One Plus One Has Never Been Two, Has It?

It was all rigged from the start.

Mathematics.

No, not that one of numbers. That one is…challenging. Intellectually challenging.

But relationships? Now those are emotionally challenging. A whole new type of calculation. People always told me relationships are simple math. I find that impossible.

Because when I met Francis, basic arithmetic packed its bags and fled the country. Where do I begin?

First, my peace and his peace never equaled two peaceful people. It always equaled chaos. He was always pulling pranks on me during the day and at night? His snoring kept me up thinking of that one motorbike trying to free itself from the mud because it is stuck.

Food? His and mine never equaled two meals because someone, never me, always finished both plates after asking, “Babe, are you gonna eat that?”, and I hesitate slightly. So that was always one meal.

Don’t get me started on money. Someone, me, was always yelling, “Who bought all these useless gadgets?” Him. He bought them. It was always him. We owned a drone, three ring lights and a blender strong enough to grind concrete. Don’t ask about the lamp he bought of a chicken laying an egg, whereby the light came from the egg emerging from the chicken’s behind.

Planning was always a compromise. My plans versus his plans were never fair as we always somehow ended doing his. This one time, we “stopped by” a car dealership and somehow left test-driving a tractor.

A tractor.

We don’t live on a farm. Neither do we own one yet.

Did I mention how he always used my skin care products even more than I did? And even if I did buy him his own separate ones from mine, he somehow used both simultaneously and left me with nothing.

But the worst mathematical betrayal?
All these equaled one tired woman and one man who still insisted he “meant to do the dishes,” even though the dishes had clearly piled up in the sink.

Eventually, we broke up; or as put in his own words, “paused the relationship for software updates.” Yes, he was, and still is, a software engineer. The humour was not welcomed.

Yet after all the chaos, the snoring, the drone accidents and the tractor incident, I had to admit something. When it was good, we didn’t feel like two separate people. We felt like one extremely strange, mildly dysfunctional, but oddly joyful unit.

So, maybe one plus one has never been two but one oddball combination with four legs, questionable decision-making skills, and a shared love for midnight ice-cream.

Or maybe, one person plus another person makes something larger; something with its own breath. It makes a third quiet entity, born between the hands that hold, the voices that whisper, the chaos that forms and the dreams that collide. It forms a relationship in its own being; a fragile creature and a shared soul.

So, yes, I suppose one plus one has never been two. It has always been three. Him, me and the life we built between us. And when he left, he took the third with him, leaving me behind to do the impossible math of relearning how to be one.

Maths, is weird. But love; love is weirder.

And yet somehow, I do miss that tractor.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.