Two Day Magazine

By: Mia Bencivenga

Picture this, if you will…you’ve just divorced your wife of over six years.

And, oh the pain and the vulnerability you must be feeling! The excruciating shame that one can experience when something like a marriage fails! Especially considering it was your infidelity that may or may not have broken up the marriage... Ah, surely, these are emotions that almost any individual in this kind of a situation would feel.

Yes, the time it will take you to heal will most likely be extensive; you’ll probably need at least six months of Ben and Jerry’s good old fashion ice cream therapy to recuperate from what has proven to be an arduous, traumatizing process.

But maybe, just maybe, someday you will reemerge from all of this, stronger than ever. And perhaps, find the will to love again.

And of course, you want to be kind to your now ex-wife, whose life you shared for almost a decade, by being considerate when you do meet that special someone. Because after all, that’s just common decency…

Or you could just not give a shit. And instead, immediately rebound with another lady, romancing her throughout Europe whilst giving your technically-not-yet-ex-wife a virtual middle finger by tweeting pictures of you and your new squeeze, canoodling with each other over the holidays, looking oh so warm and fuzzy and in love with your matching sweaters. You know, handle things the classy way.

Now, for most human beings, option two isn’t really even a viable option, as most of us do not have the money or time to go schmoozing about a foreign country in order to sweep a newfound flame off of her feet, and well, onto her back.

However, our monetary constraints don’t stop many people to hop from the strangle hold of an ex into the arms of a new lover.

Ideally speaking, one would hope that even if we don’t have good intentions, most of us wouldn’t even want to “get back on the horse” so to speak, right after a divorce. Especially after a messy and particularly painful one.

So why is it that, with increasing frequency, you hear about recent celebrity divorcees, ( or simply normal divorcees) jumping into relationships within mere months or even weeks of their marriages dissolving?

Well, some would say that if you are a celebrity, then you have numerous things at your disposal…One of these things being that well, a lot of people want you, for one reason or another, and they want you unconditionally, no matter what you look like or how you treat others; they want you simply because of your fame and fortune.

However true this might be, it doesn’t explain why us common folk are relationship hopping with vigor equal to that of a narcissistic celebrity. Perhaps this is just my biased observation, caused by too much time on my hands, musing while watching the Inside Edition, and listening to Fiona Apple to the point of insanity--but lately, now more than I’ve ever noticed before, people seem to be addicted to love and relationships, and especially to the drama and tumult that goes with them.

Why else do you see your people who have gone through horrendous break ups and subsequent breakdowns, jump right into the arms of yet another lover? One would that that one once experiencing pain, one would shy away from that very thing that brings them pain. This would be a perfectly healthy response. However, this response, I’m finding, is becoming less and less common.

It’s as if we are being taught that relationships are always the solution, and never the problem. And so the cycle of love and madness goes on. And thus, even those who have recently gone through something as painful as a divorce, seem to be eager to fall in love and do it all over again.

Of course, these types of insane human interactions go all the way back to that ill-begotten love triangle between Adam, Eve, and one especially smooth talking serpent--but why has it become so much more frequent and pronounced as of late? Why are more and more people, especially celebrities, so incredibly consumed by their romantic life, that they negate the pain that it causes them?

As I blogged about last week, social networking sites are, in my opinion, the main culprit for a lot of bad behavior becoming more pronounced…They allow you to project a public image of yourself, even if you are not a public figure. It’s as if you are putting on a show for everyone, a show that you are writing and staring in all by yourself. And because of this, I’m afraid, people want to put on a good show. But it goes deeper than that.

We’ve become an incredibly superficial society, so much so that even relationships have taken on a kind of trophy-esque quality. On almost any social networking site, you can display the fact that you are in a relationship, and in some cases, their photo and information. We want someone to want us, as if it proves to the world that we can be wanted. Even if we aren’t in the right head space for a relationship, now, more than ever, we feel the need to prove ourselves to the world, via our romantic life.

We’ve come to the place where we are not only judged for our looks and our character, but also the looks and character of our significant other. And if you’re single, well, what does that say about you?

People have always been hopeless addicts to romance. It’s in our nature to long to be loved, to put aside our logic for what we think will be the very thing that will fulfill us. However, the added pressure of being judged for your relationship status reinforces the fact that, why yes, you are in fact incomplete if you are alone. So, my dear friend, you better get someone quick, because if you don’t lock someone down soon, your chances at happiness may be gone forever.

And thus, the madness of falling in love, breaking up, and finding someone else, becomes accelerated by things that have nothing to do with love or romance at all. Rather, it’s become a status driven, superficial type thing, which, in my opinion, defiles love rather than encourage it.

Maybe it’s just me, but this is the vibe I’ve been getting from others as of late. The funny thing is, it’s not just people my own age that I’ve been getting this from, but in some cases, its their parents, as well. It’s as if everywhere you turn, people are pushing you to find someone. It’s tiring and confusing. And honestly, I wish we’d all just chill out.

So until that happens, I think I’ll just keep my “relationship status” hidden on Facebook, and if I ever fall in love, there’s no way in hell twitter will ever know about it. But most importantly, I think I’ll do what some people have a really hard time doing.

Be content with being alone.
 
I’ve noticed that people who aren’t their own best friend, tend to be in and out of bad relationships a lot. And no one deserves that. In the end, you really have to be your own best friend.

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Catch up with mia on Twitter where she won't be professing her love @miasminirants.

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