Friday, October 10, 2008

The Perfect Relationship

Sometimes the best, most unexpected relationships in life come from places you thought you would never venture too and people that you least expect to ever encounter, only to wonder in the end ‘ Am I seriously capable of anything remotely normal and functional?’

Of the zillion dates and relationships and random hook-ups that I tortured and subjected myself too, the most satisfying, gratifying and fulfilling relationship I have EVER had has been with my ex- roommate ‘N’. Fate brought us together in the most mysterious of ways, I had no idea she was that weird chick that never closed her blinds and walked around naked in her dorm room until I started living with her and observed some striking similarities between the two. A whole three years later she still pranced around naked in our very messy apartment, albeit minus my sense of awkwardness, discomfort and sense of initial shock. Thank you ‘N’ for making me forget my unnecessary and trite sense of modesty. You go around thinking and feeling, imagining and concocting the premise of the perfect romance that will make you truly blissfully only to much later realize that you are actually living it, ironically with someone of the same sex that unfortunately neither consider being in a relationship with or are attracted to.

So ‘N’ and I lived in semi picture-perfect domestic bliss. I cooked and cleaned; she walked the dog and brought the groceries. At the end of each day I would come home from work or class, drop my keys on the table by the door and go ‘Hey Hun how was your day?’

She picked me up from class whenever it was late; we would either listen to love lines on the radio or sing to what ever tape she had in the cassette player on our way back home as we chomped down chicken quesedias from Taco Bell. She was probably the only person I knew, that actually used a cassette player circa 2005. One day we spent hours store hopping around the city looking for a place that sold blank cassettes just so that she could make another one of those god damn mix-tapes that littered the dash board and floor of her old station wagon.
We spend hours being in the same room without saying a word to each other, blissfully occupied in our individual activities, but knowing and aware of each others presence and more importantly being comforted by it. There were no awkward silences between ‘N’ and me, just silences.

I am not ashamed to admit that she made me incredibly happy. We perfectly balanced each other out, my hyper, over-worked and over-anxious self needed someone laid back, happy and content like ‘N’ around to remind me of all the good things in life and once again be encompassed by a sense of quiet satisfaction for no apparent reason. She needed someone motivated and ambitious like me around to encourage her to push herself and always work towards doing better. How do I know this? Well, she told me so.

I would come back from my ballroom dancing class and try to teach her everything new that I had learnt. I would squirm and shriek every time she touched me because it would make me feel ticklish all over. We would giggle like school girls every time our breasts bounced off each other and almost never managed to finish the routine as we were both laughing so hard by then.

We bonded over books and movies and sometimes over common thoughts, ideals and dreams while we let life happen somewhere along the way. We cried together, laughed together, sang together, danced together and lived together, going through all of life’s great and not so great moments with each other somewhere in the vicinity willing to lend a helping shoulder if need be.
Every thing I wanted from my ideal relationship with a man, I got from my relationship with my roommate. Now only if we were attracted to each other or for that matter even the same sex, things would have been hypothetically perfect!

I have always wondered why is it so that the when two women become good friends, the bond that they might share with each other runs a lot deeper and stronger than what we may ever hope to share wit someone of the opposite sex. Is it solely because we happen to share the same gender and therefore by proxy the same organs and hormones that makes us tick, that we are inherently bound together and therefore capable of understanding each others needs and wants a lot better? I have never felt the level of comfort and ease that I had developed with ‘N’ around any of my previous boyfriends, not even the ones that I supposedly loved. Is this because when two women make a committed choice to indulge, include and incorporate each other into their individual lives they are much more willing and able to see the beauty and extraordinariness amongst the most banal and simplest of things?

I just got a really long email from her the other day filled with fond recollections that plastered a nice big smile on my face which was difficult to wipe off at least for a good few hours.
Why I reminisce about ‘N’ after a good two years since we went our separate ways? I don’t know, I just don’t think I need to have any logical and pragmatic reason fondly reflect upon the most sincere, honest, enriching relationship of my life, minus the earth shattering, toe curling sex of course.

3 comments:

Arun Meethale Chirakkal said...

Vow! that's a good read. Yup, the most blessed relationships emerge out of sheer coincidence, vouch for that...

See Bee said...

the last line left me a bit confused - so was it more than friendship?

i can completely relate to your post - wrote something similar here:
http://moretrauma.blogspot.com/2008/02/stuck.html

randomrobin said...

Nope it was always a friendship, sadly I am as hetro as they come, but none the less in the most unconventional of ways it was the best engagement of my life!