Let me tell you a little something about love

I have a vasectomy so it's physically impossible for me to get anybody pregnant. Since then, I opt not to use condoms for women I a) sleep with on a weekly basis and b) are comfortable with that. I still use condoms when I (hypothetically) sleep with strangers. I also use condoms with anybody who wants me to, including this girl. I know she prefers them, so I always have them ready and use them without a fuss. Then we have a great time. The other night she was crying to me about how upsetting this situation is to her because, quote, "The only person protecting my health is me." She couldn't possibly be safer, she's totally in control of her health, and I respect her decisions with a positive attitude. Nevertheless, she's upset. What's going on there.

Well, she's upset in general. No matter what's happening, she can, and will, find a depressing way to look at it. She'll be the first one to tell you this. To be successful in a relationship with this girl, you need to embrace that aspect of her personality. She will get upset, and she will get upset at you. She'll talk to you as if she believes she would be happy if only you would change. But that's just an arms race. Whack-a-mole. She's gonna be upset about SOMETHING and she will always stay one step ahead of you no matter how much changing you do. So I try to be wise about changing. She got upset at me once because I was flirting with other girls at a party I brought her to. That was terrible technique on my part. Now I have a rule. Mainly pay lots of attention to the girl you brought to the party. Good one. But I can't do much with a lot of the changes she wants. Recently she wanted me to be less privileged. What in god's green earth I'm supposed to do with that, I couldn't tell you.

One way I love her for who she is, is to take a kind of aesthetic enjoyment in the things she wants to talk about. Is the point of life to be happy? I hope not, because then we all do a lot of failing at life. No, I think the point of life is more about enjoying it in all its richness, and that includes all the emotions, including depression and anxiety. Like Bob Ross said, every painting needs light and dark parts.

That way of looking at it is helpful to a point. But eventually we hit the point of exasperation, and I need her to stop with the laundry list of faults. Then we argue, part ways, and ignore each other for a while. And that's our equilibrium these days, and I kind of love it, honestly. We have a wide orbit, and I enjoy it.

So I love her just the way she is, absolutely including the upset parts. I told her that recently. It upset her. Well, I want to tell her, I can't love you for who you want to be. All I see is who you are. And THAT'S who I love. I might not be the boyfriend you want, but I might be the boyfriend you need right now. The number one issue of romantic partners is, do you have one in the first place. Do you like somebody who shows up. We've all got dreams, sure, but the long term relationship is all about the daily unglamorous slog. It's got to thrive today. Long term love has to work with your present predicament.

You know another thing that upsets this girl? I've never made any kind of public pronouncement of my love for her. Well that spoke to me! That's a totally reasonable thing she wants and she shall have it. Though I do wonder, now that she's got one, it might upset her. But that's ok. I just appreciate that sexy upset nugget. It's been over 5 years now! At this point, I appreciate that I can be a very difficult romantic partner indeed. This girl keeps showing up and I keep finding new ways to appreciate her. That sounds like love to me. Love doesn't last because it's perfect. Love lasts for the same reason evolution works and bureaucracies survive. It's a frustrating tautology. What survives survives. Love is a complicated web of pleasure, traps, inertia, emotions, rapports, and on and on. It's so complicated, it may as well be a black box. You can't make sense of love. You can't predict it. Given a set of inputs, you can't calculate outputs.

At the end of the day, all I know is I'm grateful we keep this thing going, one way or another.