The Honeymoon Phase

Oh how wonderful the honeymoon phase is, that brief period in people’s relationships where everything seems great, you love the person you’re with and nothing they could say or do will bother you, but of course as with any other phase it does come to an end. I don’t think this phase is something we just go through during our honeymoon’s and I also don’t even think it’s specific to romantic relationships or even relationships at all. We as people seem to be quick to make ideas of people because when we meet them we never get to see the full them. It’s almost impossible to present your full self to someone and we all have baggage and character traits we’re not proud of, and there are things for some of us that we’re still working on/still getting over. My point is we create this idea of who we think someone is and that’s who we see ourselves to be with. Any time we get fed fragments of information we just naturally try and fit in the missing pieces and we’re often wrong. That’s why the honeymoon phase can sometimes be the last phase for some relationships. We’re enjoying spending time with this person we thought they were and when we find out that’s not who we’re friends with. It can be disheartening to some.  There are the little things that kind of chip away at that model of who you think they are, and I don’t think that learning these are harmful for the relationship, you kind of have to expect some flaws.. some attributes of their personality that you don’t really enjoy. You’re going to be “presented” a lot of these because all people have some sort of baggage with them and of course you’re not going to like everything someone’s personality entails. And sometimes if something is too much of an issue it might be beneficial to talk about it because chances are they don’t mean to be doing it. However, sometimes it’s just a characteristic of who they are and I personally don’t feel like I should even consider asking someone to change not just something they’re doing but like how they’re acting. I don’t know. It’s more simpler for me to ask “Hey I appreciate you’re trying to help but please don’t ever butt in and try and fix my problems when I’m trying to work on them myself.” rather than “Hey you’re whole way of acting, is pretty emotionally manipulating and draining. You suffocate me and any time I try and step away to breathe you make me feel worse.” Some people are just the way they are and sometimes you just can’t fix things. Sometimes things aren’t fixable. When people start realizing this about other people, that they got in close with someone who wasn’t who they thought they were.. that’s when people decide to leave.

I’m not going to say whether it’s right or not, but sometimes it’s necessary. I personally wouldn’t suggest anybody to cut out everybody from their group of friend’s/break up with their significant other if not everything about them is something that makes you happy/that you like. It’s an action that has repercussions, and it’s not definitely not something that should be taken lightly and I’m trying to get across the idea that all people are kind of not that great people. I am trying to say that there are certain times where you just don’t have any other option. Whether it be a flaw of yourself, which it has been quite a few times with me where I’m too afraid to be negative about something someone does/how someone acts because I don’t want them to feel attacked or antagonized. And I know that sometimes times that I have gotten to a point where things really couldn’t keep going the way they were going I would say something about it and immediately without even giving my statement a second of thought, they immediately try and defend their actions and then attack me personally. Almost as if they were holding all these things about me that bothered them that they were really only holding on for when they needed to use it against me. Which is why I’m glad almost all of those friendships ended. I really don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t treat me as a person, but more of just someone they can use. What they said, they didn’t say because it bothered them to the point that I was when I had brought things up and you can tell just by the way they say it it’s almost as a “Who do you think you are saying something I do is bad, when you sometimes do this… ” It’s like they just had to win the argument. An argument they created. I’ve been friends with too many people who don’t care about the person they’re friends with and just sees everything as pragmatically as they can. It’s not about doing what’s right, it’s about doing what’s best for them. Like all their decisions affect me but don’t consider me. I honestly feel like just a list of pro’s and con’s to these people and once the pro’s they added to the list dropped lower than the amount of con’s than they just make the “practical” decision of removing me. There’s a big difference between finding something truly bothering or upsetting about someone than choosing to remove someone because they don’t benefit you as much as they used to.

So what do we do about this honeymoon phase dilemma, since so many relationships are ending here that must mean that this phase is what’s directly attributing to it, right? Well, no not really. I don’t think it’s caused at all by this phase. The honeymoon phase is lovely and anybody going through it whether it be at a new job that seems almost “too perfect” or that girl who you started seeing who’s really awesome and is always easy to talk to. Our need to almost immediately define these people and put them into categories whenever we meet people and whenever we do something new is kind of what’s doing it. And I don’t think it’s anything that can be fixed like at all. We categorize and label everything in our life because that’s just the way we are wired. Some people like to pretend they’re above prejudices and putting people into labels because it’s dehumanizing and is awful, but it’s actually not. Those people are often just confusing discrimination and prejudice. It should seem relatively simple by the definition of their words, but not all the words we say we know the definition of so I suppose I’ll give them a pass on that one.. but people naturally have prejudices and we make quick opinions of people based off appearances, personality, body language.. whatever we can observe to try and put together that full piece of the puzzle which is who this person is and most importantly, is this a person I want in my life? That’s the important part. We make prejudices to make quick decisions to keep people in our lives we think we will enjoy having in our lives and prevent those we think we wouldn’t from ever getting in. We all have prejudices and as long as they don’t let it affect people negatively. When you treat someone unjustly based on those prejudices, that’s discrimination. And I will not defend that, no matter what prejudice-based reasoning you have behind it, you’re basing it off an idea of how you think a whole group of people acts. Which is always ALWAYS wrong. We fit these people in categories because it’s easier for us to understand, but nobody ever really fits in them. The honeymoon doesn’t cause or even really have any effect on any of this, but despite that I still think it’s still a very critical phase for people to take the relationship seriously. Things are easy now, and things seem to fit easily into place now but they won’t tomorrow and you have to make sure you didn’t choose a puzzle you won’t putting together. The question is how do you do that? And I wish I had a definitive answer to just do this and things will work out but they won’t. And even after you get to this point and you make that decision to keep this person in your life, there is no guarantee you won’t find something new that will make you change your mind. So, I guess I would just suggest to try and understand that somethings are simply just out of your control.. Some people aren’t who you thought they were and it hurts when you put this person in such a crucial part of your life that removing them seems like removing a big part of your life and that seems scary but if keeping them in is hurting you than sometimes it’s just what you have to do and I’m sorry but as scary as it may seem now you’ll be glad you did. People come and go in our lives and we’re all doing this elaborate dance from one person to the next. Some of them will step on your toes, some you won’t have nearly enough time with, but if you’re lucky than maybe you’ll find that person you’ll dance with until the very last song ends. And then you’ll be happy. And that honeymoon phase may come to an end, but it won’t ever feel like it. Even if it seems like only just a small possibility, knowing that person might just be out there, whether it be because of who they are as a person or just the timing finally worked out.. it kind of seems worth it.