So, yes, after two weeks to the day+1, I am writing about break ups. This is not to defame ANYONE, really it isn't. But I feel like I have had this conversation with people a lot over the past two weeks, and I want to write about it. In a Carrie Bradshaw-esque moment (and yes, I have been religiously watching season 2) I ask: when is it the friends' responsibility to tell you what the fuck your significant other may or may not be doing with someone else when you are not around? I preface this with a caveat, which is, not all relationships are monogamous(2 people in a loving committed hetero/homo normative relationship), I don't even pretend to think that this is a norm for everyone, but if you have established monogamous norms, for your relationship, and especially if mutual friends are involved, do they have a responsibility to divulge when a little "sunthin sunthin" is happening to your unsuspecting mind?
When having these conversations, I have received varied response: some people not wanting to get involved in the private relationships of others; others feel a sense of gratitude when someone told them; while others do not tell out of more loyalty to one person over the other; while yet another feels the need to tell out of necessity for authentic community building. These are just a few of the responses, and honestly, I cannot say I have ever officially been put in a situation, although I tend to make my speculations about these things known. But why do I do this?
Because to me, no matter how hard you try to keep your relationship private, relationships are always public. Your friends/family/strangers on the street help build and maintain healthy functioning relationships. So these folks know many of the interworkings (although not all, and many would deny their involvement), especially if and when you fight in front of them, but relationships are public for many reasons. To me this is because relationships build off of affective ties to one another, impulses of relationality that drive people together or apart. So this complicates things right? I mean if relationships are public, then when you begin to form new relationships with people, the energy-the chemistry-the affective impulse becomes recognizable, even if you are pretending it is not there. Now, this is something people who are closer to the relationship, like friends and family can pretend not to detect, but affect is PUBLIC, so it is there. To me this also means, that the relationship becomes open for some sort of public consumption/judgement and thus, it is free reign for people to talk about, especially to the other person who is in the relationship. So once these affective ties are noticed, is there any responsibility for these outside folks to intervene.
Traditional marriage values would say yes. At weddings they always ask the crowd/audience/churchy folks if they will support the relationship that is being sanctioned by the state and often the church. While, I am not for these rigid confines of religion, there is something to be said about making relationships public. There are also problematics with this, only some people are allowed to make the relations public while others are not, or because certain relationships are more valued than others. So I don't want to fall on this faulty logic outright but, it seems a smart way to go to have those around you who care about you, keeping your best interest at heart. And this shouldn't have to be achieved through a wedding or marriage either.
Of course, there are moral and ethical implications and no one really likes being the center of conflict or controversy. But I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out there. Even if there are mutual friends, PICK A SIDE! Of course this reinforces a binary of one or the other and isn't as transgressive as many of my queer political leanings would normally entail, but when a break-up happens, (and only temporarily perhaps) PICK A SIDE!
My advisor's signature line of her e-mail reads, "Refusal to take a moral stand is itself a powerful statement of one's moral position" (Dwight Conquergood). And in the sense of break-ups there should be no less commitment to taking a stand for one side or the other. I am not saying it needs to be that way forever, but the dumb thing is, people choose sides all the time and then say they are not choosing those sides. So just be honest: You knew the other person longer, you don't like the one who was a cheater pants, you are more loyal, whatever...but pick a side. It's ok, in this white civil world to sometimes take a stand and break those stupid norms. Plus, the person who was broken up with, probably needs some friends who hate the dumper-at least for a minute. Be that friend/family member and then let the dumpee decide when you can stop the hating and start the reloving. If you are the dumper, you should recognize that this is o.k. for the time being. Sometimes friendship isn't a free for all and you have to take one for the team. That's what a good friend would do...
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