“What is it with all those fucking songs about finding ‘THE ONE’? What the fuck are they talking about?”
Is pretty much what Poly exclaims to me over coffee the other day. And I can share her frustration on this, even though our perspectives may be different.
For Poly, the idea of there being THE ONE is just stupid. So many couples out there that we all know, and so many of them end in tears. Only to see the individuals recover from the breakup, branch out again and go off to find another THE ONE. Then that ends, but not to be dissuaded, because there are plenty of “fish in the sea” right, off we go to find another THE ONE because eventually we’ll find THE ONE.
It’s crap.
As much as anything else, it’s a legacy from our prehistoric past, where the idea of till death do us part seems to make sense when you live to the ripe old age of 31, if you’re lucky, and not stomped to death by a mammoth. But it makes much less sense with modern agriculture, sanitation, flushing toilets, hospitals, fluoride, vaccinations and free public healthcare (except that last one if you live in the U.S.A, in which case you’re screwed because you can’t figure out this simple concept like the rest of the developed world.)
Of course, the other reason why it’s crap is because it’s a throwback to a patriarchal modality, where a women’s uterus was something men controlled in order to make sure any offspring were theirs. Again, massive crap! Because in the world of polyamory it just doesn’t fit. As you’ll find out, the swingers scene is a female run thing, and in the polyamorous community it’s more accurate to say that this person that I love will match this part of me, and this other person that I love will match with another part of me.
There are so many people out there and we are all different. Take two different people and mix together (relationship) and you get an entirely unique construct that can never be replicated. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s a bromance that belongs in a cop-buddy movie, but regardless of whether the relationship works or not, it will always be “unique”.
However what the songs about love are trying to do is make all these incredibly unique relationships into EXACTLY THE SAME THING!
And it’s just crap!
Often the reason we want to hold this belief is because breakups are so damn awful. When an aspect of your “self” is invested in the relationship, and the relationship ends, that part of the self is severly compromised. This is what’s just happened with Poly in the last few days.
When Poly and I were talking the other day she mentioned how James (he’s the work colleague that hasn’t been entirely honest with his partner, so Poly felt they had to separate), anyway James has been acting in a way which led to Poly feeling “discarded”. Their relationship did not have to end this way, from Poly’s perspective it’s simple “I really enjoy the close connection we have, but if he can’t be honest with Susan, then I don’t want to wear the trouble in their relationship”. Because he hasn’t really sorted out his hetero-monogamy-normative life, he really should not be out there “playing”.
To me it seems like Poly ended it in large part because she did not want to be a home wrecker. It would be OK if James and Susan were actually polyamorous, but they aren’t.
When they parted he started to act insensitively, The tone of the interaction was in a way that left Poly feeling discarded. When she later ran into him at work, she told him that she had felt “discarded”. To which he replied that he was falling for her and felt too attached to Poly and he was trying to get a bit of distance.
But the texts continued and they got a bit heated. Anyway the texts were not civil at all and as I’ve previously pointed out to Poly he may not even turn up to the swingers party in a few weeks. All the while, it’s left Poly wondering why these stupid songs keep blaring on about “THE ONE”. If only people could just get over it and stop putting so much pressure on each other.
Then there is my perspective, which comes from a more depressing place where a belief that there “MUST BE THE ONE” is patently false. What forces in the physical world mandate that there must be? Why are we so focused on this that we end up creating a default social position where to be alone is basically synonymous with being dead? What if, just saying, there is not someone for everyone?
When you study this problem mathematically, and I have (look up “stable marriage problem” if you’re interested in that sort of thing), what if the maths just doesn’t work out? What if this colander of romantic logic is really just there because people in a relationship have an existential crisis at the very thought that they might be alone. Or, what if it’s just a marketing gimmick to sell us stuff we don’t need in order to prop up a monogamous Ponsey scheme that’s actually bedrock in a patriarchal world view.
What if it’s worse than crap?
What if it’s a great big fucking lie!