The Power of Venn
I’m Tamara. Mother, divorcee, worker. Former military wife and not living in the country where I was born and brought up. Cancer survivor and mother of a cancer survivor. A few years ago I lost over 145lb in weight and have kept most of it off give or take a few glasses of merlot. I’ve experienced a lot of life and love and have learned a huge amount about myself, relationships and what it takes to keep moving forward. Trust me, if there’s an emotional extreme, I’ve experienced it. My friends would tell you I’m sunny, sane, sapient and prone to extreme bluntness. This is pretty much me.
I’m also utterly fascinated by people. Especially their relationships. Relationships with friends, colleagues, children, strangers. But the ones that really interest me are their romantic relationships.
As a single woman, you might guess that I’ve dated a fair bit. It’s true, I’ve been on a lot of dates. But the reality was I wasn’t dating. I was interviewing. I was researching. I sat in coffee shops and pubs talking to and listening to people who were looking for love. Oddly, I became a dating agony aunt to a few, even rewriting their online dating profiles when asked to. Giving them a female perspective on the war of the sexes that is modern dating. (Another article for another time)
Unending curiosity about them, combined with my own romantic ideals helped me form a picture of the relationship I wanted for myself. I call this ideal ‘The Power of Venn’.
Lets start with the idea that all of who I am is represented by a circle. And the same for you. Neither circle is more relevant, more important or more valid than the other. True, my circle is everything to me, as is yours to you. (Once you start thinking that your circle is bigger and more important than someone else’s, you’re pretty much stuffed in any relationship, go back to the start, do not collect £200)
When two people come together and enter into a relationship the circles overlap and there, in the overlap, is what I lovingly call the ‘Sweet spot’
For now I’ll focus on romantic relationships. This model can work in other types of relationships with your children, your colleagues and friends but this began as a romantic ideal so I’ll stay with the theme.
Back to the diagram. The sweet spot IS the relationship. It’s where your life blends with someone else’s. It’s a very important place to you both and hopefully a great place to be. Obviously any relationship will have weird, sticky, boring, tiresome bits but it’s all part of the challenge of being a human interacting with humans. It’s ok.
But what about the rest of you? The rest of your circle? The bit outside the relationship? That part is pretty vital. Traditional ideas of romance would have us believe the only acceptable model for ‘True Love’ is a complete overlapping of lives. A full merger. An eclipse.
In the words of a pop song, “Two become one” Meh. Two become none.
I am so much more than the one relationship. And it’s allowed. It’s a great thing.
In my Personal Space, apart from all my other human relationships with children, colleagues and friends, I am a writer, a crafter, fund raiser, a volunteer, a reader, secret Trekkie, music lover, soduku fiend, a extroverted introvert and a talker. I talk to everyone. I listen to everyone. I form many, many brief connections with strangers who interest me, who return my interest. (Get your mind out the gutter) My personal space is also my much needed introvert time. My quiet alone time is utterly vital to me.
My partner would have absolutely no right to hijack my personal space and make it his. And in the interests of fairness, I’d have no right to do it to him. Our lives outside of the sweet spot doesn’t dilute what we’d have inside it. His daily interactions with others, interests and alone time would take nothing away from me. If I am secure, challenged, fulfilled and excited I will bring those positive qualities to a partnership. On the flip side, if I am bored or insecure about who I am and what my life is, and essentially my circle is barren and empty, what good can it do to bring it into a relationship?
Back to the Venn. I thought this was just common sense thinking, but after listening to the relationship experiences and expectations of all those dates I sat through, I realised that not everyone thinks that way. A lot of people strongly feel a true love relationship means total surrender of self. Completely giving your whole being to another person. Living for them and putting aside other distractions in order to focus only on them.
There’s the other unfortunate extreme. Two lives lived totally independently with one person making no space or room for the other. In that model, there is no real relationship.
The first model, the eclipse scenario is a place of jealousy and insecurity. If your circle is empty, its easier to adopt someone else’s life rather than create your own. It’s easier to control your partners view than to create a view worth looking at. This is a space of ownership and possession of another human. There’s a whole bunch of laws against that kind of thing.
“My cup is empty, I’ll just drink your water.” There may not be enough to satisfy both.
In the second model, one person has filled their life perhaps too much and now cannot or will not find space for someone else. I see this a lot from people who are long term single. I actually have a lot of empathy here. My independence is hard won, I struggle with the idea of sharing what I fought for. It is a place of strength but also fear of the unknown and cowardice. It’s absolutely not selfish to be this way as long as you’re happy to not be in a relationship.
But we are talking about relationships. So the Venn Relationship makes sense to me. I really wanted to tell people it’s amazing to be in love, but you are so much more. The best loves will give you all the space you need to fill your world. I want my partner, my kids, my friends to know this its good and right and healthy to have the biggest life you want and to fill your lives up with everything that challenges, excites and makes you more you.
Love is not an ending. Happy or otherwise.
