Now Hiring: Part-Time Girlfriend
For someone trying to become a financial analyst, I was taken aback when the guy I was seeing at the time asked me to tell him how many hours I needed to feel satisfied in a future relationship.
Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t ready for a relationship. We’ve barely gone on a second date. But let’s understand something here: you cannot measure how much you have to commit to someone in hours.
At least that’s what I think.
I feel like you always see the couples in movies
right at the peak of the second act, yelling in the kitchen talking about how they don’t give the other enough time. Someone always gets the short end of the stick and ends up walking out. The other one is left to re-evaluate what must be done to fix it. 8/10 there is a sacrifice to be made and the issue gets resolved (??)
It’s kinda weird but my point is is that: time above all else is what people hold most dear.
The concept transitions into love, career, goals, relationships. Literally anything. You cannot get time back. So even if quality time is not your top love language, at the end of the day, if your partner is not giving you the time you need (in whatever form that may look like), then it is probably a topic of conversation and perhaps the endgame.
In my first serious and last relationship
I got the time I needed. I was probably asking for too much, to be honest. It was never something that had to be a serious discussion and looking at it now I realize how grateful I am for that. And while we did not set up what that would look like, our unspoken obligation and needs were a perfect pair and we walked away fulfilled (until we weren’t).
Time is not calculated but it is felt
It is given and it is received. It is in form of quality time or communication. It is demanded in ways that cannot be clocked in and clocked out. It is reciprocated.
And if it is not understood, then it must be readjusted.
As much as time can be seen in the form of numerical measurement, learning, understanding, and growing with another person, is not.
I wish I could have given him a number. That would be easy, wouldn’t it? To know that all of my needs and your own would be met in a narrow window.
Relationships are a job, but putting the time in commit to someone should not be.
