I Thought I Figured Out The Secret To A Lasting Relationship. Then I Had A Realization That Flipped My World.

During my elder twelvemonth of college, I dated a lad who was tall, dark-haired, and smoked a batch of weed. (If I’d had a checklist, those would person been the boxes connected it astatine the time.) We talked easily, astir everything from medieval creation to music, and I recovered his lanky limbs and soulful eyes precise appealing. But contempt however overmuch we enjoyed each other’s company, some successful furniture and retired of it, I didn’t, fundamentally, consciousness anything. If he’d told maine helium ne'er wanted to talk to maine again, I wouldn’t person cared, but that I’d person needed to get my weed from idiosyncratic else. 

That’s erstwhile I came up with the mentation of the 3rd thing.

The premise is that determination are 3 things that marque you autumn for someone. The archetypal is simply a carnal connection. The 2nd is an intelligence connection. And past there’s the 3rd thing… immoderate mysterious constituent makes you ideate a aboriginal together. My friends and I spent hours sitting connected the level of my dorm room, listening to Matchbox 20 and drinking fare Snapple with vodka, trying to unravel what the 3rd happening could be. 

I was a bully student. I was people shy and awkward, but I was besides utilized to reasoning things done and figuring them out. In mediate school, I’d analyzed my classmates’ societal interactions, realizing that erstwhile idiosyncratic told a communicative astir themselves, you were expected to respond with a communicative connected a akin topic. In precocious school, I’d made a checklist of each the things I needed to bash to beryllium chill (start speechmaking Seventeen magazine, halt walking astir with a publication successful beforehand of my face, support gum successful my backpack and connection it to my classmates aft lunch). 

In college, I’d turned my attraction to boys. It was casual to buss them connected sticky barroom creation floors and conscionable them for java dates astatine the pupil center. But I wanted to autumn successful love, and I wasn’t definite however to bash it. If I could fig retired the 3rd thing, past I’d cognize the formula. I’d cognize however to find idiosyncratic who I was truly excited about.

I dated regularly passim my 20s, but thing lasted. Then, pursuing different breakup, I recovered myself spending a batch of clip connected the telephone with my person Dan. We’d dated concisely erstwhile we archetypal met years earlier connected survey abroad. He was awkwardly, gawkily handsome, and was 1 of the smartest radical I’d ever met, dropping references to Byzantine emperors into casual conversation. However, astatine that time, determination conscionable wasn’t that 3rd thing.

Then, suddenly, 8 years later, there was. I wasn’t definite what had changed. I inactive didn’t cognize what the 3rd happening was, but thing was different, adjacent if I couldn’t place it. For years we’d conscionable been friends — albeit friends who drunkenly made retired occasionally erstwhile we ended up successful his car unneurotic precocious astatine night. And present we were spending each our clip reasoning astir each other. How had this happened? And what were we going to bash astir it? 

As it turned out, we were going to get married. Three years later, we recovered ourselves holding hands and saying vows successful a historical room successful Providence. We ate cupcakes, drank prosecco, and spent the nighttime dancing with our friends and household among the stacks. It was the happiest time of my life; I’d recovered a smart, handsome antheral whom I loved, and who loved me. We had chemistry; we could walk hours talking, and astir importantly, we had the 3rd thing. I felt similar I’d gotten precisely what I wanted.

Except that aft 10 years of marriage, it wasn’t what I wanted anymore. Dan’s brooding moroseness, which I’d recovered appealing, had begun to look whiny. My quest for self-improvement, which he’d recovered admirable, had begun to look exhausting. It had started to thrust maine brainsick that helium sang to himself. It had started to thrust him brainsick that I near the cupboard doors open. These were things that we’d lived with for years. They hadn’t been a problem. And now, suddenly, they were, and I wasn’t definite why.

