Complicated must be something beautiful

Relationships can get so complicated sometimes. Actually, it seems to me relationships get complicated all of the time. I struggle with relationships the most, and people. But they aren't something I can just eliminate. Because I need relationships and people to live a normal life. (Please don't ask me what's normal.) And besides eliminating people would be a crime. And I don't want to go to jail, or run and hide the rest of my life. I just want to be left alone sometimes and just be, you know. 

Sure there are lots of similar people living in this planet. What amazes me, though, is how drastically different some people can be. And from what I see it seems like perhaps people are different basically because they react to things differently. I don't know if that is breaking it down too simply. But then again, what's wrong with simple if it is accurate? So is what I am saying accurate? I don't know. I am not exactly intending to win a Nobel Prize here. 

Well getting back to the story of different people I'm not even talking about, say, someone from Australia and another from the North Pole, as in comparing them. Actually I'm not even sure if there are any people in the North Pole. (Forgive my pathetic general knowledge. Have never been too enthusiastic about knowing a lot of things just for the heck of knowing them, you know.) Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I am amazed at how differently two people can react to the same thing. And these are people who've been exposed to the same kind of environment, same system of education, same culture and language, they may be from the same household even. It makes me wonder what after all then determines how people react. What is it in a human being that determines how s(he) responds to whatever?

Am I sounding too vague? Okay let me give an example from my life. Someone told me very recently that I had an easy life. It came like an accusation and I was totally offended. Because I was thinking "How dare you? You don't know anything about my life, or how it is like being me to say something like that.". I shared this with a close friend of mine and she simply laughed at me for getting offended by that. Because, apparently, she read it in a very different way. To her it meant something like "You have a good life" and sounded more like a compliment or something. The contrast of our reactions is simply hilarious. In the long conversation that followed between my friend and I we sort of arrived at the conclusion that perhaps it is our past experiences that determines how we react and respond to anything in life.

It is only fitting that I mention here how I've pondered over how the outer conditions faced by anyone may appear all fine, all normal, (I'm still not ready to try and give a possible meaning of normal), but the situation inside a person can be something else altogether. What determines the inside? Hmm.. Okay I feel like this going a little haywire. The bottom line here is: people are complicated, and this is precisely the reason why relationships are complicated.

Maybe it is a blessing that my best friend is so amazingly different from me. No surprise that the history of our friendship is not exactly pleasant. What is great, though, is that we made efforts to understand our differences and gave each other space. And perhaps that's how we have become the best of friends we could ever be to each other. It took a lot of investment from both sides. So I don't know if I have the capacity to have another similar friendship like I share with her. I tell her often jokingly that perhaps I will end up marrying a man-version of her, that perhaps that is God's plan for me. Why else would I have to put through all that I've had put through because of our friendship? There simply has to be a reason. So then, perhaps I might have to build up that capacity after all. ;)

Relationships are complicated. People are complicated. But if complicated leads to genuine efforts from people to commit to relationships, if complicated leads to better understanding and appreciation of people different from us, then complicated must be something beautiful.

(Picture Courtesy: Google Images)