What Is Love? Baby, Don't Hurt Me.

When I started college, I had a lot of clichéd “fight the system” ideas of what I wanted my life to be like. I wanted to travel the world like a glamorous gypsy, falling in and out of love with exotic strangers, but never staying put because I was too busy making world-changing contributions to society. I never wanted to get married, but I wanted to have kids and raise them by myself during these travels, juggling being a single mother, world traveler, and society changer with great ease. Basically, I wanted to be the main character from Chocolat (which I highly recommend watching, and only partially because it’s about two of my favorite things: young Johnny Depp and chocolate). I rarely engaged in any meaningful romances, cutting them off when they got too serious, and generally having an awesome time. I was going to be perfect balance of a modern woman-strong, independent, brilliant, kind, and never allowing a man to define herself or her life trajectory. Essentially, I was stupid. I was that relationship-hating, cartoonish version of feminism that Internet trolls use to represent the modern woman. I’m not exaggerating, I was that person, and I was proud of it. I was proud of my female friends when they got out of relationships because it would finally allow them to be the full woman they wanted to be, without distractions. (Yikes.)

            I met Tom halfway through my junior year. He was brilliant, funny, and officially the most Irish looking guy I’d ever seen. For a long time, we were a weird hybrid of physical friendship and emotional intimacy. I hooked up with guys I didn’t really care about at night, and spent my free time with Tom during the day, sort of like a superhero with an incredibly mundane double life. Still ready to jump start my independent life,  I signed up for a study abroad session in Prague for the summer, but every time something cool or exciting happened, Tom was always the first person I wanted to tell. The last night of junior year, those things that had been sitting unsaid between us finally culminated in action (after which I hilariously sprained my ankle slipping on the jeans he’d left by my bed), and things got really confusing.

            We spent the summer talking nonstop. He moved to England for a few months to work in a lab, and I moved to Prague, fully expecting to have that exotic, passionate, love-him-then-leave-him romance I always wanted. I met a guy or two who fit the bill-tall, dark, handsome guys with little regard for anything that might happen after the sun came up, but after each encounter, I felt gross, guilty, and I missed Tom. He came to visit me for a week, and it was almost perfect. We hiked to the top of the city and took in the view below, ate amazing cheese with glorious wine (Man, I love wine.), and spent a day at the zoo making animal puns, like: “If you don’t buy me an ice cream, alpaca up all of my stuff and leave!” (Man, I love puns.). It was great, but it didn't change anything. Relationships were for sellouts, and everything about him was entirely the opposite of what I thought I wanted, so I told him we would never, ever, ever be together, like, ever.

            Tom left Prague, and told me he needed some time away from me (clearly because I was the worst). He didn't speak to me for a week. I barely slept. I had a constant knot in my stomach, hoping he’d email me, and nearly burst into tears every time I checked and he hadn't. I reread our hundreds of emails and messages, and started to realize how much they sounded like love letters. I looked through our pictures together and remembered how much fun we’d had exploring the world together. I realized that just being around him had made me a calmer, happier, and better version of myself than I had ever been. I was completely broken by losing him, and the only person I wanted to talk to about it was Tom. Finally, at the end of that interminable week, he popped up on Facebook chat. “Hi.” Whew.

            It’s been almost three years since that summer. Tom got into Harvard Medical School, and after graduation I packed up my car and drove from Tennessee to Boston, where we now share an apartment and a life. Looking back on things, I realize that what drove my vision of a strong, independent woman was really just ignorance of what a relationship truly is. Now that I’m in one, I’m still trying to figure out how to change the world, but I’m doing it with a partner. Tom is my teammate and best friend, supporting me in everything I do, and caring for me when I need help (which, let’s be honest, is often. I fall down a lot.). I've learned to admit my mistakes and learn and grow into a better person, because he inspires me to do so.

I now see that the most admirable kinds of women are the ones who learn and grow into greatness, not just by traveling and reading and forging their own paths, but also by having the strength to admit that they need help and support. For me, having a stable relationship at the most turbulent time in a person’s life is a huge asset. I have a constant, very cute sounding-board for my problems, thoughts, and aspirations. Recently, I half-jokingly told Tom I wanted to write a movie about Loki (you know, the best part of either of the Thor movies), and he didn't miss a beat, “Well, you’d probably be better off writing it as a novel, then having a screenwriter adapt it before you pitched it to Disney. I can help you work through the story-line, if you want.” Just like that. He genuinely thinks I can do any of the fifteen million lofty things I want to do with my life, and he’ll do anything he can to help me. Sure, friends and family do that for you too, but friends have their own lives, and let’s be real: your mommy isn’t going through life with you, navigating every turn and understanding every moment (and if she is, you might be Norman Bates). Your partner, on the other hand, just gets it in a way that no one else does, because he’s literally standing right next to you, every day.

Besides, if you’re smart and compromising enough, you can negotiate a life between you that is infinitely easier in the day-to-day. I cook, he cleans. He does laundry, I iron. I do all the bathroom chores, he whines and procrastinates vacuuming until neither of us can stand it and he finally gets it done. We split all household bills right down the middle. If he has to study and I want to watch Arrow (because being in a loving relationship should never keep you from indulging in your passion for rock-hard superhero abs), we figure out who gets the bedroom and who gets the living room for the evening, and go our separate ways. You know those articles about how great being single is? About how you never have to wear pants at home, you never have to go out/get dressed up/wear makeup/shave your legs/speak in anything other than rhyme if you don’t feel like it? That’s what being in a serious relationship is like. You get all of those things plus all the great aforementioned things about having a partner. Hell, Tom and I don’t even have full fights anymore, we just get mad at each other, speak with dripping sarcasm about the problem for about ten minutes, and then we start making jokes about how stupid our fight is and talk things out nicely. Or we get really super pissed and dramatic for like ten minutes, don’t talk to each other for another five, realize we’re going to be fine, because we’re always fine, and work through the problem like grown-ups. (Besides, it’s just so much work to move all of your stuff out of an apartment, isn't it easier to just apologize?)

My mom told me recently that she feels like I'm "skipping a step", and losing out on a lot of what the world could potentially offer me by being in a committed relationship at 23. Sometimes I think about who I would be otherwise. I’d probably be living somewhere expensive and exciting, with like twelve super passive-aggressive roommates, and lots of Tinder-ing. Maybe I’d have my dream job. Maybe I’d meet dozens of gorgeous men, and have lots of passionate and fleeting relationships that would make for really interesting blogging. Maybe I’d be a stripper with a heart of gold. Maybe I'd be smarter, higher up the career ladder, better dressed, or telling cooler stories. Who knows? But none of that sounds worth giving up the life I have now. I see the lives that my friends who have their dreams jobs lead (just kidding, none of my friends have dream jobs because we're job market infants). I see the lives my single friends lead, all exciting and uncertain and constantly on-the-move, and honestly they just look exhausting. I see those tall, dark, handsome guys on the subway or on the sidewalk, and there's always something about them that looks like a deal-breaker (a popped collar, wayyy too much cologne, a small but conspicuous dark red stain that's slowly spreading on the outside of their oversized duffle bag, etc.). And then I come home, change into sweatpants and pee with the door open while complaining about my day, and still get told I'm the prettiest, funniest, smartest girl in the world by someone whose opinion I trust with my life. What could possibly be worth giving that up? 

-T.