Building Relationships

INCIDENT:
Over the past week my friends have started relationships, not started relationships, broken up with their long term partners, gotten back with past lovers, or have become engaged. It has been quite the week.

MORAL:

"In your life, you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do."

How can relationships be so complicated? I never really thought about it before cause I always thought of relationships as extensions of friendships. But I guess friendships take some work as well. All relationships, romantic or platonic, take nurturing, faith, respect, devotion, and loyalty. Perhaps one difference is that you make yourself completely vunerable in romantic relationships in ways that you don't in friendships. We are perhaps more cautious when starting romantic relationships for this reason. On the other hand in friendships we have the ability to regulate how vunerable we make ourselves and in that light we can maintain these type of relationships longer. Or so one may think.

As people come and go in our lives, each fills in another part of the puzzle that is life. For good or for bad, it is the inherent nature of relationships.