Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.

- Miguel de Cervantes

There’s something comforting about being in a relationship (or at least there should be). Relationships mean that you have someone on your side, someone too talk to about the most mundane topics, someone to fundamentally share your life with, but can comfort work as a relationship crutch? We all know that person or couple that is together simply because it’s easier than being apart; comfort is at the nucleus of their love and who would reject the cushiony arms of comfort?  But equally, we have all heard of that couple that grows resentful due to their high level of comfort of which obstructs their ability to admire and excite one another. Relationships seemed to need to a healthy dose of comfortability, yet it is not the relationship maker.

There’s something disorderly about complete comfort. It’s almost unnerving, it’s like complete silence or complete perfection, life and nature are built around flaws and quirks, and the irony of relationships is that the lack of flaws itself is in fact a major flaw itself. Many studies have concluded that the couple that has never have an altercation undergo an incomplete, warped relationship where neither party is truly expressing fears, desires, disappointments etc; it’s the equivalent to eating the same meal every day, it will ultimately become unendurable.  The 'comfortable' relationship is often based around an emotional or financial need of one another, as discussed in Dating Dissection 0.2 the art of self-love is difficult and testing, but a preventative for relationships built on solace. And of course, the argument is always posed, ‘what is wrong with a comfortable relationship’. Well, that’s where the complexities of human nature become patent; relationships are oddly about knowing that someone has chosen to be with you, the idea that someone needs you because that they can’t be alone withdraws the pleasure of feeling exceptional, even truly loved. Relationships of comfort can also be a tool of security until someone new comes along who truly does excite and admire. What’s the point of being with someone if the essence of them is not more satisfactory as the essence of having a significant other?

I have a friend (of whom shall not be named) who has been with her partner for over 3 years (on and off), and every time they break up and reconcile I ask her why she decided to run around the same hoop she answers ‘It’s easy with him, we know each other, it’s lonely being single’, but when I ask her if she sees him in her future she reveals that she pretty much doesn’t. It’s as if her future is all dependant on whether she meets someone with a little more somethin’ somethin’ so she can get up and leave for good. But oddly enough a future for them is not farfetched; that love of comfort and equally the comfort of love is one that she will struggle to leave for simply nothing or a formidable fresh start. Disorderly relationships play into a similar paradox where both people are dependant on one another even though they are aware that the situation is not ideal; they are not with their ideal person but to be alone or to start again is a feat that they cannot face.  

And so docile relationship do work, they result in marriages, children because primitively some sort of reassuring love is at the root, but the undertone of disorder that lies within the tranquillity begs the question is it the misery of comfort to have partners regardless?