I recently went through the files on my computer where I store all my unposted blog entries. There are dozens and dozens of entries I started and never got around to either finishing or posting for some reason. I decided that I might as well salvage and publish some of the better ones. Here's an entry begun but not posted some time in 2006.
Several years ago a friend confided to me that certain problems he faced in a relationship were due in part to the fact that he too quickly arrives at the point "where you see the other person as a comfortable old piece of furniture you can take for granted and don't really have to think about."
I contemplated this notion a moment before speaking. "I don't think I've ever gotten to that point," I said.
The friend settled back in his chair, which was not particularly comfortable. "Really," he said archly. It was a skeptical challenge more than a curious request for information.
"Really," I said. "It has to do both with how I see people and how I see furniture. It's not that I'm a nicer person than you or anything, because the point I arrive at is the point where I think, 'You are an ugly piece of junk and I can't bear looking at you any more and my life would be so much better if I could get you out of my house and replace you with something that isn't hideous and uncomfortable,' which is how I feel about the couch I have now. I hate my couch. I mean I hate it. It was old to begin with, and now my cat has shed all over whatever parts of the upholstery she hasn't shredded. I really want to throw it out and replace it."
I thought about the conversation in the days that followed. It helped me understand something about what I want from the people I rely on and the objects I recline on, and how I hope to respect both.
It's hard not to take furniture for granted, in that you expect to come home and find it where you left it. But I have furniture I really like--my bed, for instance--and I still feel pleasure contemplating it. First of all, the frame has sentimental value: a double, it was the frame my parents bought when they first got married, and it was bequeathed to me in 1980 when I was a senior in high school. Secondly, the mattress is relatively new and very comfortable. Third, I maintain my bed in a way that gives me pleasure: I make it every morning shortly after I get out of it so it looks nice all day, and I like the bedspread (dark green chenille) and pillows with which I adorn it. Finally, I like sleep, so it's rewarding to head to my bed at the end of the day. So I don't think it can be said that I fail to treat my bed with the respect or appreciation it is due, and a lack of respect and appreciation are what's going on when you take something for granted.
Maybe part of what makes it easy for me not to take my best friends for granted is that I expect them to be worthy of my respect in that I don't generally form strong bonds with evil people who lie, cheat, steal and spout bullshit crap about stuff they don't understand; instead, I try to choose friends who are thoughtful, decent people with interesting ideas about the world and the ability to express and explore those ideas. I don't like to hang out with people who are erratic or unreliable, because such people are annoying and hard to deal with, but I do like people who surprise and challenge me intellectually. I don't need a lot of variety in terms of activities or venues for those activities if what a friend has to say over dinner or after a movie amuses, informs or stimulates me. But if someone's an asshole with nothing interesting to say, I can't maintain respect for him/her. I find it hard to integrate people or things I don't respect into the landscape of my life; instead of finding them comfortable and familiar, I find them bothersome at best and loathsome at worst, and I want them to go away.
Which isn't to say that all my friendships have to be intense intellectual interactions with uber-reliable people. Sometimes I have to find ways to appreciate what people are willing to offer me, and I am then the richer for it.
That old couch I hated, for instance--it wasn't long after the conversation with the friend that I replaced the couch as an indoor piece of furniture, and moved it out to my porch in Erie, where my relationship to it was much altered. First of all, it transformed my porch into a place where I could take a nap and feel like I was almost outdoors. Hidden under a tarp for most of the year, and covered the rest of the year with a flannel sheet that could washed easily whenever it got too dusty, that couch caused me no resentment and even brought me considerable pleasure.
Whereas the friend and I have parted ways, and I didn't mind, because I started to dislike him as much as I hated the couch when it was still in my living room. Truth be told, I miss my porch and the couch on it more than I miss him.
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