fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2785 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2785 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Tenth Kingdom]

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03.

(Orange is the New Black)

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04.

[Dresden Files author Jim Butcher, Shannon Butcher]

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05.

[Panic! at the Disco. Brendon Urie]

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06.

[BBC Robin Hood]

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07.

[Chasing Life]

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08.

[Rooster Teeth]

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09.

[Hawkeye 2012]

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10.

[Legend of Korra]

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11.

[QI]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #398.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's cultural. Mostly, it's because of the creation of the nuclear family, and when families are told they ought to be totally satisfied by their nuclear family bubbles (and the way western society facilitates this arrangement), it makes it really hard to have a fulfilling life if your SO isn't the most important person in your world.

Not so coincidentally, this is indirectly the cause of probably quite a lot of divorces -- the fact that for some people, their SO *isn't* the center of their universe, and the isolated, bubble-like way nuclear family units are often constructed means that a situation where your SO isn't the most important person in your life is usually a very unhappy situation, because your SO is the only person you are really allowed to spend most of your time with and share a lot of your life with in a nuclear family arrangement. And it's a completely artificial arrangement. Not that it's a *wrong* with the nuclear family arrangement in the least, mind you -- it's an arrangement that's actually very convenient and very frequently desired -- IF it suits the relationships or the people within it -- but "frequently desired" doesn't mean "fundamentally suited to everyone." And for that matter, it's a pretty recent creation.

For example, the weird (when you think about it) fact that the whole debate over gay marriage is over whether romantic same-sex couples are similar enough to straight romantic couples, and that their romantic feelings are enough like the feelings of straight romantic couples to justify whether it's okay for them to have the same rights as straight couples. The answer is, obviously, "of course!" but that also opens up more questions: What if I don't have *any* spouse whatsoever, of the opposite OR the same gender? What if I never get married and want my totally platonic best friend who I've been best friends with for 50 years to be the one to have all the same rights to visit me in the hospital and stuff as my theoretical spouse would have? Would I have to marry her in spite of not having romantic feelings for her, a la Alan Shore and Denny Crane on Boston Legal?

For that matter, why is marriage a romantic thing anyway? Can't two people swear "till death us do part" without the part where they like to have sex with each other or kiss or cuddle or hold hands or have romantic dinners or find each other attractive or even just have passionate romantic feelings for each other (if they're asexual)? Why not two friends who have decided that they really like doing everything together and living their whole lives next to each other, and the only thing living apart gives them is inconvenience and wasted rent money?

Or on the flip side, the idea that romantic couples should live together, or it's not "real." What if I'm perfectly happy living by myself and sleeping over at my romantic partner's house only...say...three out of seven nights a week? What if we love each other truly, madly, and deeply, but are just so really, really, really not suited to living together that we'd drive each other insane and wind up breaking up if we tried? Why would that make our relationship incompatible or somehow in limbo or incomplete? It's probably not an arrangement that would work for a whole lot of people, but what about the people it DOES work for?

And the idea that a family should be headed by two people who are fucking each other or at least romantically involved with each other. Why? What exactly makes a family headed by two people who are fucking each other more valid or healthy than a family headed by, say, a responsible adult guy and his responsible adult friend who have decided to adopt the first dude's sister's orphaned kids or something? Why is this seen as something imperfect or non-ideal or whacky? It can't be any less ideal than two romantic partners trying to have sex quietly while their kids sleep across the hall from them, can it? Or less ideal than a kid of divorced parents being shuttled back and forth between their mother-and-step-father's house and their father-and-step-mother's house twice a week?

There are just sooooooooo many weird, totally arbitrary conflations and logical fallacies when it comes to romance that it can make your head spin if you actually stop and think about it too long.

And it's all basically a massive failure to understand that "what's preferred by a majority of the population" =/= "what's right for and preferred by 100% of the population."

[ SECRET POST #2785 ]

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