The Dithering of a District Diva

Last week, I celebrated Yasmin Eleby, the 40-year-old woman and folk shero who married herself, thereby breaking the idol of marriage (or, a wedding, more specifically) and freeing herself to focus on achieving and attaining other things (possibly even legal marriage, one day!).

Though marriage and a wedding have not been idols of mine since I broke them at 23 (though only mentally, not with a lavish wedding), Yasmin’s story made me consider what idols I do still struggle with when it comes to romantic relationships.

My idol in dating can best be understood through my favorite TV show, Lost.  In the final season of Lost, *SPOILER ALERTS BUT SERIOUSLY LOST ENDED 5 YEARS AGO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR WATCH IT ALREADY* all the characters are in a parallel universe, a kind of unconscious purgatory where they live the life they might’ve lived had the plane not crashed on the island. It is only once the characters come into contact with their soulmates that their awareness is awakened and they remember their actual lives on the island, how they met the love of their life and how they eventually died. For soulmates Juliette and Sawyer, all they had to do was accidentally brush hands at a vending machine and their consciousness was awakened.

To be perfectly clear: my idol in dating is the idea that when I meet my person, I will recognize him instantly and he will recognize me and our consciousness will be awakened to each other. Like Janet Jackson whisper-sings in her early 90s jam, “Where Are You Now?“: “Now, I understand!” I’ll say, when I meet him. The skies will open and the transfiguration will occur. God will say: “That one, girl!” *Insert eye roll* (Side note: I shared this, using the Lost synopsis above, with my last boyfriend. He rolled his eyes. He’s…no longer my boyfriend.)

So, fine. It’s ridiculous. It’s as ridiculous as all of the agents of patriarchy in Yasmin Eleby’s life who made her believe that within a marriage is where a woman gets her value as a human being and a wedding is the celebration of that value. Except Lost-level instantaneous sparkage has actually happened to me before.

It wasn’t as intense as all of that, but my closest and longest friendships have all been with people whom I instantly clicked with, and while to this day we work at our friendship, have falling outs, learn each other’s love languages and adjust our behavior to respect each other better, we still have the experience of instantly liking each other. Granted, I have clicked with other friends instantly and we are no longer friends today, but that doesn’t erase the reality of the origins of my closest and longest-standing relationships.

I’ve had less success (if staying together is success) in romantic relationships. Even the above-mentioned eye-roller boyfriend and I clicked instantly, so palpably, in fact, that three different people commented to us on what a beautiful couple we were, and this was during our first, and very platonic dinner. But instant chemistry isn’t everything, clearly.

Amazing chemistry is not nearly enough to sustain a relationship. I am very aware that my enduring friendships endure because both I and my friends work diligently on our relationship and how we communicate with and support each other, because we already love each other. We’ve committed to being friends. We’ve established some bare minimum expectations of each other that we both respect or strive to respect and apologize and try to make right when we fall short. That’s why we work. I totally get that.

And still.

I can’t shake the hope that when you know, you know–and you’ll know instantly. It’s not like I’m dismissing dudes left and right because we didn’t instantly spark. The issue is that I’m too eager to get involved with dudes I instantly spark with, particularly because it only happens ever so often. My male friends are all related to me and I don’t see much point in befriending men who will likely just stop talking to you when they get a girlfriend or marry anyway, so putting men in the “instant spark” friendzone with all of my women friends doesn’t naturally appeal to me. If I spark with a man, I assume it’s for a romantic purpose–particularly if that spark is transformative (as best visualized in Lost).

It’s not just about looks (though dangit, a fine man trips me up at least once a year.), my idol is much deeper than that, and therefore much harder to shake. My idol stems from this severe longing to be understood at my core. I don’t feel that even my closest friends necessarily understand who I am. I don’t feel that my family understands who I am. This realization plays probably a much bigger part than I was formerly aware of in why I even started this blog 6 years ago. I long to be understood.

With your soulmate, I have this idea that you won’t have to explain who you are, that the person will just know. They’ll get you. Of course, not all of you all the time, but the essentials. They’ll recognize your value right off. That’s the real spark–that recognition of who you are, that awareness of your specialness being reflected back to you in that person’s eyes.

It’s why I love movies like Cloud Atlas and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because their expressions of soul-level love reflect to me my deepest desire to be fully understood.  And I’ve created this idol, this instant spark of recognition thing that’s supposed to indicate my soulmate/life partner has arrived with full understanding and surprise! It’s not working out for me.

What a crushing weight to put on another human being. Who could ever live up to that?! What emptiness I’m left with, when every single time I have those expectations of a person and they’re not met. Especially when the soulmate I’m looking for is already here.

Who could not only know but understand my innermost being but the One who created me? If Christ knew me before He knit me in my mother’s womb, of course He gets me! Of course He is the real source of what I’m longing for!

But it’s one thing to know this intellectually and another to live life like you believe that. So this is an idol I must break. But I won’t be throwing myself a ceremony like Yasmin or even burning my Cloud Atlas or Lost DVDs to break it. Instead, I’ll make a new effort to see people the way I long for other people to see me. I’ll look for the God in every single person I come across. I’ll work to understand how people feel and why they feel the way they feel and to let them know they are understood and seen.

I don’t mean to suggest I will allow people space in my life whom my spirit says do not belong. Discernment through prayer, fasting and communication with the Holy Spirit is a must. But it’s so easy when we’re caught up in our own stuff to breeze on by or look on through so many people God has put into our lives for a particular reason or season to the point where they’re left feeling unseen, unheard and misunderstood. I can be one less person to make them feel like that.

I can have healthier relationships and enjoy sparking with everyone, including guys I’m dating, without the expectation that the spark means anything more than that the God in me recognizes the God in them. How relaxing it will be when I take my God-sized expectations off the shoulders of mere mortals and myself!

I know all good relationships are hard work. But I’m looking forward to the rest and the peace that I’ll have in relationships once I break this romantic idol.

What are your romantic idols? Share in the comments!

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