

Doe Eyes:

A Realist knows what cannot be
meaning the biggest fool ever is me.
I walked right into this obvious trap
knowing that all I was going to get is crap
I even ignored my brain’s loud plea.

I don’t want you to know, I don’t want to tell you.
It takes all my strength to not even let slip a clue,
People advise me to stop whinging and just reveal
but they don’t get that to do so would make my soul congeal
as the only outcome would be to bid you adieu.

All I want is to save myself the Humiliation and the Pain
Risking no sunshine is better than endless Rain
So I raise the shutters to block out all skies
but then you look at me with those bloody Doe Eyes
and it undoes all of my hard work again.

DFTBA

Do you take someone you've only known five minutes to be your lawfully wedded...

I have been hearing many stories recently about people getting engaged within only a short period of time knowing each other.

I wouldn't say that I find this wrong exactly, but I do find it worrying. As with any situation every case is a completely different scenario so it is difficult to prescribe guidelines or suggestions about such thing. In my case I think I find it worrying because when someone says the word 'marriage' to me, I immediately think of 'divorce'. We live in an age where there is an all time high for people getting divorced and having multiple marriages (not all at the same time... except maybe the Mormons...).

I hear of people getting engaged after only six months to a year of being together. I really do not think this is enough time to really get to know someone. Not fully anyway. You may then find in a couple of years you find yourself in a previously unknown situation. In this situation you may then see a side to your partner that you really do not like, or even cannot live knowing that side exists.

I am not against marriage itself, not at all, but I wouldn’t dream of getting married unless I had been in a relationship for at least 3-5 years and even then I would have to be very sure.

The trouble with early marriages is people are still in that spark stage of the romance. I often hear love described like a flame, starting bright and fiery then relaxing into a soft ember that burns forever. The trouble is sometimes the flame simply dies out completely, if you get married before you know what way the flame is going to go then you could end up with someone that in all reality you don't actually love.

As I said before this is a case by case situation, no doubt readers will immediately thinks of situations or circumstances and even examples of people whom it has worked for. My main point is if you are 'sure' that your partner is the one then there should be no problem in waiting a couple of years anyway.

I also take this to mean couples who meet and then immediately get together, rather than couples who were friends for years or in some way really knew each other for years before getting together then married. That is slightly different.

Surprisingly people seem to be getting married a lot younger now as well. I'm very curious to know why that might be. For some reason my first thought is insecurity. Soaps, gossip magazines and sadly everyday life is full of stories about people cheating and having affairs. Could early marriage almost be in response to this? Perhaps it is an act of setting up boundaries and signs telling others to back off or even putting your partner in their place. "We are married now. You need to commit" kind of thing.

I've also noticed this is quite common within church groups, particularly those who do not believe in sex before marriage. One of many reasons for these early marriages could be because waiting will just lead to more and more temptation that cannot be morally fulfilled.

People fall in and out of love. Realistically love is not guaranteed (although certainly can live up to be) a lifelong commitment, but really marriage should be, and I think this is the problem. People are less paranoid about doing 'immoral' acts so are not afraid to get divorced now. 

Having said all this, there are immense benefits to marriage, not only practically but emotionally. The idea of having one person who you really do share your entire life with, who know you in and out. Only the people themselves who are in love can ever know exactly how they feel.

DFTBA