Elrond

And I promise that after a few thousand words this post will be tied to my love life .
I’ll mark the transition point with a heart ❤️  so you can skip!
Which is not just allowed, but probably recommended.

So for the brave ones;
Back to Elrond’s quote about Isildur not tossing the ring into the pit.

To this day people debate whether Elrond was simply dissing mankind here, when he recalled Isildur taking the ring for himself, instead of tossing it into the fires of Mount Doom;
Or if he was illustrating that even thousands of years ago, Men were not up to the job of rejecting the Ring.
And that those had been the times when Men was still honorable.
That Elrond was not so much angry or disappointed, but simply acknowledged that compared to Men, the power of the Ring was, and always had been, absolute.

In a similar way, I still struggle to classify the honorability of people but contrary to Elrond, my pain is felt in my love life.
Like hobbits focusing on their immediate surroundings, I too am very well capable of ignoring big world issues until ring ghosts stampeed the town looking for my uncle Bilbo.
And it suddenly becomes deeply personal.

But I digress!

Anyway, to bring it back to the Ring and my doubts about the nature of Men, my point was this.
I believe, this day and age, a certain ancient power structure akin to the ring should probably be tossed into the fires of Mount Doom for us all to be freed from it;
And yet, I also recognize we must never do that.
Ever.
That it would be a big mistake.

Our Ring, are social structures.
Big and small.
They’re not as innocent nor as constructive as they seem, but also, they are not the plain evil thing like The Ring is, in Lord of the Rings.

So, for context;

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been extremely suspicious of groups “for the sake of it”, meaning structures where the group itself and the identity or the belonging it provided was the goal.
But it took decades to unpack all the other places that were running on the exact same principle.

It’s like when you want to quit sugar, and find out it’s in almost everything you eat.
Social structures are in almost everything you live.

And I don’t have an alternative either!!
I recognize that the social structures we use and have, and the ones I myself still make use of, are at least for now, the best we can do.
The last thing I would advocate for is to dismantle social structures.
They are not a Ring only capable of doing evil.

The older I get, the more I recognize we definitely need social structures. Like, a lot. Somewhere at the level of food and water and a roof over our heads.
We cannot ask of Isildur or anybody else to throw our social structures into Mount Doom, because we definitely should not want them destroyed.

And yet? Still evil.

Back to my love life (no, no ❤️ yet, it’s till dry) where I still catch myself being disappointed when someone, understandably, chooses a relationship that matches their social structures, and can possibly even fortify it, or give them access to new opportunities.
To new networks, aka social structures.

A love relationship can turn you into a duo, a couple, doubling your resilience, no longer having to do everything alone.
Moving in together means you’re a family unit, in particular if you have pets or have children whether together or from previous relationships.
Then, in a full “romantic” partnership, there are the “expansion sets”: Extended Family, Befriended Couples and Friend Groups.

All to say: I get it.
I see it.
And I understand why singles feel they miss out on love, not just because they don’t have a romantic partner but because of that entire social structure that has “becoming partnered” as their entry level tier.

When I had my longterm relationships I, or the correct wording now is “We”, had many or all of those expansion sets and they were amazing.
I would say they were one of the best features of being partnered, and I had great relationships so that is saying something.

And yet, Sara!
STILL, I feel so disappointed for my love life being “inversely related”, the translation is according to Google to what it is I want to say here, to my refusal to provide any of those structures.
Meaning: the more clear I am, on never performing, providing or entering any of those structures again, the worse I feel about my love life.
To the point where I believe I was only ever chosen to perform socially.

Because I’ve ran simulations in my head on which men would still have said yes to having anything meaningful, if I had refused to deliver the social context or do the emotional labor that is for females an unspoken part of it.
My estimate is None.

None of the Men I have been involved with would have been willing and able, let alone eager and excited, to have a meaningful relationship with me, unless I performed socially.
Just an estimate, could be wrong, but that’s how I see it.

*inserts red heart*
❤️
Love life incoming

But have I ever told you exactly, and specifically, about how good that love life was?
How much fun, how fresh, and new, and honest?

And this was EVEN with men I never saw again, or whom I did not particularly like outside the bedroom (and they were probably not that into me either).
It was with those whom refused to discuss simple things like boundaries, expectations and intentions.
Every one of them made more impact than a whole fully booked holiday season of being comfortably imbedded in champagne, fireworks, Christmas sweaters and amazing dinners. 

So you can imagine how good it was, particularly in the bedroom, with the men I actually loved so much, I would have gone to hell and back for them.
Nothing short of spectacular.
Just gonna own it, at risk of coming across as arrogant or self-inflating, but just see it as a testimony that I, for one, had a really good time!
For me it was and is so clear that this is what life is all about, and what makes it all worth it.

And that’s the dichotomy.
That I understand why people choose their social structures, including the partnerships with all the expansion sets, over romantic connections who do not contribute there.
I totally get it, as I hope I was able to explain in all the boring paragraphs covering more than half of this blogpost.

Even if they love(d) me, and I can’t speak for them but even if they did or do;
I cannot ask you to choose me, knowing perfectly well this will cost you the world you live in.

And at the same time, despite all the nuance, and despite Gandalf and me and Reddit probably needing the rest of this century to figure this one out, I always seem to be ending on the same, terribly disheartening conclusion.

That it was the day when the strength of Men failed.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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