Is it important to put labels on everything?
I’ve been seeing just one person for a long stretch of time now; much longer than most other relationships that I’ve been in. But I still can’t seem to bring myself around to putting a label to things. I still don’t want to call what we have a relationship even thought from the outside looking in, it practically looks like a relationship already. I don’t want to be pressured into attaching a label to what we have and here’s why.
I just think that labels are a big waste of time. They are overvalued. They are mere formalities that are just downright unnecessary. I don’t need a label on my shirt to constantly remind me which store I bought it from. And attaching a label to whatever it is that we have right now won’t necessarily bring any substantial change, would it? Everything is still going to seem the same. There won’t be much difference in how we go about spending time with one another. It won’t dramatically intensify our feelings for one another. Putting a label to things will change nothing well, at least nothing that’s actually worth giving a damn about.
I also feel like putting a label to things puts a limit or a stranglehold on whatever we have with one another. If we consider ourselves to be in a relationship, does that mean that we are putting a ceiling on our dynamic together? I feel like if I put a label to what we have, I am also essentially damning our connection into something simplistic. I know that what we have is something inherently deep. It’s something complex and I would be doing it a great disservice if I just simplify everything into a single label. Because I know that whatever label I choose to attach to what we have, we are always going to be something more than that; infinitely more than that.
They also tell me that all relationships come with expectations and I hate that. Expectations only set us up for disappointment and I don’t want that for any of us. And I know that the moment I put a label to what we have, with that label comes an attachment of expectations some of them unreasonable and unmanageable. These expectations are only going to mess things up by prematurely getting our hopes up. I think it’s much better to rid ourselves of these unwanted expectations by just taking things as they come and letting things naturally progress as we go along.
Everything is going just so smoothly at the moment and I feel like adding a label to things might only complicate things to a place where I won’t want it to. It’s a plain fact that things just get really unnecessarily complicated as soon as labels start getting thrown up in the air. Labels have a tendency to start dictating the dynamics of a relationship even when it should be the other way around and I don’t want any of that. I would like to exclude myself from such dramatic narratives.
I also don’t want to get that feeling of entitlement that people get whenever they start attaching a label to things. As if putting a label on a relationship automatically grants them inalienable rights that they can invoke at any moment in the relationship. I don’t want to end up feeling complacent with my partner. I don’t want them to think that I think that I’m entitled to a sense of ownership and control over their own lives. And I don’t want to give them a reason to actually feel a sense of ownership over my own life as well. At this moment, I feel like labels would only make things so much worse and I just don’t want that. At this moment I am infinitely happy. And a label would make things infinitely chaotic.
I’ve been in a relationship of sorts for quite a few months now. I use the words of sorts because while it’s a relationship, at least by Merriam-Webster’s definition, I’d really rather not call it a relationship. In fact, I’d actually rather call it anything else at all in the world.
And maybe I’m just not a relationship type of person. Perhaps I’m unconventional. Is that such a bad thing? There are so many couples all around the world who took the conventional route and they still ended up having to breakup. Who is to say what method is effective? Who is to say what path is better? I won’t be so naГЇve to think that it will make things easier for me if I refuse to put a label to things. But I won’t be so gullible to believe that following a specific set of steps in a relationship will ensure success either.
At the end of the day, I just think that feelings and emotions will trump whatever labels and packages we wrap them around with.
