Dear reader,
Today’s newsletter is a transcription of the relationship Q&A session that T. and I did over a 24-hour period while we were on the road together. This collaborative share is saved to my highlights on Instagram under “LOVE Q&A” and I recommend you “experience” it there if you can. There are pictures. There are even videos of T., who does not have a fancy tracking device, talking very candidly into the camera on my fancy tracking device.
The Q&A lives here for readers that do not have Instagram (we salute you), for readers that plan to delete Instagram (you’ve got this), or for readers that appreciate closed-captions, which I unfortunately did not include in the aforementioned videos.
The Q&A also lives here in case we collectively wish hard enough for its disappearance and someday wake up to find that Instagram has vanished à la Sissy Spacek in the 1994 flop, The Mommy Market.
Before I get to it, I want to share a newsletter by Marlee Grace, titled Retired from love: the privacy of falling, that came out immediately after I flung my relationship into social media’s arms/death grip.
“I am retiring from the job of writing about dating,” Marlee writes. “I won’t fill my feed with the next person I date or how they change me for better or worse. I will leave it out of my job.”
When I first read their words, I internalized it immediately. My heart sank. What have I done?
I wondered if I had lost touch. I wondered if I had taken yet another thing — a thing most sacred to me! — and objectified or reduced it without thinking twice. Shit piss fuck, I thought.
The letter continues,
“…whatever is next and whoever fills my cup I want to take great care that they have nothing to do with my income, my public image, or a factor in how I choose what to share or not share.
My queerness, my worth, my gender, and my complete sense of self became tied to the projection of my partnership towards thousands of people. It created a vortex where I couldn’t see the top from the bottom or the in from the out. I was so busy painting the picture of what I wanted my life to feel like that I backed myself into a corner where I could see no way out.”
Full of anguish, I questioned if I had fully considered the consequences of being so transparent. I felt shame. I even wrote Marlee and said something along the lines of “Shit piss fuck.”
I considered deleting everything. I want to take great care of he who fills my cup! I want to make sure he doesn’t have anything to do with my public image. I want to distinguish top from bottom, in from out!
But it was too late to un-do what I had done. Thousands of eyes had already seen the stories. Moreover, somewhere deep down, I knew that impulsively erasing everything would have been a reaction born from shame instead of truth.
I’m trying to be myself and to resist the urge to backtrack, even if it means doing the opposite of someone I admire. I’m trying to honor my intuition and the direction I feel pulled towards, even if it ends up being a hard lesson.
What would it feel like to honor that lots of things, even polar opposites, are true at the same time? What would it feel like to agree with Marlee completely, and to also trust the demon that possessed me to blast my relationship to over 40,000 people?
Today, I am simply holding the discomfort of my recent vulnerability alongside Marlee’s thought-provoking words. Today, I am grateful to Marlee not only for their continued commitment to boundary-setting with the digital public, but for the opportunity to hold onto myself that they inadvertently presented me with.
I am not retiring from writing about love. I will write about love because love is my truth. Love is what I know, and it’s what I’m learning. I will not write about love vaguely. I will not remove myself from love.
I give myself permission to stop writing about my relationships at any point, without notice or explanation. I give myself permission to delete any post, newsletter, or highlight that doesn’t feel good anymore, and I give myself permission to leave everything public for as long as I want to. My pig, my farm.
Q&A: Couples Edition
Do you talk about poo and farts or keep it mysterious?
T: We talk about it a lot, it’s an important part of our conversation.
How long have you been together?
A: 6 months so we are right at the power struggle mark :)
How did you meet? How long after meeting did you catch feelings?
A: The first time I visited the ranch I took this photo of the sunset & T.’s truck before I even knew him. He was at the ranch helping Farmer. I caught feelings right away.
T: I also fell in love with Anna’s van first. Feelings right away.
Why are you together? and how do you know it’s right?
T: I don’t know if I believe in wrong or right. It’s just if it’s good or better.
Asking with love what y’all’s age difference is? And if you have any feeling about it?
T: It’s like two years? It feels nice to be with someone that I share a similar age with.
What is your favorite non-physical trait about each other?
T: The goofiness in the morning sometimes.
Can there be space for some doubts in a relationship?
T: I don’t believe there’s any relationship without doubt, but I don’t know, I might I have more doubt than someone else, I don’t know, maybe people hide their doubt, like really bury it or something. I have doubt all the time.
Are you monogamous? Do you want to be?
A: We are monogamous and I love it. I feel comfortable saying that T. and I both have a lot to learn re: letting one person in, let alone multiple people. I honestly feel like I am in relationship kindergarten, probably need training wheels and a helmet.
Not to mention, my cup is full as fuck. I have 9 landmates, one of whom I’m completely gay for (see: Haley). I live in community, share myself a lot with the internet, and have a bajillion unrealized projects going in my head at all times. It feels especially nice that my relationship is something I don’t share with anyone. Except for right now on this Instagram party.
When/how did the conversation around being monogamous occur?
A: It never occurred to us not to be. Our conversations to determine a level of “seriousness” happened a few months in & were focused on if we had the willingness to trust, learn, support, etc.
Having difficulty believing men desire commitment/monogamy (#limitingbeliefs). Any advice?
A: T. is a man who desires monogamy — which is not to say he isn’t sexually attracted to or turned on by other women. He says the monogamy between us makes the relationship feel special.
How do you think about the future? Certainty/uncertainty together?