There were other, bigger issues. We were politically divided. We wanted to walk our clip successful precise antithetic ways. My matrimony didn’t extremity conscionable due to the fact that we nary longer had the 3rd thing. But that was portion of it. We were inactive attracted to each other. We inactive talked astir everything arsenic easy arsenic we ever had. But we nary longer had that ineffable happening that made america consciousness romanticist astir each other. 

We tried. We near our lad with his grandparents implicit the 4th of July weekend, went to a section brewery for IPAs and pepperoni pizza, shared a associated and had enactment successful beforehand of a mirror. We sat broadside by side, feeling miles distant from each other, and watched fireworks detonate into distant sparks of light. We went to 2 antithetic couples’ therapists. They gave america worksheets. We did the worksheets. We inactive didn’t emotion each different anymore.  

The hardest happening astir the extremity of the matrimony wasn’t the nonaccomplishment of the present. At the time, we were sleeping connected abstracted floors of our aged suburban house, trying not to interaction erstwhile we passed each different successful the stairway. But successful my imagined future, we were going to beryllium 1 of those aged couples who traveled astir the state successful an RV, who went to spot autarkic films and had play tickets to the section symphony. We were going to beryllium broadside by broadside astatine our son’s graduation, and erstwhile helium crossed the stage, unimaginably gangly but inactive wild-haired and bright-eyed, we were going to compression each other’s hands.

Instead, I was azygous and dating again successful my 40s. From everything I knew astir aging portion female, I figured that dating astatine that property would beryllium immoderate benignant of barren wasteland. Instead, I discovered that the apps had travel on and made it easy. I could spell connected a day with idiosyncratic caller each nighttime if I wanted, and for a portion I did. I was doing things I thought I’d ne'er bash again, similar kissing strangers astatine the entranceway to the subway. And for the archetypal time, I was dating women, which was thing I’d ever wondered about. When I was younger, I’d gone from 1 antheral to another, and abruptly I wondered if possibly the crushed I’d had occupation figuring retired the 3rd happening was that I didn’t privation to beryllium with a man. Maybe my newfound queerness held the reply I’d been seeking.

I started dating a beauteous pistillate with agelong blonde hair, tattoos and a saccharine smile. We sent each different passages from books, we talked astir theater, we spent hours making out. Still, contempt however overmuch we enjoyed each other’s company, some successful furniture and retired of it, determination was nary 3rd thing. We were mutually unserious, and aft a fewer months things came to an end.

I deliberation someday I’d similar to autumn successful emotion again, but I’m besides terrified due to the fact that I’m yet coming to recognize that determination isn’t a formula. I’m realizing that the 3rd happening is antithetic astatine antithetic times, oregon for antithetic people. That it’s thing that tin look retired of nowhere... and tin disappear, too. That sometimes emotion conscionable goes away, and if I find it again, it mightiness spell distant again, nary substance however hard I effort not to fto that happen. 

I’ve yet figured retired that I mightiness ne'er fig it out. If the 3rd happening comes my mode again, it’s conscionable going to beryllium due to the fact that I’m lucky. I can’t power whether I find it; I tin lone power whether I’m brave capable to accidental yes to it. I don’t cognize whether I volition be. 

For now, I write, I thatch and I interest astir the world, and I ticker my lad usage Magna-Tiles to physique rainbow castles reaching up towards the sky. Sometimes I swipe close connected strangers, and conscionable them for hikes oregon cups of coffee. I locomotion my canine astir the vicinity successful the outpouring and ticker the crabapples bursting into improbable, extravagant bloom. The flowers drift down from the trees arsenic I locomotion underneath them. I scope retired my hands to drawback them, and I extremity up empty-handed, but later, erstwhile I get home, I find myself picking delicate pinkish petals retired of my hair.

This nonfiction primitively appeared connected HuffPost.

Lia Romeo is simply a playwright, essayist, novelist, and screenwriter. Her plays person been produced off-Broadway, arsenic good arsenic regionally and internationally, and her essays person appeared successful the Washington Post, the New York Times, and different nationalist publications. She is presently astatine enactment connected a screenplay.

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