the logical route to messy relationships

For someone who struggles with basic maths, i've always found there has always been something comforting in logic. In the simple understanding that 1+1=2. The result will still be the same, no matter what the possible variables may be.

People, I'm still learning, do not fall into this category.

Unlike the basic comforting notion that x+y=xy, people tend to defy the clear lines of logic that bind algebra. No person I've met has been predictable in their emotions or actions. They all are as equally messy as I am. All with a back story you wouldn't guess.

So when people collide together in the pleasant idea we like to call "friendship," as personalities clash and feelings develop - feelings not necessarily of love or lust, but of affection, of protection, of general caring - things are going to get messy. The initial honeymoon period of the friendship wears off and rather then having this new, exciting person; instead you have this old person who now trusts in your friendship enough to call you on your shit.

But you're not those old friends. Those friends that trust each other and have the advantage of a few years of friendship behind them. You're still figuring the other person out. Still trying to make sense of it. You're trying to apply logic to an illogical question. It doesn't work. You have to work out a new method. And you don't always get it right.

Simultaneously, this person is also trying to establish where your boundaries are. You hope. Because if they're not, does that mean that they don't actually care. And if they don't care, then why did they bother pushing themselves into your life anyway?

Because sometimes shit happens. Sometimes you'll be happily minding your own business, getting on with your life. And this person fights there way into your life and you have no idea the impact they will have. And then, it seems, a few months down the line, all of a sudden, they cast you aside. And you don't have any more choice then you had a few months ago. And it really sucks.

And you can't make sense of it. The logic doesn't apply. But what can you do? The free will element of a democracy and basic manners means that if a person doesn't want to be in your life, they get dibs. They get to call the shots while you're still reeling from the blast; bruised, a little bit broken, a little bit shaken. And it hurts.

Meanwhile, the logic refuses to apply. You both aren't forming the same equation. You've switched stuff around, thrown a few brackets in there, and the result isn't the same.

And you can't go back to how it was without dystroying the page.

Maybe thats the idea behind logic. The realistic, logical route would be to forget it all, to move on. Maybe thats best. Maybe you are your own equation. Or maybe it's just the easiest route to take. It allows you to forget when you need it most. When your self esteem has been knocked around like a football for the past four days. Maybe thats what makes logic so comforting.

Maybe we don't need to know why the realistic approach is easiest. Maybe all we need to know is that it is.