{he's my other half: I'm halved when alone/I've learned where my sicknesses lead}

[kaberett]

One of the things I've been half-heartedly (ha) sorting through in the spin-off from The Emotional Labour Thread is the cultural construct of the Other Half. The primacy of the nuclear family in my current cultural context -- which as we know is a relatively recent and decidedly unusual invention -- shores up a system in which maintaining a full-time job and a social life is a massive undertaking:

Yes, life would be easier if I had someone who is always a few yards (or less) away from me when we're not at work and who can provide romance, friendship, emotional support, entertainment, household help, financial assistance, AND hot sex (and maybe eventually co-parenting) without me ever needing to seek out other people or even leave the house. But that's... horrifying.

And it is horrifying, but -- or and? -- humans aren't set up to work solo. We're not good at it: we're social mammals, and we need touch and engagement and interaction to survive.

When I'm living with someone we frequently end up joking that between the two of us, we just about add up to one competent adult -- in terms of executive function, and ability to do chores and care and so on. To some extent this is presumably an artefact of the unavoidable fact that I'm significantly disabled and prone to selecting people-I'll-spend-a-lot-of-time-with for criteria (like "not being shitty about disability") that have substantial overlap with "likely to also experience executive dysfunction" -- but even so and even still, the fact that we end up phrasing it that way makes me look at the concept of An Other Half and go "... huh."

Because when the assumption is that by default you're going to relationship escalate your way up to living with one other adult human, and that anything else is evidence of immaturity or failure or a shocking lack of moral rectitude, despite the fact that we by-and-large work best as interdependent networks with a range of specialisms... well, no wonder we end up feeling inadequate and incomplete, and no wonder that we cling so tight to anyone with a suitably complementary skill set to our own. The problem, as far as I can tell, isn't actually us: it's that we're measuring ourselves against unattainable ideals and finding ourselves wanting.

I don't think it's any surprise that in this frame breaking up turns into The Worst Thing In The World [cached version, because Pervocracy currently appears to be down].

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Yyyyep.

[kaberett]

Like, I recognise that the whole "my better half" has nasty sexist connotations (it's frequently The Fairer Sex misogyny, right?), but... I also think that it signals pretty clearly the feeling of screaming inadequacy that is quite deliberately inculcated in, well, everyone.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, so many people I know (including me, I'm sure) say stuff like "between us we make one functioning adult" that...I start to wonder how we're measuring "one functioning adult" in the first place and if that maybe could use some recalibration!

[redbird]

Part of that may be a confusion between "one functioning adult" and "one functioning and mostly self-sufficient* household." Two or more people need more groceries than one, but may not need more grocery lists, or twice as many shopping trips. A larger household is likely to use more electricity, but the effort in setting it up and paying the bill monthly doesn't change if the household uses more or less electricity.

*for early 21st century values of self-sufficient that don't involve growing our own food, making our own clothes, or needing to know how our electricity is generated.

[alexseanchai]

I second this.

[davidgillon]

Oh, I do like rephrasing it as 'household'.

[syntaxofthings]

I start to wonder how we're measuring "one functioning adult" in the first place and if that maybe could use some recalibration!

LET'S START RECALIBRATING.

[mathemagicalschema]

COSIGNED.