A Deeper Way

What do you wish you’d known about love? 

I used to think the kiss was the most romantic part of wedding. Now I listen to the vows and think, oh my gosh, you have no idea what’s coming. The best-case scenario is that you’ll still be together when one of you dies. What you’re really promising is to each other through difficult times — in sickness and in health. It’s very romantic to me that what you’re signing up for all of those hard things: the work of long-term love, the inevitable loss, the decision not to leave when things get tough, the beauty of suffering together. The romance is actually in the hard part, not the kiss. ♥

Why is it difficult for some people to ask for their needs to be met in a relationship? 

For the last hundred years it so we’ve trained children not to ask for anything, because it is a nuisance. Children are told, “those that ask don’t get.” And then as an adult they think they’d be selfish if they said, “it makes me feel better when you text before you go to sleep to say goodnight.” It doesn’t sound much to ask, does it? But somehow it feels enormous, because of small comments like, “I’ve told you twice not to call me after bedtime.” Parents don’t do this hatefully. They think they’re doing it so you don’t become an annoying litter asker, but it makes you into one. Because if you don’t ask for your need to be met, they won’t be, and that can make you needy. 

What do you wish you’d known about love? 

That I needn’t worry about not being good enough. And that love is about finding a home. Our parents aren’t going to live for ever, so I think we need to find a tribe, a family, a community, or a group that feels like home. A place where we feel seen, and where we can see. In my twenties, I lost myself in romantic relationships. So, in my thirties, I was determined not to change for anyone. But my sister, Nilam showed me that part of falling in love is letting another person have an impact on you. You’re not rigid and unchanging, she told me, you’re altered by each other, “like two stones rubbing together until suddenly they fit.” The important distinction? When you want to change to keep a partner interested, that’s “adaption,” which is bad because you’re bending your identity to please another. Whereas when you change alongside another person, that’s “mutual impact”, because you’re not putting on an act to please anyone. Instead, you’re growing, individually and together. 

Truth, I think, is the core of love. As a woman, Nilam my sister told me, “When you can get to the truth, even if it doesn’t resolve the actual issue, you are connected in some way.” And when we don’t tell the truth — when we perform or pretend in love, or try on different versions of ourselves to get someone’s approval — we invite loneliness in. Although we are trying to attract love, really we’re blocking it. Instead of trying to be known and seen, we are hiding, holding back. 

The obvious solution is to not pretend to be someone you’re not, while still allowing space for the person you are dating to get to know you (and vice versa). Most of us know this. Some of us still avoid it. Because being yourself in a relationship is a risk. It means showing someone the real bits of who you are — the spots beneath the make-up; the self-doubt beneath the cynicism — and finding the courage to say, “This is me. Take it or leave it, and to really mean it. 

The author Juno Dawson is someone who took that risk and who was prepared to walk away in order to be fully herself. It was a decision she reached after years of doing the opposite: for the first twenty-nine years of her life Juno presented to the world as a man. It wasn’t until she transitioned that she could finally live at herself, as a woman, and stop putting on a performance in her relationship — and in her life. So I wanted to know: how did being her true self change her experience in dating? And did this honesty make it easier for her to let real love in? 

What do you wish you’d known about finding love? 

It’s like mixing paint: sometimes when you mix two people together they make a horrible color. Some people do bring out the absolute worst colors in you and, if that’s the case, it’s the relationship that’s flawed, not you. You’re not meant to lose sleep or cry over love. You shouldn’t have to fight for it. If it feels like a fight, don’t waste your time. 

Juno, the author reminded me that we have to keep trying to understand the truth of how we feel — the reason why a small criticism upsets us, or why we sulk when we are feeling insecure. There will always be temptations to hide from ourselves. 

The important thing is to notice them, to resist them, and to keep finding ways to be honest in our relationships. (Oh, and to also remember the lesson that could save many years of unnecessary suffering: that no one is ever too busy to reply to a text message.)

What does real intimacy in relationship mean to you? 

People see me as very strong, but I am not. I’m vulnerable and I’m fragile, and intimacy is being able to show that to a partner, and he seeing me for who I am, in moments of joy and pain. It’s about a partner understanding I can be anxious and depressed, but also wild and shy and silly and fearful. When a partner see all those part of me, and guide me through him, gently and with time? That’s real intimacy. And it goes both ways: a partner and can call to say, “Hey, sorry I am not being very fun at the moment, and I’ll say, “I don’t require you to be fun. You’re not a performing monkey. I’m here for the good and the bad and everything in between.” True partner see through any level of performance or denial or avoidance. 

As your career has grown and you’ve become busier, have you had to find new ways to invest in that love? 

When I was at university my phone was always in my hand. I was always on call for friends. Now, because of work and the demand of adult life, sometimes I can’t be that person. But what’s more important than replying to a message instantly is to give someone your absolute attention and focus when you do speak. I hope my partner know I have time for them, even if it can’t always be the exact time they need me to be there. One thing I’ve learnt is that, just because I know how I feel about my partner, it doesn’t mean they automatically know that. If I don’t message for a few days, it’s not because I don’t care, it’s because I am a bit overwhelmed. Or sometimes because depression makes me feel I don’t have anything interesting to say. 

That’s something I am working on: understanding how people see me, understanding myself, and vocalizing how I feel, rather than assuming people know. So if I feel depressed, rather than disappearing, I’ll say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed at the moment so I might go quiet for a bit.” The action is the same, but I am communicating it. That’s an important distinction. 

What did falling in love with your partner teach you about building a relationship? 

My partner and I spend a ton of time together, but we accept each other’s limitations every day. Being in a good relationship requires that. There’s always going to be stress on your day-to-day life, which makes it easy to push a partner away. To me, it’s like you build a private religion with another person, and honesty and vulnerability have to be a part of it. You have to revisit what you each need and are afraid of. And tolerating someone else’s vulnerability is a challenge if you’re a tough person. I’m pretty tough, but I still have to encourage my partner to look at how he feels and unpack it, and then be patient with what he finds. He is three years older than me and sometimes he complains about how his body gets tired easily. I have terrible leg issue  too, or skin allergy issue too, so I understand but I don’t complain when both of us are not feeling well. The problem is, if you say to yourself, “I don’t want to hear about your pain because I don’t complain about mine,” then that’s the death of love. You have to be tolerant and give the other person what they need. 

If you don’t do that, it’s easy for both of you to drift into your own worlds and to stop sharing yourselves. There is a callus that’s always threatening to build up, and you have to break it down as a team together, again and again. 

Your partner is several different people, and you have different relationships with each of them. Some of them are great and some of them are annoying. Either way, you have to keep trying to take all the beauty and complexity that lie inside those many layers and versions of someone, then accept them and bring them out. That includes listening to them complain about their tiring work and body! Because to be in love is to recognize meaning in small, mundane moments. When someone grumbles about their body and work, that is part of your gift of their complex and gorgeous world. They are character in the play of your life. And maybe maiming is how that character manages to keep despair at bay, and to exist. 

The weird little grumbly sounds you and your partner make to each other are their own strange poetry, and you have to try to approach those signifiers as rich, valuable and funny. It’s not always easy. But the best definition of happiness is the ability to approach your life as this gorgeous, unfolding work of art that’s always changing, and never quite what you expect it to be, and then seeing that it’s more beautiful than anything that’s supposedly perfect and pristine. 

So learning to love someone for all their faults and layers of weirdness is a way of learning to be alive, fulfilled and satisfied with the life that you have. 

Let’s keep on prioritizing each other. 

Love, 

Elista x