We both agree: We slow down. One day at a time. Things never go the way you think they will, so no use in over-thinking this.
Would you consider getting married and/or having kids together?
T: No. What’s the point?
A: I don’t want kids or to be a wife — studies show it decreases a heterosexual woman’s lifespan and increases her chances of depression, suicide, and addiction — and also I feel I am too much of a wild card!
But sometimes I question my fierce independence and in those moments marriage is something I crave.
How do you stay honest with each other?
T: We both value truth over the possible negative consequences of honesty.
How do you handle conflict?
T: I pick my battles and generally avoid it until it starts to feel weird between us.
A: I completely shut down and withdraw; I pick many battles. Right now we mostly talk about building repair protocols because we recognize conflict is inevitable.
I’m curious when/how you had the conversation around him being part of your *internet life* hehe?
A: We were on a drive and I told him that I was a writer etc. and that he should speak now. He said “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
How do you handle intellectual or political differences, if you have them?
A: We actually couldn’t be more different. We agree on very little. I don’t yet know if agreeing on things is important to me/what I am after for in a partnership where marriage/kids is not the end goal.
Most significant thing you’ve learned about yourselves and about love being together?
T: There’s a lot of work in relationship and I’m learning about how impatient or avoidant I can be.
A: I am learning how incredibly hard I am on myself, and therefore on others.
Just got my heart broken. Do you guys have any tips/advice to give me hope for love?
T: Time.
A: Rejection is protection. Now there is room in your life for what you want. Onward ho! If someone doesn’t want to be with you, you’ve got no use for them taking up space (unless friendship is a possibility). You aren’t going to get what you want from someone who doesn’t see you.
I also think being heartbroken over someone who doesn’t want to be with us is a tell-tale sign of projection or infatuation. Are we really loving that person, or just the idea of what we thought that person could give us?
Focus more on the part of yourself that does the loving, less on the part of you being or not being loved.
Do you think too much intimacy can lead to lack of mystery in relationships?
A: I try not to put a lot of value on the idea of mystery. Prioritizing or being attracted to mystery is a trap and seems to me like an immature perspective. What’s news today is old hat tomorrow, shiny things get dull.
Our internal world can never fully be known by another anyway. I prefer to focus on being intimate with the world.
*Somebody wrote to me after I posted this question and shared this morsel: “What kills relationships is the idea that there is no mystery left.”
Is it realistic that a couple could get back together after a breakup and time apart?
A:
Let yourself off the hook. There is no “realistic” or “unrealistic” in life and love. Follow your intuition and bliss.
I think there are very real things that break the chances of a relationship. Things like the presence of addiction and mental or physical abuse and coercion. Things like not sharing goals/plans/values (kids? location? money?).
Otherwise, I think the reason a lot of couples use to break up are illusions. Our ego tricks us into thinking we would be emotionally safer or feel more seen with someone else. We fall for the idea that there’s something better. Or we think that what we are up against with another person is too hard/too much, when really we are just up against ourselves and will continue to be with every new person we meet.
I think it’s totally natural to break up and try again. I have done this a lot, and now I am more careful to question the validity of my efforts to ditch! I am currently interested in what staying with the trouble looks like and working with what has presented itself to me, and what is coming up as a result of that.
What does listening to your intuition mean to you when it comes to relationships?
A: This can be tricky, especially if one is not practiced in listening to their intuition or if things are sensitive. It is easy to mistake ego and self-sabotaging thoughts for “intuition.”
If thoughts are intrusive and unhelpful, I find intuition more in my body: what are my energy levels during and after spending time with someone? Do I feel expansive or small?
Thank you for sharing. My relationship is a lot of WORK and no one ever shows that part.
A: Some of you have effortless love and I really admire that. I am not someone who loves or receives love effortlessly and so relationships feel like a lot of work for me. I used to think this meant the relationship wasn’t the right fit. I don’t believe that anymore.
Y’all ask for solo time when traveling together or does sitting in silence satisfy that want?
A: We definitely need more solo time than a road trip/camping in the car allows for. We learned that the hard way this week.
If you have a question for us or want us to elaborate on one of the questions above, leave a comment or respond directly to this email. I’d love to keep going.
Love,
Anna
Your choice to share whatever parts of you you choose to share is a gift. Your choice to honor what is wanting to be given to us through you is a gift. Your choice to respect the integrity of others while not going against your own is a gift. Your choice to listen to what is asking to be explored through your words and art is a gift. Your choice to notice the tug to backtrack, and to offer yourself compassion for the places *you* are in and the things *you* are here to share is a gift. So thank you for offering it openly, with the awareness and intention you do -- and for giving yourself permission to change your mind in any moment you need to. Here for all of it.
As someone who really loves Marlee’s writing, and fully chooses them as a writer meaning like, “I’m in whatever you explore”, I was also simultaneously actually so sad to see their retirement about writing about love because it has taught me so much about love. And I was also like, completely understand and wow must have been so intense. I have a smaller following than both of you as a writer, and still, I have also found myself in both positions. At some point I had to stop writing about love publicly for the exact reasons Mar said they have to. And I also have had seasons where thank god I wrote about love because it healed me, it healed others, and it was the only way for me to digest life properly. I think it’s so wise to all make our own decisions based on our own seasons and our own current contexts, even if they are different than each other’s. So thank you for highlighting this and thank you for posting this here because I have been deactivated from Instagram for 4 months now! & of course, All this to say, Thank you for teaching more about myself through your writing, Anna! It is highly valued over here. ❤️