on relationships, after nietzsche

How is it, that when we are most happy in relationships, it is when we are least invested in them? Nearly everyone person, on once examining themselves, can admit, however secretively, that they feel a brighter fondness for their college roommate than what they do for their romantic partners, who with which they have journeyed higher peaks and abysses with. Of course this is not an overt preference that we make. But there must be a safety to these easier relationships that we prefer to rest on.

Once a relationship tips the boundaries from a cheerful friend to something more, anxieties and tensions arise. Now it is a matter of power. Who ever has the more indifference of the pair, has the greater power. According to many configurations, "the will to power" is the essence of organisms. So why is it that when one of two people makes this step towards what one could say is a greater connection-- that the other does not rejoice at their new leverage? Is it because we are cowards who do not know how to seize power? That is, we are newly aware of the danger that surrounds relationships when politeness fades and the stakes are hightened? Or is this a model of where the will to power rule is thwarted-- that we actually do not want power over eachother?

It is paradoxical that holding the fragile psychy of another, fluttering in our hand, is too unbearable a burden.

We are for the most part, in normal (?) circumstances, happier to coast on the superficial ice rink of relations, not plow through the swamp. Maybe it has ultimately to do with laziness-- a lack of desire to invest, and feel responsible for this new relationship. What if, after all, the other person changes, or it changes you? When things get "real," we back off.

This desire to become closer among superficial friends, is perhaps best manifested as a desire to dispell illusions one may have about the other. When you hardly know someone, or only interact with them on easy, agreeable terms, you may aquire a mythic appreciation of their character. They, wanting a closer relationship with you, may sense this and work to show you their underside so that they can be certain that you know them and not thier idealized-doppelganger. In a way, become vulnerable. This sort of revealing is what is uncomfortable and embarrassing for the other person. That is why people want to have engage in relationships that never reach this place, coasting on the shadows of feeling but not the feelings themselves. Or they want it before they have it, then not want it when they get it. Duh. Is there a solution? Take the time, I suppose, to not run away from an honest connection. For better or for worse-- "bite off the head of the snake."