fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6168 ]

[ SECRET POST #6168 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6168 ⌋

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This came up a little while back, and it's been weighing on my mind.

According to one point of view, it's unhealthy for a group of people to stay together all their lives. To the extent that these people become codependent, eschewing other experiences, relationships, or opportunities in the name of pleasing their companions, I can see how that might be so. However, I wonder if this POV might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and might be the product of a culture that prioritizes work and production over connection.

It's true that we often form relationships with people who are meant to be with us "for a season," and that our ties to them are made no less meaningful by the fact that they are fleeting. It's also true that we form relationships with people who are meant to be steady but distant connections, with whom we can regroup after long periods of relative silence without the bond taking a hit. However, we are fundamentally social creatures. We thrive on community. We thrive when we have strong connections to people who are physically close to us, who we see on a regular basis. We thrive, especially, when there are many of them.

A lot of discussion mentions "lives." We must go forth and live our lives, and this is a big part of why we can't stay together after the adventure. This is a big part of why "friends" are people who see one another a handful of times a year. But what does "life" mean, in this case? Why is it assumed that our lives do not include our friends? "Life" is now work life, and family life -- and family life is ultimately still about work, is it not? What it is that you're supposed to strive for, if you have a child? Making that child productive, i.e. making sure they're able to get a good job. That's what good modern parenting is: buying all the right "educational" products; putting them in all the right extracurriculars; curtailing their social lives in all the right ways so that they'll "succeed," and have...comfortable lives punctuated by crippling loneliness.

Well. What if the cure for that loneliness, and the cure for much of what ails us, is having people we stay with? Having people we see regularly? Having people who are part of our lives, rather than people we see despite our lives? What if we were to accept that we are social animals, and make our bonds the center of it all? I am unconvinced that this would be unhealthy. I am convinced, however, that it would undermine a system that views us as fodder for the machine; as tools more so than as sentient beings. A system that finds meaning only in endless production and consumption.

From what I understand, our brains developed in a living situation where we'd spend almost our entire lives with the same 50-150 people. Modern life doesn't exactly fit that description, so it's no surprise so many people are desperately lonely and fantasize about becoming part of a lifelong group.

I don't think it's unhealthy to stay together your whole life. But the counterargument for staying together after the adventure that seems to come up most often is that it's not realistic for everyone who met and bonded over high stakes to be a good domestic match for each other, and forcing yourselves to stay together when you don't mesh day is what's unhealthy. Sure you saved each other's lives a bunch of time, but that still doesn't mean you have an obligation to stay with them forever. And the narrative so often does go in favor of staying together, that people are going to point this out. Staying together isn't always bad, but it's not always good either, and fiction often acts like it is.

How are we deciding who meshes and who doesn't? Are we basing it on the fiction -- the fiction that itself tells us there's something about their bond that keeps them together?

Does fiction act like it's good to stay together because it's never bad, or because that fiction is specifically presenting us with the fantasy of it being good? To what extent is this akin to "magic is unrealistic, so fantasy is not literature?" And to what extent is that bias that we tend to have toward the negative when it comes to realism? Despite the fact that many people live perfectly happy lives, and find great joy in the world, we tend to believe that happiness and joy are less authentic, less real, and therefore not worthy of fiction. Can we be sure that isn't what's happening when people point out that not everyone should stay together?

I just can't stand the smug views about iTs NoT rEaLiStIc and LiFe MeAnS LoSiNg PeOpLe... like, uh, no shit? Not everyone has the same set of friends as an adult that they did as a child, and sometimes you're in and out of each others' lives. Some people don't have friends at all. That doesn't mean you can't be sad to see people part, even if the people in question are fictional.

Yes. We lose people, and we also find people. And some people do have lifelong friends.

"Only sad/bad things are realistic" is a distortion. Plenty of good things happen in real life, and are therefore realistic, as well.

You can stay in touch with people without living together with them forever. Being tied to someone every day because we got stuck on a week-long adventure together once sounds like the more depressing option.

Exactly this.
People going their ways does not mean that they will lost touch. It just mean that they are not constantly in each other's face.
And somehow anons thinking that all adventures must end in everyone being together 24/7 accuse us of being lonely and too individualistic. Oh excuse me that I care enough for people in my life that I can fucking let them go.

I'm not sure the choices actually being presented here are, "spend every waking second together" or, "never see them ever again."

Also that's a really weird last sentence. Do you think people who see one another regularly don't actually care about each other?

No, I don't think so. People can grow to be close without stress of "adventures". But they can grow toxic too. And people going their separate ways can still be close friends and also can leave each other and forget everything.
Both versions of endings are happy endings (or neutral depending on the world/your point of view), because now they have their future to live.
So my main objection is to coloring of "going separate ways" as something sad and depressing because it's not true. Because it is as happy ending as staying together for ever and ever and ever and ever

Presumably the condition at the time of parting is that the friendships/relationships are in good status, not that the bonds are growing toxic or are headed that way.

The original secret said that it bothered the OP, not that nobody should interpret a parting of ways as anything other than sad and depressing, or that no one is allowed to.

But why does your mind immediately go to a relationship being toxic?

I think that's what's been objected to in the opposite direction: the assumption that, if someone is sad at a parting, then there must be some toxicity there. Missing someone is a completely normal human emotion.

And quite frankly, it sounds like you have your head up your butt if you think that not missing someone means you care for them more than other people.

Where's a show or movie where they stay together for ever and ever and ever and ever? I've only ever seen ones where they go their separate ways and it's sad and boring and I want SOME where they stay together. Please point me to these, I want to watch them.

Man, I am at the point there I want SOME ending and not my favorite show killed by netflix.
No recs, only because right now I've instantly forgot every media I've ever seen

Nobody's saying YOU can't keep in touch with your friends.

Quite often in fiction, people DO part forever or for long periods of time without ANY form of communication. Of course it's great if they do reunite, but there are plenty of stories that simply end with the parting, with no indication that they'll keep in touch. That's the part that seems sad. The not knowing.

Oh. You know, that is fair. I've got stuck up on anon in the original secret being all weirdly passionate. But I can see your point

Some people stick together after an adventure or event they went through together because others don't understand what it was like. Example: many veterans.

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[ SECRET POST #6168 ]

On staying together after the adventure is over

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