Just what has possessed you?

Not that long ago, I was merrily engaged in a conversation with a close friend and "possessiveness" flickered by in one of the tangents of the moment that tends to typify our communication. At the time, it didn't strike me as thought provoking. In fact, it wasn't until I jolted awake in the pre-dawn hours days later with that very subject at the fore of my consciousness. Eventually, I managed to track my thoughts back to that fleeting moment in the midst of a greater conversation.

So after staring up at the shadowy ceiling for several long minutes perplexed as to why in the bloody hell my sleep needed to be disrupted for this concept as well as conducting a private assessment of my own sanity, I managed to corral the contemplations darting about until I had the opportunity to examine them. I believe that time is now.

I submit that relationships should have an element of possessiveness. Immediately with that single statement, I have largely polarized my readership. On one side, there will be individuals vehemently rejecting this concept as anathema. On the other are those who might wish to nod sagely at my seeming subscription to the idea of "cleaving to the other." Now as to why these folks would want to leap to assumptions after only reading a solitary sentence, I have no idea, especially since I do make an effort to not make unsupported statements. Doubtless, there are always a couple who will take the bit 'tween their teeth and gallop off into wild yonder all fired up and frothing about what they think was said. If we're lucky, they'll find a nice metaphoric cliff somewhere to topple over and leave an interesting stain upon the rocks of rational thought.

As I was beginning to explain however, I do think that possessiveness has a place in relationships. First of all, we need to banish the overarching specter that has come to be associated with the term. If every time the word is used, a mental image of someone locked away in some room, every last move observed and scrutinized, with a subdermal tracking chip at the base of their skull, there is not going to be much mental flexibility to work with. I would offer a different term, but any alternate I could supply would be equally tainted and dubious on an emotional level, thus I will just have to trust that those who choose to read this will attempt to objectively interpret my words without assigning additional meaning where none is warranted.

That said, relationships are not property contracts. It is never appropriate for one adult to consider another as a possession. It may come to a very fine distinction with some collared relationships, but I would argue that anyone on the master/mistress side who honestly takes the other side as irrevocably their's lock, stock, and barrel tend to get a very nasty dose of reality. I personally take a very dim view of the attitude in relationships that person A belongs to person B, therefore no one else has any business with person A that person B does not approve of. Not only does it demonstrate on tangible level that person B operates under a level of insecurity and mistrust regardless of how they may attempt to rationalize their behavior, but person A is also deprived of self-direction and therefore equal status within the relationship. Enforcing anyone's fidelity other than one's own is not only self-defeating, but presumptuous and superficial. How tenuous the bonds must be if a friendship cannot be trusted to survive the addition of new and potentially unshared acquaintances. How meaningful can the sexual monogamy be if any time spent with another person in private is looked upon with suspicion? The arguments are well-known and oft-used by the "possessiveness-is-a-nasty-word" crowd and for good reason; they're devastatingly valid.

By the same token, their position is not uncategorically correct either. The premise that simply because something can be easily taken to an unhealthy extreme it is completely without merit is illogical. There are several drugs that while being most known for the harm they can do, are utilized in the medical field to good effect, for example. In this case, the potential avenues to rationalizing bad behavior are legion. The social mechanism toward an expectation toward pairings even affords some protection against even having it enter the mind to evaluate our actions and assumptions in terms of possessiveness. But that degree of tradition and institutionalization had to come from somewhere, some kernel or seed before allowed to grow into something other than what it was.

To love something means to be on some level invested in that thing. In some fashion, it becomes your's, you own it. To illustrate my point, consider a sunset. It's an atmospheric phenomenon observable by anyone on the planet. They have existed since the solar system formed and will persist until the planet is consumed when our sun goes nova. Should you wish to take it past the practical, as long as there are planetary bodies revolving in orbit around one or more stars, there will be sunsets. Since few of us will ever have the opportunity to witness the end of day firsthand outside of this terrestrial context, I'm going to keep my example at that level. Obviously, to proclaim ownership of a sunset is an empty and insane declaration. To possess or own something carries with it the inference that one has power over the possessed thing. Since no one has the ability to effect either a global midnight or noon, claims of possession are cosmetic at best.

Yet, those who love gazing at sunsets, they gain something from them. Whether it is the way the clouds catch the waning rays of the sun, the sense of the world moving around them, or even a sense of accomplishment that they've made it through one more day, they have claimed that sunset as their own. What is their power over it then? To be moved or not. To remember. To assign significance. Their possessiveness is intensely personal but in no way precludes anyone else the same experience.

Within a relationship, if there isn't a point where you just know they are your's, I'd have to wonder about how healthy that relationship truly is. Again, this is not a matter of throwing them down and searing your brand into their flank, tattooing them with your mark, or charging them to carry some visible token of claim. It's a matter of inner tranquility and certainty. One is not possessive of them, one is possessed of them. The distinction is very important. The former is to act upon them, to effect them. One party presents the other with demands to which they must continually strive to meet. The latter is to be acted upon, to be affected. Instead of presenting demands to the other person, the demands are of the self, to be the person the other deserves them to be.

Because they are your sweetie, their happiness and health is important to you. Because they are your friend, their trust and opinion matter to you. It's because of a quiet, self-directed possessiveness that their lives have a personal relevance. They are the people in your life and you own them no more or less than you own a smile, a tear, a sigh, or a laugh.