Two nights ago, my dear friend visited me to have some pasta, play drums and talk a late night talk. As expected, the talk appeared to be the best part and the late night helped us open up ourselves more than usual. We are both 28, she is a doctor, I am an educator. We are both good people, care about others, honest etc.
The talk was just fun, untill we suddenly realized that very often, the main topic of our discussion is our relationships with the romantic partners.
The discomfort we felt about it was instant — so we started unpacking — hmm… do you think boys would ever talk this much about their relationships? We both agreed that there was a very little chance of that.
What would they talk about then? Sports, business, games, cryptocurrency?
My friend and I both have interests — she is a really good skier and a really good dancer. I love philosophy and formula 1. We started remembering what we talk about when we are not talking about boys and here is what we remembered — what to eat, how to cook, when to exercise, a bit about our work, designing a house, some politics, our health… We did remember talking about crypto and sports too, but the level, amount and depth of those talks were nothing compared to our experience with the opposite sex.
The realization was so sad. We felt that in every area except relationships and self-care, our discussion would be easily called “shallow”. And what was even more sad for us, was that it was very natural to us — we never had the spark to go any deeper.
Both of us were raised in a very traditinal country. Although our parents always supported our education and never told us to be dependent on our partners, we have been feeling that our genetics, our upbring and our society has still managed to put us in this weird box we didn’t know existed.
So the wondering begins — is this something other people experience too? How much of it is learned and how much of it is natural? Do we need to fix it? How?
