A Rock Climber’s Lessons In Love
Even when things are neatly labeled, they aren’t always what they’re supposed to be.
When you go to Mission Cliffs (San Francisco’s indoor rock climbing gym), you find that you have over 100 options of routes to climb there. They’re each neatly labeled with their level of difficulty. I’m a novice climber myself, so I usually stick with the low ones, the 5.5 or 5.6 ratings that I know I can get to the top of. Sometimes I’ll challenge myself with a 5.9 or I’ll make things easy for myself with a 5.4.
These ratings are professional ratings and they’re usually right as far as difficult level goes. You know that if you can’t climb a 5.5, you aren’t getting to the top of a 5.11. But sometimes, they aren’t quite right. Sometimes, you start up the 5.11 and you get a lot further than you thought. Maybe it wasn’t labeled right. More likely, what happened was that your particular climbing skills and body structure were suited to that climb, making it easier for you than for the average 5.11 climber. The handholds were in the right place for you or the incline worked. Whatever the case, the label said you couldn’t do it, and yet you could.
Today’s relationships are much the same way. We’ve all read enough about alternative lifestyles to know that there are lots of different ways to love people. And we’ve all worked on our communication. So we design our relationships with the labels that we think are right for us. We say that we’re in a committed but non-monogamous heterosexual relationship or that we are polyamorous or that we’re in a conventional monogamous homosexual relationship. Or whatever.
But sometimes, you just have to stand in front of that 5.11 and see that it might not be as daunting as its label says. Sometimes you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t do spend-the-nights but a sleepover is just what you need. Sometimes you think that you’re not into celebrating holidays with your lover’s family, but you go do it and find that it’s fun. Sometimes the labels just aren’t right. And in a city as permissive as San Francisco, it’s okay to loosen up and permit yourself to live outside of the labels you’ve chosen – whatever they may be.
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