Today, some thoughts on "relationship capital." I can't deny it's one of the most important "investments" someone can make, but at the same time, potentially one of the most costly (if things don't turn out the way you'd hoped they would). Maybe that's the beauty of a real relationship, though - the knowledge that what you have is remarkably real and that the distance you have to "fall" should anything happen is so much larger than it is for anything else in life. What compells people to build this "relationship capital" though? I remember there was once I was perfectly happy - and perfectly single; perhaps it was the golden year of my life, my senior year of high school. Something (or rather, someone) pulled me away from that state of happiness, having unconsciously convinced me that it would be "better" to pursue something different. I was depraved enough, I think, not to really expect nor want anything out of "love," and one person changed my mind. I'm still trying to figure out what it was that pushed the happy me into letting go and accepting that risk for the off chance that I could be even happier. Maybe it's something that's innate, or maybe it's conditioning from all those damn Disney movies. Maybe it's a mixture of both, I don't know.

I think the fact that I understand how difficult it is to slowly get yourself to the point where you're comfortable with investing so much in "relationship capital" has made me a lot more sympathetic to when I hear about what it is that "ruins" the "investment" so to speak. Things that go wrong - little things that snap and make you fall so hard towards nothingness from the perch you took so long coaxing yourself to and being comfortable with. It's easier to fall off the higher branches of a tree and it hurts a lot more too. I think knowing what that's like also allows me to be devastated when I hear of another being shot off that high perch. Sometimes you sit there and look around and realize that it's so easy to fall off. You wonder sometimes whether it's almost better to crawl back down to the safer space of being alone, out of love to where you can't be hurt and you can never run the risk of it. But then again, that would be cowardice. So here I sit. And yeah, I'm comfortable here.