Dear Proudly Lucky In Love,
This writing sample is an example of a Dear Abby opinion piece or advice column
Dear Emily: I have been lucky enough to have fallen madly in love with the most wonderful man in the world. We have been together for two years and living together for almost a year. I'm in my mid-30s; he's in his mid-40s. We both have had plenty of experience in love -- enough to feel sure that we've found the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with.
My best friend has been very disparaging of our relationship and makes rude comments about it. If I tell her how happy we are in spite of the pandemic, she says it's because we're still in the "honeymoon phase." If I describe something kind that my boyfriend has done for me, she adopts a condescending tone and makes remarks about "new love" and that I should enjoy this now because it will change.
She's the same age I am and has been with her fiance for nine years. I have always been very supportive of their relationship, but she seems incapable of offering me the same level of support in my love life. When I try to talk to her about something she has said or done that bothers me, she often becomes aggressive, and I don't know how to approach this subject without getting into an argument or losing our friendship. What should I do? -- Proudly Lucky in Love
Dear Proudly Lucky in Love,
Looks like you found your person! That’s great! Everyone deserves to be in a relationship where the love and trust is mutual, and that’s not easy to find, so congratulations, truly! I also believe that a relationship like you described is not strictly romantic. Platonic love is just as important and just as hard to find, so it breaks my heart to hear that you and your best friend are having issues. That being said I don’t think your friend is living up to the title, so let’s criticize the hypocrisy of her actions to make you feel better!
To me, 2 years isn’t the honeymoon phase anymore, especially after having lived with each other for a year already. If phases were that long, then I would still have a year and a half of being obsessed with bell bottoms to go! People are not static. We go through phases all the time because we are changing all the time and through change we grow! Being close to people who encourage your growth and grow along side you are key in maintaining long lasting relationships. Do you think your friend might be unaccepting of your growth? Or, to put it in more actionable terms; have you grown out of her like I grew out of my bell bottoms?
While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about this honeymoon thing. What does it even mean? And what does it say about western dating culture that when the honeymoon ends it also marks the end to all the butterflies and warm fuzzies of being in love? Honeymoon implies newness, and as a culture obsessed with consumption, newness is commodified, i.e. fast fashion trends, the latest iPhone, fickle news cycles, Oat Milk. Once the newness of a commodity has worn off and the glean of the next big thing is on the horizon, we tend to gravitate towards that. All too often, people do this to other people as well. It’s rationalized with the nobility of seeking out new experiences but what this behavior tends to leave behind is waste, hurt, and unfinished business. The end result is perpetual dissatisfaction and loneliness. As the ancient Chinese proverb says: everything is good when new, but friends when old…
I don’t choose the ancient Chinese proverbs the ancient Chinese proverbs are chosen through the ethereal zeitgeist of thousands of generations. Sorry!
Along with this comes the romanticization of the soul mate. As babies we are fed the narrative that there is one person for you out there, a soul mate, and when you find them you’ll never want for anyone else! Everything will fall into place, and for the rest of your life you will experience nothing but profound happiness! Like a perpetual “honeymoon phase” is the prize for winning at the game of true love. How paranoia inducing is that. Just the word “true” in “true love” implies that everyone else is false: A bunch of fakey fakers trying to sabotage your love journey.
No wonder we are so disillusioned by love! It’s a paradox! We move on too quickly but are still led to believe that locking down a soul mate forever is what makes us valuable! We are taught that the honeymoon phase should be how the relationship feels all the time, and if it doesn’t you haven’t found your soul mate, and if you haven’t found your soul mate you should keep searching, and as you search you enter relationship after relationship that starts off great but inevitably gets hard so you leave in noble pursuit thinking “some day my prince will come,” and the cycle continues until you start to think that you’re one of those unlovable people who doesn’t have a soul mate, doesn’t deserve a soul mate, but Disney music is playing in your head and love is supposed to conquer all so as long as you keep searching you’ll get what you were promised DAMMIT. The fear and sadness of being unlovable forces you to cling onto whoever will fill the role of supposed “soul mate” but in the back of your mind you know they’re not because the honeymoon feeling is gone, and you go on thinking; “this is fine, this is what I deserve.” But the bitter shame of being in a loveless relationship sours everything around you until the conspiracy is no longer about people trying to sabotage your journey to find love, but that love doesn’t exist at all, and when you see people in relationships that are actually working you go out of your way to tell them that they’re only happy because they haven’t yet gotten to the part where they realize that their so called love is only going to turn into a constant reminder of the crushing existential threat of loneliness. You’re only trying to save them from the horrific pain you endured to see the truth.
This is kind of what I imagine your best friend is going through. Why did you become friends with her? She seems a little dramatic and annoying. I mean, it’s true, we are taught love will complete your life, but it doesn’t… and that’s okay. There’s this really great book called the prophet, it’s an Islamic philosophy book by Kahlil Gibran that was written in the 1800s. It’s about this wise old man who’s leaving a town that he’s lived in for 12 years but is a foreigner to. Stay with me! I have a point. As he leaves, the townspeople gather around him and ask questions about life. The ploughman asks about the wisdoms of work and the teacher asks about the wisdoms of teaching and the women ask about the wisdoms of pain… and so on and so fourth, but the one on marriage compares commitment to sharing bread: “Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf” he’s saying: have your own shit, be an individual, but share your joys and sorrows with substance. This goes for friendships as well. You’ve been sharing your bread, for 9 years, with a friend who thinks you’re suppose to only have one loaf between the two of you, and she’s being selfish, and she’s gobbling it all up. Now that you’re in a relationship where you each have your own loaf and you’re being good sharers, she’s confused and jealous which causes her to lash out, disparaging your love.
It seems like she doesn’t have the perspective to realize that her lived experience is not necessarily going to be the same as another person’s lived experience. Perspective is everything. By her own logic, someone who has been in a 20-year relationship may look at her 9-year relationship as still being in the honeymoon phase as well. She seems pretty dumb honestly. I’m gonna advise distancing yourself from her and if she even notices and says something about it (which kind of shows she cares about you in a way idk), then bring up your feelings. Do it with love, but don’t hold back. Tell her you’ve felt like she’s not being a supportive friend and you need that from her or else you can’t do this anymore. Tell her you’re happy and she needs to accept that. If she gets aggressive, remember that she’s insecure about her own relationship and projecting that negativity onto you. If she doesn’t notice that you distanced yourself from her, looks like you’ve grown out of each other. In The Prophet, when the wise man speaks on friendship he says “your friend is your needs answered.” Well?... What do you need from her? And there’s your answer.
Love,
Emily
Copyright © 2020 by Emily Bollman
