The Perfect Relationship Looks Wonderful Behind Glass and Nobody Lives There

The perfect relationship is a magnificent thing.

It is calm, affectionate, endlessly interesting and mysteriously free of misunderstandings. Nobody becomes tired at the wrong moment, says something stupid, forgets an important detail or wakes up in a mood that has apparently declared independence.

Beautiful.

Someone should put it in a museum.

Preferably behind glass.

The Exhibit Is Immaculate

At first, perfection can seem like a very reasonable thing to want. You are not asking for trumpets, rose petals and a man who recites poetry beside a fountain at dawn. You simply want a relationship that feels good.

Then real life begins adding details.

He has habits.

You have habits.

He occasionally misunderstands what you meant, you occasionally misunderstand why on earth he thought that was what you meant, and one perfectly ordinary disagreement suddenly appears in the middle of the room looking much larger than it did five minutes earlier.

This is where the museum presentation can become dangerous.

In ordinary life, it is one annoying evening.

Put it under a spotlight and suddenly it is a flaw in the relationship.

Very impressive upgrade.

Soon Someone Finds the Magnifying Glass

The strange thing about searching for perfection is that the better the relationship becomes, the more tempting it can be to inspect the remaining imperfections.

Everything else is going well, so naturally attention wanders toward the one thing that is not.

Perhaps he is wonderful but not quite as romantic as imagined. Perhaps the relationship is warm and stable but does not produce fireworks every Friday. Perhaps one recurring disagreement has survived several perfectly pleasant years and continues turning up with the confidence of a museum member.

Now the magnifying glass comes out.

The tiny scratch becomes fascinating.

Never mind the whole painting.

What is that?

And because flaws are much easier to notice than ordinary goodness, one irritating detail can begin receiving pride of place while everything around it quietly waits to be noticed.

The relationship may contain affection, loyalty, laughter, attraction, friendship and a thousand quiet acts of consideration.

Unfortunately, the frame is slightly crooked.

Then the Exhibit Next Door Starts Looking Better

Nothing improves another relationship quite like not living inside it.

From across the gallery, other couples can look beautifully composed. They seem affectionate, easy, harmonious. Nobody can hear the argument they had in the car, see the thing one of them has been quietly annoyed about since March, or know that the charming man currently pouring wine has spent six years leaving cupboard doors open as though hinges were merely a suggestion.

From a distance, excellent exhibit.

Up close, fingerprints.

This is why changing relationships can sometimes feel like escaping imperfection when, in reality, you may simply be exchanging one collection of imperfections for another.

The new gallery smells fresh.

Everything looks beautifully arranged.

Nobody has found the crack yet.

Give it time.

Real Relationships Keep Getting Touched

A relationship between two actual people cannot remain pristine because actual people keep using it.

They bring moods, histories, preferences, sensitivities, bad timing, changing circumstances and the occasional completely baffling opinion about something you had never previously realized could become an issue.

This is not necessarily dysfunction.

Sometimes nobody is dysfunctional. Dinner just went badly.

A living relationship gets handled. It develops marks. There are repairs. Certain subjects require a little more care. One corner has been bumped several times and everybody now knows not to lean on it.

None of this would survive museum standards.

Fortunately, nobody has to.

The truly flawless relationship would require two flawless people who never change, never misread each other, never disappoint each other and somehow remain fascinating while behaving with the emotional precision of Swiss clocks.

A breathtaking exhibit.

Security would be tight.

Of Course, Some Things Really Are Broken

Not every crack deserves to be called character.

Cruelty, contempt, chronic dishonesty, betrayal, intimidation or a relationship that makes one person consistently miserable are not charming little signs of use.

Sometimes the vase is broken.

The interesting part is what happens with everything else: the ordinary flaws, recurring annoyances and imperfect moments that come with attaching your life to another human being instead of a pristine concept displayed behind glass.

Perfectionism has difficulty with those because it does not merely ask, Is this good?

It asks, Could anything about this be better?

And the answer will always be yes.

Even the Louvre could probably improve the bathrooms.

The Glass Case Starts Looking Suspicious

Eventually, the idea of the perfect relationship reveals its little trick.

It stays perfect because nobody is living in it.

Nobody has touched it with tired hands, moved through it during a difficult year, disagreed inside it, grown inside it or discovered that love does not prevent a man from occasionally saying something so spectacularly unhelpful that silence would have deserved a medal.

The imaginary relationship remains flawless because imagination has excellent conservation standards.

Real love is considerably messier.

It gets used.

And perhaps that is why the happiest relationships are not necessarily the ones with the fewest imperfections, but the ones where the imperfections remain smaller than everything good around them.

The painting still works.

The crooked frame has simply stopped running the exhibition.

A perfect relationship can remain spotless forever.

Just keep it behind glass and, whatever you do, do not let two humans near it.