Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

30 November 2008

Lies We Tell One Another

I am feeling sentimental today (and procrastinating about my paper on sentimental comedy), and I am trying to work some thoughts out in my head...

Something odd about relationships is, perhaps, that we don't always know why they end. I broke up with someone recently and I had reasons for doing so. I told him some of those reasons, but I had more reasons in my head than the ones I shared with him. I am not sure why I held those reasons back, but I did. Maybe I thought he couldn't handle those reasons. Maybe I thought I was being nice, polite, in keeping those reasons to myself.

Or maybe I actually don't know all of the reasons that he and I cannot work out. I was sure that I did not want it to work out and that's all I can say that I knew for sure.

I don't know about things like this. And I wonder, when I am in a relationship that ends, if I have ever really gotten the truth out of the other guy. Which leads to more questions:

Is the truth really important? I mean, why do I need to know why this person does not want me anymore? or Why does he need to know why I do not want him anymore? And...

Is the truth even possible? I don't even always know why I don't want someone anymore. Sometimes I just cannot explain it. It is just that I don't want him anymore and that is that. There must be a thousand reasons for and against a relationship continuing. Sometimes we make up our minds about what we want and we don't even know why...

But it isn't the why that matters, see. It is that our minds are made up. The why, sometimes, doesn't matter at all.

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