One-sided Relationship
John Fischer

I’m one of those people who believe that relationships wouldn’t be any problem if they didn’t have to involve other people. I get along real well with myself. Myself and I rarely have any conflicts. We always seem to agree on what we want to do, and we are definitely in total harmony about our favorite subject: me. The minute you throw another person into this, you introduce conflict. That other person might as well be another universe of ideas, feelings, opinions, and ways of doing things.

Ironically I’m writing this in a Starbucks in Riverside, California and the whole time I’ve been playing with these thoughts there has been a man right outside the window with a backpack, bed roll and small tote bag, staring at the ground, pacing back and forth by my window muttering constantly to himself. He is a slight man, unshaven, and most likely homeless. He had been pacing for about ten minutes. Finally he puts his stuff down and comes in the door and stands to the side still muttering. He’s not in line; he’s just there. After only a minute or so, he barks something unintelligible to no one in particular—a kind of concluding statement to whatever it was he was saying or doing there—and goes back outside, picks up his stuff and walks away continuing his own animated conversation with himself.

I watched this whole scenario as I wrote the former paragraph, not realizing that I was viewing a sad _expression in real life of the exaggeration I just presented. To be sure, this one-man relationship was an overstatement, but it still rings a kind of morbid truth inside me about who I am without God’s redemption, and if left alone, who I might even choose to be. It is a sobering reality that I think the Holy Spirit put in front of me to see this person. Want to be totally into yourself? This is what it looks like. I watched him walk away with a great deal of sadness. I understand.

I will keep this in my mind as the end of my attempts at solving anything through isolation. I can go on my way muttering, or I can engage with those around me. I can set aside my stuff and enter into someone else’s universe. Who knows, maybe that’s where he was headed. I hope so. It’s awful being that alone.

PDL