Spend time with people you like and want to emulate

I write about sex and relationships instead of, say, writing about writing or being anxious because the latter come a lot easier to me than the former. Which makes them more boring for me, and also the steps more mysterious.

People who are naturally gifted are shit teachers, generally speaking. If a skill is intuitive to someone, they’re usually going to have a harder time explaining how to do it. How would they know? They’ve never had to break it down into its constituent parts and learn how to do each one slowly and painstakingly over time. So how are they going to show you how to do that?

If you want to learn how to do something, find someone who started out really bad at it and, step by grueling step, taught themselves how to get better at it.

This newsletter mostly covers sex and relationships in terms of political rants and screeds.

But, having established my qualifications, allow me to give one piece of advice on how to do them better.

“Spend time with people you like and want to emulate.”

This is one piece of advice that applies every person, and which every person can and should use in every arena of their lives. This and “cultivate gratitude.”

I’m thinking about it because a couple I love and want to emulate just left after a delightful visit. The first time they visited me in Alabama, their plane happened to land just as my last real relationship was circling the drain.

They sat with me on my porch while I smoked cigs and held back tears. “I want what you have,” I said with exactly as much self-pity as you’re imagining.

“You will one day,” they told me.

“I don’t believe that,” I said as my sobs burst forth.

So dramatic!

This visit, shortly after the couple left for home, it occurred to me that they were right. Don’t get me wrong. They’ve been together for three decades. Rob and I have been dating for a year and a half. So, no, in many important ways of course we do not have what they have.

But, I don’t know. There was a moment when I was walking around my complex with the male half and asked him if he was happy. Listing his blessings, high up, he said “I’m crazy about [my wife].”

And, again, I don’t know, exactly. I think that people can and do love each other in different ways. There are better and worse ways, obviously. But there are also ways that are equal in goodness and intensity but not exactly the same… flavor. I think, though I could be wrong, that they love each other equally, but slightly differently. And I think that difference is similar to the slightly different way Rob and I love each other. There is an abandon, a very tiny amount of recklessness, to the love of these men that contrasts with the very slight more serious and responsible affection of this couple’s female half and myself.

Either way, I feel like I’m on track to one day have something close to what they have. I’m certainly closer than I’ve ever been.

I think watching this couple model a relationship I’d actually love to be in helped me choose a capable partner and create a similar dynamic.

All this to say, if you want a better relationship, spend time with people you like who are in relationships you’d want to emulate.

If you want any relationship, spend time with people you like and want to emulate. Meet the people they like. Those people are disproportionately likely to be people you also like. And one of those people will probably be or become available to date at some point.

If you’re choosing between jobs, schools, places to live, hobbies, religions, etc. ask yourself which option maximizes your ability to spend time with people you like and want to emulate. If you want a career boost, spend time with people you like and whose careers you’d like yours to more closely resemble. If you want to maintain healthier habits, spend time with people you like whose habits you’d like to adopt.

Now, how to do that depends on what you have going for you and what you need to work on. But that’s a good North Star.

I firmly believe that 99% of the time when someone gives you advice they’re actually mostly talking to themselves. And so it certainly is with me now. This is something I keep having to learn. But when I succeed, it seems to pay off bigly. So this is me reminding myself. If it happens to help you too, all the better. Either way, rest assured that I’ll be back to ranting soon.