love out loud: the other love

When I tell people I write a column about relationships, they tend to (rightly) assume that it’s about the romantic variety.

The truth is that at my age (22), there are relationships that are at least as, if not more, important than the ones I spend every week thinking and subsequently writing about.

As much I love writing self-involved articles detailing the events of my life, and as much as I joke about using it as a tool to embarrass or spite those who I feel have wronged me, there are some things that shouldn’t be put on the Internet (not yet anyway; I don’t have the distance to write about recent events without some level of rage underpinning my retelling of them at present). But for the purposes of this article, what you need to know is this:

1. Last week, someone did a shit thing.
2. I was supposed to attend Dead Meadow‘s gig with this person last night.
3. Semi-extraneous circumstances lent to –
   3.1. This person not being able to attend, and
   3.2 My being unsure if I would attend (for the same reason that caused 3.1).
4. I really love this band and still wanted to go.

(If you haven’t stopped reading yet, you deserve some kind of baked goods, because I probably would’ve closed the browser out of frustration by now, rolling my eyes and thinking, ‘why write about it if you’re not going to write about it, you poseur?’)

Anyway. My usually adequate problem-solving skills were failing me, probably because I was entangled in the situation and couldn’t see beyond my woe. And then Cuddles fixed it.

Despite never having shown any interest in this genre of music, Cuddles came with me to Dead Meadow and didn’t complain once. She even insisted afterward that it was good to get out of her niche. I couldn’t have loved her more for it.

These are the relationships we usually overlook in favour of the turmoil that often accompanies those with romantic partners. Sure, we know our friends are still around (unless you’re one of those people who only maintained friendships until you found a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever) and are grateful for it, but even though they usually have been and will be around far longer than the liaisons we drain so much time and emotional energy into starting and sustaining, they tend to play second fiddle as soon as there is an ‘other’ in our lives.

There is an evolutionary explanation to this (probably something to do with ensuring spawn has a nuclear family) and humans aren’t evolving as quickly as society is, so it makes sense that this happens, but we should all be giving this greater consideration beyond the ‘I have the best friends in the whole world’ bullshit that clogs people’s social network bios.

I hate to be the one to say this (not really, because then I wouldn’t), but lip is a magazine targeting 14 to 25 year olds and relationships that start during this period of our lives are, statistically, probably going to end. That doesn’t mean that they’re a waste of time or that they shouldn’t be wholeheartedly pursued, but rather that platonic relationships should never go on the back burner.

Your friends are the ones who are going to leave chocolate and lovely notes on your doorstep when things go awry, and tuck you into bed when it would be plain embarrassing for your parents to do it.  They’re the ones who will confiscate your phone when you’re tempted to booty call someone who’s bad for you, and the ones who will promise to still hold your hand no matter how many times you fuck up.

And that, my friends, is true love.

(Image credit: 1.)