Keine Lieder ueber Liebe

I tried to find an article I read a month or so ago, about some suggestion from the German Minister of Family Affairs, Urusla van der Leyen. She suggested, or the article did, marriages of seven years, to be mutually and repeatedly renewed, or else they would default to some kind of divorce that was supposed to be simpler and (materially) cleaner than your typical divorce. It seemed odd to me to read that, but in consideration I don't find it a half bad idea: so many marriages end in divorce, the concept should change from "forever and ever till death do us part" to something more realistic.

In looking for the article I found a couple of others dealing with love and relationships, including one from the Welt newspaper (in German) called Plädoyer für eine vernünftige Liebe, which discusses whether love is necessary or helpful in marriage. Several surveys comparing "marriage for love" couples with arranged marriages, finding the former happier in the first five years, and afterwards demonstrating that couples in arranged marriages were actually happier. Statistically, anyways; I can't speak to their reliability or methodology.



Anyways, the point of all this is the time-honored lament that I just don't get love and relationships. I won't say I don't understand why people bother--I know why people bother, and I have no regrets despite the fact that the end of my last relationship left me with sadness and heartache, and cost me a good friend--but it require some queer kind of optimism that I fail to comprehend. Relationships seem to me to be like trying to make an omelette by standing on the other side of the room and throwing eggs at a frying pan: the activity can be entertaining, and eventually you'll hit the pan, but most likely you'll make a huge, giant mess, break a lot of eggs uselessly, and even if you do hit, your omelette still has bits of shell in it.



The beginning of a relationship is a roller coaster, exciting but frustrating. The relationship itself, even when up and running is full of small or large frustrations that you either swallow and deal or constantly fight about. Even the seemingly "perfect" relationships have their issues, and due to the kind of closeness people in a relationship have, the issues seem way more important or get blown out of proportion. Even when everything seems to run smoothly there are obstacles and issues. And then all of the sudden, or maybe not all that suddenly but seemingly inevitably, it ends, and it's messy. Sometimes, it ends because of issues, sometimes you just get bored. Distance can kill even an otherwise great relationship; no matter how much you care, it's hard to overcome several thousand miles (speaking from personal experience). Or maybe it doesn't end and you get married instead, and even then, even once you've made it that far you have an over 50% chance of getting divorced again. Somehow, you pull yourself together, pick up the pieces, clean up the mess, and move on to repeat the experience.