In its never-ending quest for the truth, the Utopian! has gone to the street to ask people the answer to this age old question. How do you know when it’s real? How do you know if that special person even exist or if it’s absolutely not the person you are sharing space here.
I don’t know how it happened But suddenly my leg was kicking spasmically.
This is the story of Juan, a 25-year-old bartender from Miami.
She was doing this thing with her nails and her tongue and she started touching me around my neck and ears and suddenly I was like a dog. She had found the place to touch me and my leg started kicking. I saw it happen but I couldn’t stop it. I thought I was losing my mind. I’ve actually met a woman who could reduce me to a dog. That’s when I knew. There was nothing left to talk about.
For others, it is not so simple. Rachel, a graduate student from Iceland is rather disappointed with the opportunities the world has to offer.
I asked you, what the fuck? Who the fuck decided that there had to be commerce up here? Fucking fish wasn’t enough? Fish and bloody Christianity. And what the fuck do you think is left for a woman such as myself? I have fucking taste! I want to be a designer. I want to look good at a cafe. Explain to me how the fuck I’m supposed to look good with these drunken idiots around me all day. Explain all of this to me.
In Denmark, Bjorn 28 has basically given up hope.
Oh sure, you can drink. You can always drink. There’s always plenty to drink. You can go to the pub or you can go to their house and then you can drink. It’s always good when you have plenty to drink. When I was younger I used to drink with my friends. I drank a bit with the football club. And I would say that I had three women with whom I thought I would make my way. I drank with them as well. But when it all came down to it, it was pretty much just a bunch of drinking and wanking and trying to be something you’re not.
In China, Lee and pi have found special meaning in working together.
We work for the agricultural combine. We both work in the field. I was not much of a student and neither was she. She was with two men before me and she didn’t like it very much. She said they were rough and would get drunk and get tired of her loudly and abusively. I promise not to drink if she promises not to drink and so far I think we only make four mistakes. No, six mistakes. But only together. When we make a mistake and we really want to drink, we always drink together.
For some people, it is a revelation that comes much later than you would expect. Valerie and Steve from California found this experience together.
I got into a band with these guys and we got a bag of pot to play with. I don’t think either of us were smokers really. I mean, we just didn’t use it. It wasn’t a big deal. But, if you got a bag to play with, let’s play with it. The problem was that we had some fun and then I woke up and I was still kind of high and I noticed that I was hogging all the closet space. I know it’s weird but I had a lot of clothes at that time and she didn’t have any closet space for her clothes. And suddenly I saw this as a metaphor for this entire relationship and understood that I had been a miserable bastard up until that point. I woke her up and said that if she wanted me forever, I was in it forever. She said I was high. I agreed I was high and said it again and so she said okay. And then we went to bed together and it was nice and we fell asleep and in the morning I woke up and I wasn’t so high anymore but I told her I meant everything I said and she said that she did too.
For some people, it takes a little coercion. For some people it takes an enormous amount of coercion. Some people absolutely refuse coercion and yet love find a way. Cebu tells us what it’s like in Nigeria to try and hold on to the mother of your children.
My problem? I have no problem. I agreed to be responsible for all of my decisions. She is who she is and I don’t ever remember a reasonable thing from her from the moment I met her. Except that she seemed to be everything I wanted. Or was she? There was something missing from the conversation. We weren’t quite functioning as a team. Was she using me? Was I using her? I didn’t even understand the relationship. But then suddenly there was another guy. She found some soldier and he wanted her. I told her no. I told her I didn’t want her to go. She told me she needed to do what she needed to do and she needed to take care of herself. And just like that I agreed. Whatever she needed, I agreed. So far so good. It’s only a little unreasonable. There are those who have it worse. But to me it’s worth it.
For others, the problem is only finding those who are also interested in non-traditional paths. Ray and Jo from Berlin talk about coming out of the closet and into the arms of their best friend.
It is different here in Berlin. Everyone knows everything and everyone knows everyone. There is nothing that means you can do or you can do something. We do everything what we want. But I became very tired. I had a boyfriend that the only wanted me to make money with. My other friend want nothing to drugs. I was thinking of myself. I didn’t like this lifestyle of waiting for everyone to slow down for a minute. And then I met Jo and it was over. She has her own shop selling second hand clothing and she’s very popular. I work in the shop too and then we go home together every day. It’s okay. I don’t think we need anything else.
But then to some, it takes good old fashioned reality that there are consequences to our actions. Leah and Ramon found that they loved each other because they would be together forever through a child.
There were some fights in the beginning. How much money would there be? He blamed me. He said I did this on purpose. He said that he had his life to live and now I was in his way. It was no way he could achieve his dream and be with me at the same time. He said terrible things about me and my family. We had terrible fights. But then it was the strangest thing. He just thought about it for a while and decided it was okay. He told me that if this was how the world wanted him to be, he have not done a bad thing by being with me and I was not a bad person to be tied to. He said that we were going to figure this out one way or another. He said no matter what we were going to be honest with each other and we were going to tell each other everything. And then he said that we have no other work in the world other than to make sure that this child had the best chance to be whoever it was going to be. And so far so good. It looks like I picked a good one.
And then we went in another direction and traveled to the other side of the world to ask our publisher, a most famous bachelor lately, his thoughts on the issue.
There is a way to know something. There is a way to know that nature is percolating something inside you to make more of the species. I’ve experienced that. I say if we wanted to make societal decisions based around being driven crazy, I think the orthodox Jews already do this. They simply restrict all contact with females, they arrange dates between eligible young boys and girls and within one or two meetings, the magic happens. Is this manipulative? Is it wisdom? I think the genuine answer comes from the phrase that a person who represents themselves in court as their own lawyer has a fool for a client. I think it means that you need outside help. You can’t automatically have what it takes to connect to another person day in and day out. Sharing space takes commitment and frankly, you need a pretty good reason to keep sharing the space. Business. Something to do together that you enjoy. If it’s just sex and then they are something distant from you that you personally don’t need anymore, it won’t work. Too much velocity in too many different directions.
For the Utopian! Angelika Hadahardassanova reporting
