come as you are

Oops. I forgot, I'm supposed to be having a moratorium till the new year. Anyway. Ignore the title.

So. A couple recent conversations have left me musing. Can we all agree that we all have our own character flaws and our bad relationship habits? Um, okay, can we then all agree we all have our own little quirks and idiosyncrasies? Better?

Well, as a virtual wellspring of all of the above, I feel perfectly qualified to speak to the question in my mind, which is this: how much can we, should we, will we change for another person? (And, you know by "another person" I mean someone with whom we are sleeping in the actual and/or metaphorical sense, not our mother or our employer or the lady who does our hair.) My long held and fervent belief regarding this has always been "not at all." I've always been a take-me-as-I-am kinda girl, which probably explains my long history of not being, y'know, taken, but whatever. I don't think that nullifies the point.

A friend said to me "I wish I were [insert attribute friend thinks is admirable, that, to me, is neutral]" because being more [whatever] would endear them more to the object of their affections. Well, I wish I were three or four inches taller, too, but that ain't gonna happen, barring wearing really high shoes. We are who we are, personality-wise as much as physically. I wish I were less lazy, less crazy, and less cranky but experience has taught me that I am not magically, or even through dint of sheer will, going to be transformed into someone who is super-industrious, anxiety-free, and mellowly non-temperamental. Experience has also shown me that I can however, for example, recognize the crazee and attempt to deal with it in a somewhat rational manner, arrange my life so that I don't have to be super-industrious to survive and even prosper, and control my temper with most people so that I am not That Miserable Cunt. And experience has shown me that another good way to deal with this all is to hook up with people who are, for example, mellow, so that they balance me out, and with people who are capable of finding amusement and even charm in my cranky, anxiety-ridden, slothful self.

(Experience has not shown me how to shorten the above paragraph, alas for your poor eyeballs.)

What experience has also taught me is that hooking up with someone who says, "I wish you'd stop freaking out and worrying obsessively about stupid things" is not, y'know, good for me, good for my self-esteem, good for them, or good for the small appliances that then get broken. We have basic qualities to ourselves that are immutable; we can learn to deal with them better, but we cannot just change them because that hot guy or girl would love us to.

On the other hand. We all have unfortunate, or even just quirky, habits and ways that we probably could change if we tried hard enough. Me, for example? I'm sure if it were important to someone who I was involved with, I could by sheer force of will, learn to curb my appalling potty mouth. I mean, I don't use the word "fuck" every ten minutes in work, particularly in front of my five-year-old patients, capice? But this is the kind of change I've always resented and been suspicious of. If I'm capable of speaking perfectly politely when need be, but enjoy a good four letter word in casual conversation amongst my peer group, why be with someone who found that appalling in a literal, rather than humorous, sense? If it doesn't bother me, and it doesn't negatively affect anyone, why hook up with someone who it does bother, and have to change myself? Take me as I am. Come as you are.

I dunno. I find myself deeply conflicted about my long-standing stance on this, though, listening to a couple of different friends struggle with the issue in their own relationships. Why throw away an otherwise good relationship if you could stop doing the things that annoy your partner if you tried hard enough? On the other hand, shouldn't your partner try harder not to be annoyed by non-crucial quirks of yours? Isn't there a happy medium?

And isn't it just cool when you find someone who likes all your quirks? At least for a little while. (See above: long history failed relationships, kthxbai.)

xoxo