Romantic Real-estate
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If marriage is a mortgage on the heart, then some romances need to go into foreclosure.
Romance is an investment, and as with every other form of investment, you trade risk for reward. People often find themselves in relationships where the love and passion would be reward enough except that their partners are in utter disrepair (or, as one refined lady refers to her former significant-other, a ‘dumbass’). Then there are relationship where the rewards are not even that high, but once mortgaged, the hit to self-esteem credit ratings are too big to consider walking away.
Mates are like houses, and there are basically five major types of romantic ventures in which people find themselves.
The perfect home: Once in a great while, typically though dumb luck, we find the perfect match – the cozy cottage of a home or a soul mate. Each can have all the right trim, a warm hearth of a heart, and if you like such things a huge backyard (this is not as apropos with men since those fields often require mowing). Such love is a place for filling with the bric-a-brac of life shared. Your dreamboat may be a dream home for your heart.
The brick rancher: There is nothing at all wrong with your standard three bed room, two bath brick rancher of a romance. It is lasting, serviceable and won’t depreciate in value. It takes little work to keep up and isn’t very exciting or different than any other suburban estate. But it can last a life time providing you don’t grow so bored with the joint that you torch it for the insurance money. Many a marriage has been built not on eternal love and heartfelt yearning, but on the stability of the predictable and commonplace.
The fixer-upper: An old Chinese omen said that men marry perfection and women marry potential. The fact is that both halves of our so-called species tend to see more potential in a mate than others see in the same person (ask your best friend what they really think of your fiancée and you may reduce your inventory of friends by one). Yet many people of marginal consciousness buy homes and helpmates with the notion that with a lot of work they can be turned into cozy cottages. These folks lose their money and their minds, though they were short on both to begin with.
The shack: A dead crack whore lies in the corner of what used to be a living room. Some windows have plywood nailed over them and the others are merely entryways for rats. The hole in the kitchen floor leads either to the basement or Hell, though nobody is brave enough to investigate. Yet someone will buy such a property or romance for the long-odds bet or the thrill of the danger it brings. Yes, the hovel or the “better” half are horrible, diseased and possibly lethal, but some odd affliction makes the buyer want to suffer it all. The risks are great, but their emotional pockets are empty and having purgatory-based passion is better than living on the streets.
Motels: Soulless places in many locations used strictly for transient horizontal time.
Imperfect is the analogy. But for every reader with someone in their lives, ask what kind of house you bought. If he or she is anything less than the brick rancher, decide how much more time and money are you going to invest in the dump before dumping the investment.
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