I Want the Steel Beam of Relationships

As seen on Medium.

When I embarked on the process of buying and renovating my first home, I was met with the following sentiment: You’re going to hate your contractor. You’re going to spend way more money than you want to. It’s going to be awful.

In the case of my house, I’d already bought the thing, so I was pretty motivated to not have the renovation process be so miserable. But a similar thing happened when I began dating as an adult, except in that case I was met with: Dating is the worst. The apps are awful. It’s impossible to meet anyone in person.

Phenomenal. Celibacy is looking quite attractive, along with renting.

Whenever I experience such extreme negativity in any form or context — be it home ownership or love — it makes me pause, and then (often) call bullshit. My general line of questioning is: Is that really the case? What makes you say or believe that? Does it really have to be that way?

When it came to my house, I thought, “Ok, if most people have a less than positive experience, what can I do to skew mine in the other direction?” I wasn’t quite sure as I got started meeting with architects and contractors, but slowly answers started to surface.

It was tempting to ignore the misogynistic remarks of one potential contractor who had numerous glowing reviews, or the slow response time and harried email language of another whose initial proposal was much cheaper. How bad could those things really be? I could put up with that to save some money, right?

We do this in dating, too. We witness red flag after red flag. We incessantly Google “What red flags should I look for on a date?” and promise ourselves that the next time we spot them, we’re out. But the issue is never spotting them. It’s whether or not we choose to pay attention to them.

My work in dating was never fueled by an attempt to become really good at it or labeled as some type of expert. My desire, always, was to experience less pain and misery in my own dating life because I believe as capable, whole, thoughtful human beings, we have the capacity to do that in any area of our life, permitted we take the time and courage to look at the issue more closely.

Last month an old fling came back into my world. We had a fun dinner followed by a cozy tea. On our walk back to the subway, he asked me to come upstairs. He looked good, really good. Much like the cheaper renovation deal, the offer was very, very tempting. But I also knew as nice as the hookup would be, it would leave me tired and deflated. This person doesn’t desire children, isn’t sure if he wants long term partnership, and ultimately has values that are vastly different than mine. To be fair, sometimes I do want the short term pleasure. I do find it to be worth it. It is what serves me best. But in both these case? Not so much.

Maybe that seems a little obvious, more so in the case of house building. But I’m consistently struck by how much we claim (myself included) to want commitment, respect, partnership, and then flit around — even if just via text or Instagram — with that which is less than. That which gives us the brief high but nothing substantial. Nothing long lasting. Nothing that has the potential to create a solid foundation and deep roots. How quick we are to lie to ourselves about these things, too.

In the case of my contractor, I wasn’t as easy to lie. For better or worse (or until I decided to sell it), this house and I were tethered. We were in a relationship. But I’d actually already begun thinking about that when I made the purchase.

There’s steel beam that runs the length of my house. It was part of the original foundation. When I first went to look at the property, my mom, whose renovated four homes in her lifetime, remarked “This house, it’s so level.”

That’s the feeling I want when I stand side-by-side with someone.