Why All Relationships Are Impossible...

So fair warning, this is probably not something you want to read when you’re tired and just want to chill out.

If you’re tired from work or whatever, then the concept I’m going to explain might be a bit full on right now and a bit difficult to wrap your head around, and might even piss some of you off, especially if you don’t read it to the end, but anyway here goes…

Btw, spoiler alert, it’s not the red pill. I think most of you are familiar with the red pill already…

The topic I want to discuss is that all relationships are fundamentally impossible.

Yes, it’s very clickbaity sounding but, allow me to qualify this... One of the greatest myths we’re fed when we’re growing up, becoming a man, is the myth of finding “the one”. “This one girl is out there waiting just for me. One girl who will accept me entirely for who I am. All I have to do is go out and find her”... If your childhood was anything like mine, I’m sure you were fed this bullshit too.

In fact, I remember as a teenager, I would lie in bed dreaming about the day I finally met the girl of my dreams. I would lie there thinking about what she would look like, what her voice sounded like, how she smelled, what her laugh sounded like. Of course we’d be into the same types of stuff. I mean, how could she be my dream girl if we didn’t have everything in common... So, yeah, I full on drank the Kool-Aid on that one.

Now, because of this myth of “the one”, what tends to happen to most guys is that, after years of being stranded in the desert of celibacy, they finally meet a girl who seems to be not completely unpleasant to be around, plus she’s quite happy to let you put your little pee pee inside of her little va-jay-jay. That’s all it takes for most guys to think they’ve found “the one”. The honeymoon period of any relationship is a cruel mistress. Limerence, or being “lovesick” as it’s colloquially known as, is designed essentially to get you to reproduce. It’s designed to make you overlook any flaws in another person, overlook any barrier to making you want to pass on your genes. You’ve got to remember that all your genes want to do is get you to make more of them. And they will hijack your brain in the form of a crush or puppy love to make this happen. So, when the day finally comes that your soulmate looks deep into your big puppy dog eyes and says “I think we need to take a break, I’m just not feeling it anymore”, it comes as quite a shock to most men. “I thought she understood me, I thought we were meant to be, I thought she was the one!”. Now, having lost a couple of “soulmates” in my time, and then having to deal with the crushing grief that goes along with it, I thought I’d share a philosophy that at first, was extremely difficult for me to swallow, but ultimately helped me connect with more people.

And no, like I said before, it’s not the red pill.

But, like the red pill, it is a fundamental, cold hard, painful reality that almost everyone on this planet deep down knows to be true, but tries to ignore, because of how painful it can be to accept.

And that is that all of us, every single one of us, is completely alone…

A lot of pickup coaches love to spout the whole “we’re all connected because we’re all made of stardust” stuff, and that’s all very well and good and it feels very nice and all, but fundamentally, when it all comes down to it, there’s nobody else up here in your head with you (at least there shouldn’t be anyway).

You reside inside your head all by yourself. You’re essentially marooned on an island, and everyone else on this planet is marooned on their island.

It is impossible to have another person live on this island with you. This is exclusively your island, you can’t have visitors. Other people on other islands can attempt to communicate with you, and you can hone your skills at communicating effectively with other islands, but ultimately you are alone.

You are SEPARATE from everyone else in the truest sense of the word and the only way to communicate all the complex things going on between islands are these crude tools that we call speech, tone and body language.

Even if you have Shakespearian levels of articulation, you’re still going to have problems expressing what is accurately taking place on your island. You are a complex multilayered human being having an entirely unique experience on this planet, and conveying effectively all your fears and needs and desires, is a continual challenge for every one of us. So, what I’m saying here is that all relationships come with the inherent futility of achieving total communion, and understanding as much is key to sustaining them. Because, in every relationship, there will always come conflicts that highlight just how unbridgeable the distance is between two people.

So that’s the bad news out of the way. You’re stuck on an island and achieving perfect fidelity with another person is basically impossible because there’s always gonna be misunderstandings and conflict because everyone is different.

However, as with most things to do with relationships, things tend to work counterintuitively, and understanding that relationships are impossible actually makes you better at having relationships.

So, for example, I’m sure you’ve heard the term “co-dependence” before. It’s basically a situation where one person relies too heavily on their partner for their own sense of identity or self approval.

Accepting your inherent separateness, that you are, by design, supposed to operate alone, in isolation and independent of others, empowers you within relationships. You should be with another person not because you need to be, but because you WANT to be.

When you accept that you have always been alone, the fear of breaking up with someone diminishes, and because you have no fear, you can operate with more confidence.

And by the way, when I say all this, I’m certainly not saying that because you’re fundamentally separate from others it’s futile to even try to connect with others. I’m not saying that at all. In fact, I understand very well that finding a deeper connection with another person feels wonderful.

But because of the the overall, unfathomable depth of your character, most people you meet are going to connect with you on quite a superficial level. And when you feel that you’ve connected with someone on a deeper level, this person’s just managed to dig slightly deeper into you than others have. But, in the bigger scheme of who you are as a person, this is still very shallow. In fact, long term relationships are all about the struggle to dig further into someone's character, to attempt to dig through the layers… When you realise we are all inherently alone, that we are inherently separate from one another, that we are individuals with our own agency, no matter how close you think you feel to another human being, it removes the potential feelings of codependency and the myth of the soul mate.

In realising that yes we are all a part of the universe, that we’re all made from the same stuff, but we are all islands that can never be fully mapped and explored by another human being, well then finding someone to relate to becomes easier, not harder. Why? Because when you realise that there’s nobody out there who can FULLY understand you, it gives you the freedom and opportunity to connect with others on SOME level. Yes, to some extent, this does sound like lowering your standards. But it’s actually more like having an inclusive attitude rather than an exclusive one. You’re more willing to except people despite their flaws, to rejoice in finding common ground with someone instead of lamenting that nobody fully understands you. It’s like having a glass half full attitude rather than a glass half empty one.

I think with all the problems that online dating is causing many people these days, where people are becoming increasingly choosy and swiping left on someone just because they said in their profile that they like cats instead of dogs, acknowledging this sense of separateness and understanding that there’s no such thing as a perfect partner is just what we all need these days.

If you’re someone who seems to have plenty of options on the dating market and you’re perhaps struggling with the idea of settling down with one person, realising the futility in trying to seek out your “perfect partner” is a liberating experience. You will never find one person who perfectly aligns with all of your expectations, who fulfils all of your requirements perfectly. And nor should you be looking for the “perfect partner”.

Relationships are inherently a compromise, you’re not meant to find someone that validates and mirrors your current outlook perfectly.

Relationships are meant to challenge us because of the differences they bring to light. They are a meeting of complimentary qualities, not similar ones. As much as I’ve said in many of my videos that I’m completely against the idea of marriage in the 21st century, being able to maintain some form of longer term relationship, with all its miscommunications and conflicts of agendas, is a hugely rewarding and character building experience, if only for the opportunity to develop yourself deeper as a human being. And for those of you who are struggling a bit on the dating market, those guys out there who are just looking for the opportunity to connect with someone, well, the understanding that you are inherently an island may provide you with some piece of mind and also help you focus on developing your own island instead of putting all your energy into trying to connect with another island.

Because, if you focus on that, if you build up your own island and focus on making it as valuable as possible, before too long you’ll find other islands spending a lot of their energy trying to build bridges to yours…