In Defense of Monogamy

I've been reading Brett's Blog. It's generally pretty good.

One of his posts got me thinking about the dating/relationship question. It's kind of popped up in my life a bit over the last week or so, and so last night I wrote a stream of consciousness screed about relationships:

What kind of sucker goes out with someone who understands them? Have you taken a good look at yourself? You are not special, your babble is boring when you're not fucking, and any good looks you have are a temporary combination of luck and money. Have you seen your grandparents? That's what you'll look and act like in 60 years.

Now think of your partner as a mirror. When you understand them, you understand yourself. Your grandparents are miserable because they understand each other. They fucking get it. They are not special, their partner is not special, and their donation to charity has just as much moral value as Pol Put taking a living fetus out of a pregnant woman, drying it over a fire, and using it as a charm to ward off evil.

Give me monogamy and glorious blindness any day.

I guess the point that I ended up aiming for was the importance of self-deception in our lives. Think of everything we use to hide from reality: movies, sports, booze, sex, drugs, music, television...

We use these methods because they are effective. Instead of contemplating the pointlessness of the college system, or how many people died when that hurricane hit Mexico, I spent the ride home from school thinking about Decemberist lyrics. How fucking awesome is that?

Though, as I write these last few lines, I start to doubt my assertions. I may write about the self-deception thing more optimistically at a later date, after reading Neil Gaiman instead of Warren Ellis.

PS: I just reread the last paragraph of my Drrrrrunk post, and it's fucking awesome.