Relating to an Old Idea Anew
Saw a new magazine--Relationships Today. And in my mind, I heard Tina Turner singing, “What’s relationships got to do with it. . . ?”
At first I assumed the magazine was some wonderful piece of satire from Harvard Lampoon. But it turns out to be a deadly, earnestly written rag for deadly earnest people who’re into sharing, feedback and communicating.
It took me back 10 years to a comment I heard when I was a nurse-practitioner. It came from one of my favorite patients, a woman with severe cerebral palsy.
My patient patiently helped me learn that each disabled person is different and that they are basically like us. In turn, I struggled to understand her palsied speech.
One day she came in and I asked the usual cheery question that people open with at a clinic. “What seems to be the problem today?”
She screwed up her face. Her arms flailed spastically in the air. It took an act of will to get her uncontrolled lips to form the words. Finally, after much time and with considerable effort, she literally spat out her answer: “My relationships with men.”
We both laughed. Of course that was her problem. That was the problem at the top of the list of every woman of the ‘70s.
I thought we had left all that relationship garbage in the time capsule with John Travolta’s white polyester suit. Then, along comes Relationships Today in all its warm fuzziness.
The articles range from “Intimacy vs. Love” to the Celebrity Spotlight interview with talker-tainment personality Sally Jessy Raphael.
According to S. J. Raphael, there is “an epidemic or a national plague of low self-esteem. It’s the No. 1 problem that is at the foundation of so many people’s problems today.”
After pointing out the problem within a problem today, S. J. R. became reflective, perhaps even a victim of the plague herself. “I am not a psychobabble person,” she added. “I am not an authority on anything. I never say I am.”
Not to worry. There are psychobabblin’ authorities aplenty elsewhere in the magazine. An “Rx for Relationships” column is co-written by a guy with a BA in psych and a gal with a master’s in marriage and family relations. They provide his ‘n’ hers answers to each question.
Although he and she never let on whether they are having a relationship themselves, they do use the R-word 15 times in the column and “commitment” seven times--and “assertive” fights its way in three times. But who’s counting?
A curious thing about this, the “Premiere Issue” of the magazine, is the self-congratulatory letters--perhaps from psychics who foresaw the coming of Relationships Today. Didn’t Nostradamus predict there would be such a magazine?
Sally and Jack Burton of Providence, R.I., co-write: “Dear Editor: Thanks. We needed that.”
Sorry, Sally and Jack, I’m not sure the world really needs a magazine entirely devoted to modern relationships, but then I wasn’t positive we needed Parenting, Mothering and Metropolitan Home, either. Not that relationships aren’t important, but isn’t there some kind of magic involved that you can’t always control? Isn’t “relationship” just a nice, safe, sanitary word for what you work on until the Real Thing comes along?
Think about it. Did Dante have a relationship with Beatrice? Did Shakespeare have a relationship with the Dark Lady? (Or the Dark Guy?) Does Sean Penn wanna kill because he relates to Madonna? Is Barbra Streisand head-over-heels in a relationship with Don Johnson?
Last time I saw my disabled patient, she had gotten married. I think she did it for the same reason we all do--she was sick of having relationships. She was ready to fall in love. Now she reads Being and Nothingness Today, the magazine for people who are just existing.