want to be in a romantic relationship with me? please read this book and sign this contract

i found out a few months ago that my friend, kendra, made her now-husband read all about love by bell hooks with her before they got married.

this is a fucking brilliant idea. i wish to everything in the heavens that i had done the same with my previous long-term partner. it does such a good job of laying out a practical, realistic, implementable love. either we would have agreed and it would have put our relationship off to a great start or we would have disagreed and ended things before six years had gone by. honestly, we probably could have even read it in the middle of the relationship and it still would have helped.

i think more we need more practices like this.

my roommate sent me another one the other day. the idea was to make an annual relationship contract and his boyfriend sent him an article about it: To Stay in Love, Sign on the Dotted Line. again, given the wildly varying views about what a relationship is or could be, having a clear contract could be so helpful. even the process of making one would illustrate a lot about a particular partnership. having to speak clearly what things you do and don’t want in a relationship seems so critical. especially because those wants and needs are impacting the relationship whether they’re spoken about or not. so why not get them out into the open? and if they can’t be brought out into the light, that speaks to a whole different problem…

anyways, these are good ideas and i’m going to advocate for them everywhere. get ready world. and thanks kendra and luke (and zach). =]

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