The longer you are around someone, the more you notice the small flaws of theirs that annoy you.
I think that within any type of relationship there is a desire to strive for perfection. It is common to have arguments with your friends about little things, like always being late, because it is easier to ignore that tiny bit of annoyance. You have discussions with loved ones over tone of voice, or intention, because you want to avoid feeling a certain way when they criticise you. For example, we actually see a lot of this in The Kardashians; it seems Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe can never constructively criticise each other correctly. The point is, we hold a belief that if something within a relationship is less than perfect, we should communicate to fix it, no matter how small the matter is.
It is through this communication that we get the small arguments, or disagreements, that get resolved over a night’s sleep. However, does this actually succeed in changing the relationship? Or, even more importantly, is this what we should actually be doing in the first place?
To the first question, I think the answer is no. The way in which this attempt at healthy communication comes out is often not conducive to success. Usually, when we get the idea in our heads that we need to talk to someone about the way they are behaving, we want to launch into that conversation as soon as possible. Giving into that often means that we don’t have enough time to fully process our own feelings, leading to unproductive conversations because we cannot actually articulate ourselves well enough. For the other person, this may make receiving the criticism harder, leading to the larger feelings about what was, in the beginning, something small.
Deeper than this is the reality that sometimes, we just need to let it go. Relationships will never be perfect. While that sounds really pessimistic on its own, I do not actually think it is a bad thing. What we tend to forget is that the road goes both ways. There may be habits we dislike about even our closest friends but they will also find certain parts of us that they dislike, and this important part makes the real, imperfect version of relationships much better than the perfect one is that we choose to love each other flaws and all. Even in romantic relationships, it’s often not about finding someone who behaves exactly the way you want them to at all times. Sometimes, it’s the differences in behaviour and perceived flaws that can challenge the way you see life and introduce alternatives you didn’t know existed. Funnily enough, this happened to me. While I once believed that a friend’s constant positivity gave them an unrealistic view of life, I grew to realise that my own view of my life could use some more of that positivity.
In the end, we don’t need to strive for perfection, it’s the imperfection that makes relationships worth having.
Image by Natalia Sobolivska on Unsplash
