Why I Hate the Other Half Analogy
Graphic by Zoe Gigis
Growing up as a cis-gendered woman, my teenage years were dominated by vibrant, fastidious and wild fantasies of falling desperately in love with a man who was going to literally and metaphorically sweep me off my feet towards a life of marital bliss. I can recount many of these fantasies envisioned before I went to sleep, distracting me from the inevitable boring GCSE Science lessons the next day. The teenage years can be a little less romantic than American movies portray them to be, so I would dream about going to university, where it was little work and all play. I would fall in love with a golden-haired man galloping through a field of sunflowers or I would be reading Shakespeare to my lover under a starry night sky and having my first kiss whilst duetting Chopin on the grand piano. Having graduated from university, I can tell you that it is not as romantic as that. I am now Queer, having left Shakespeare in A Level English Literature and can barely play Fur Elise on the piano let alone Chopin. Why did I spend many of my adolescent years dreaming about falling in love with The One only to graduate single?
The media has a lot to answer for in creating false expectations of what life can look like, but specifically, in what romantic relationships and falling in love can be. I could write several articles on those unrealistic expectations that films have to answer for, but what I want to focus on in this article, is the perpetuated idea that life is geared towards finding your Other Half, your own One.
The words we choose are extremely important and probably have more value than most of us give them credit for. In an article about sexist comments, I once wrote ‘Language and semantics are important. They are how we communicate, verbalise emotion and characterise ourselves.’ I stand by this claim, in that everyday words shape our ideas about the world and ourselves.
Logically, if you have this analogy that your partner is your Other Half, it implies that you are not whole without them. I find this to be untrue. I am sure many people are of the opinion that it’s not that deep to call your partner your Other Half, but as I stated before, language is important. If you embed this notion into your subconscious, you will never be happy or fulfilled while single. And it is unrealistic that you will spend 100% of your adult life in a relationship.
You are not Half of a Whole until you meet someone else to spend your life with, you make the choice to spend your life with them because they make life shinier. You are a grand person with a constellation of experiences and traits and the ability to love someone else in the form of a romantic relationship is a nice addition. I do not believe that finding another person to share a romantic relationship with is a requirement for a happy and fulfilled life; a luxury, not a necessity. You can achieve fulfilment through many different parts of your existence, it does not all have to come from one person in the form of a partner. This is the harmful notion that I think the idea of finding your Other Half perpetuates; the thinking that you will not be whole until you meet someone else to fill that gap.
A few years ago, I had some counselling for an array of issues within my life. We got onto speaking about romantic relationships, (as I was currently in one at the time) and discussed the idea of relying on one person for everything. To me, they were my Other Half and were supposed to fulfill every single lust I had in life.
However, she bestowed on me the words of wisdom that if your partner fulfilled every aspect of yourself, then you wouldn’t need relationships with other people. That friend is fulfilling a part of you that your partner can’t, but that doesn’t mean that your partner and you aren’t well suited. That moment was another part of me letting go of the idea of my Other Half, because if you and your partner are two halves of a whole, why do you need relationships with anyone else?
It is my opinion that it’s dangerous to keep perpetuating this notion of your Other Half because we are legitimising this constant yearning to find someone else for you to feel whole and complete. The secret-that-shouldn’t-be-a-secret is that you do not need a romantic partner. Nurture your friendships, send them love letters, write a list of things you love about yourself, take yourself on a trip, go and have dinner alone, just for the hell of it. Date yourself! Give yourself the love you are so dying to receive!
It is important to recognise that life isn’t naturally romantic. It definitely can be, but a lot of the time it is routine and bad weather. You have to make the romance for yourself. Mx/Mr/Mrs. Right is not going to fall into your lap and start singing sweet nothings to you, you can sing at the top of your lungs by yourself. And if someone wants to harmonise with you, then that’s a happy addition to the song.