The Honeymoon Phase

Hades Kidnapping Persephone. The Greek origins of a winter wasteland.

Honeymoons originated in India as a way for newlyweds to voyage and visit relatives who weren’t able to make the ceremony. Today they’re great for travel agents as couples are willing to jailbreak their savings to get it on in paradise for a week.

The “Honeymoon Phase” is a requiem coined by modern day chick magazines for the novelty of new relationships. It’s a spark plug that ignites intractable passion and tenderness, and it can convert even the most modest adults into dry humping eighth graders. It’s the era of good feelings, the Pax Romana: No one can do wrong, and somehow everyone is right. Anyone who’s been there can tell you nothing blooms with the luminosity of new love. And anyone who’s been a mere witness can testify that nothing else can make you feel like you’ve eaten your weight in Seven-Eleven Hot dogs and refried beans. Isn’t it funny how everyone else’s PDA is gross?

So life is suppose to be cyclical right? And nothing lasts forever. The prophecy preaches that passion, like the full moon, wanes until it blends with the night. Your sex life freezes into the tundra of predictability as its gusto is abducted to Hades by gritty debates over the color of bathroom rugs, or the dinner menu: Chicken or chicken? And your partner’s cute little quirks, the way he forgets to zip his fly or her addiction to malapropisms, can one day urge you to lobotomize yourself.

People get bored in their relationships because they stop trying, and they stop because they try so hard to maintain an ideal reflection of perfection. It’s exhausting, and makes it that much easier to get comfortable and take it all for granted. Like collapsing in bed after working ten days straight. When the act drops, and the makeup washes way, it can be a bit of a jolt to see him fight to the death at a restaurant about a sixty cent over charge, or that she actually farts in bed. Your fun loving, nonchalant nymph can become an overnight pain in the ass. Not that you should belch the alphabet on a first date, but make sure it’s you she falls for, and not some Ken doll that wants to be a real boy.

Then of course there is a breed that lives for the honeymoon. These are people who jump through relationships without ever crossing the threshold of commitment. They thrive on that high that comes from meeting a new person until, like a crack addict, the novelty wears off and they go in search of their next hit. They're absurdist, they're alright with me. They don't bother anyone, and they jump ship before things get too serious anyway. Isn't the best divorce the one that happens before the marriage?

I am not really sure how long the “honeymoon phase” lasts. I have ballpark figures ranging from five months to two years. Today is my fifth month with Michele. A few days ago she mentioned how “they” say our honeymoon is almost over. We both agreed it was rubbish because if you’re truly compatible those first few months don’t have to be a parry of highs and withdrawals. Though we had our biggest fight recently, like all of them, it only started because we can’t be together at will not because we can’t stand each other.

It could be that the distance is working in our favor for once. It’s impossible to get sick of someone you barely see (unless you’re being audited or something). But I think it has to do more with the fact that we spent two years being friends first, which makes it seem like we’ve been together much longer. We sort of skipped the honeymoon, contracted its finest qualities, and sowed them into our lives.

As much as I wanted to hook up with Michele when I first met her, I am convinced it’s probably the best thing that could of happened. (Or maybe I just say that because I was just too chicken shit to make a move.) We spent two years being us for better or worse, so when it came time to date, it would have been futile and foolish to act like Clark Gable. There were no surprises. Obviously there are many things left for us to learn about ourselves, but in our case, we did the boring stuff first before releasing the raging hormones.

Not that I am implying you have to be BFF’s with someone before you date. Many people can’t even cross that line with “friends.” For Michele and I, it was just a matter of unpredictable circumstance. I met her, saw her for two days, and she was gone. We hit it off, and the butterflies were always there, but a lot of things were left unsaid. I doubted I would ever see her again until the day she messaged me on iChat. At that point we both had our lives, so it started as an online friendship that eventually grew too big for its container.

The “experts” say when the gas fizzles, the relationship’s true weight is exposed, and it’s time to either press forward or retreat. They say a true partnership eventually hatches from a cocoon of infatuation, and that once its established, lust can wait in the welfare line.

They’re not wrong, but they don’t have to paint a nuclear wasteland either. If sex is all you had to begin with, then it will get boring. It can’t be your number one scoring option. However if the bedroom acts as a facilitator and projects the vitality of your commitment, then it ages better than wine.

But it’s true that at some point a relationship has to be evaluated by variables that dig deeper than sexual compatibility or a mutual taste for kung-fu movies. A shared sense of direction is needed. This is the time to see if your goals and ambitions will be derailed by your partner’s, or vice versa. If one wants to be a suburban schoolteacher with a family, and the other wants to be the most interesting man in the world, then you’re both fucked.