Relationships are one thing I am awful at and at this point in my life I am uncertain if that will change or not. I don’t think I’ve ever had a real relationship in my life and that’s just fine. I’m not looking to get married here but to know I had someone’s heart would be a nice feeling to feel.

My last real moment with a member of the opposite sex was a few months ago and predictably it didn’t go so well. He had a bit to drink and asked to kiss me. I was way too awe stricken that someone even wanted me to care. Looking back I regret this entirely because I feel like it ruined our back and forth. Our unresolved sexual tension made for some laughs and silliness. Now, even the good conversations are fueled by something I can’t quite grasp, but it’s not the same as it was before.  (If he reads this, which he might, or might not. I don’t know if people actually read my stuff, I will use this as a venue to say that I miss it. We had a lot of fun, so baby come back?)

My own weird experience made me question sexual tension. Can it just be more fun sometimes to flirt with someone than to physically have them? If you’re anything like me the mental stimulation could be more interesting than the actual physical interactions for sure. I wish I had some psychological explanation for it all, but I don’t so I will just use what I do know: television.

Here are some facts about some of the best TV couples (okay so they might not entirely be facts, but mostly my opinion on the matter. My opinions are facts in my brain.)

• They usually have a great back and forth with one another.
• They take forever to get together. So much so that we start having shit fits over the “THEY SHOULD HAVE KISSED!” moments.
• We complain they take forever to get it together but we watch every little moment of them together or apart as often as possible. Heck, they could even just acknowledge each other or be in a scene together and we love it so much.
• We go crazy when they kiss.
• Finally they kissed!
• Then they have some crazy angst for whatever reason that doesn’t allow for them to be together. We get angry.
• Finally they get together! Yay!
• And then it just gets boring.
• They break up. We get upset they broke up but honestly we weren’t really enjoying them together anyway.

I don’t want to say this happens to all good couples on TV because it really doesn’t. A lot of shows have made it work, but some fail because they don’t know how to write a good couple. Real couples can be pretty damn boring sometimes. I have my friends who I will call J and S for privacy reasons. J and S are FUN. They are that couple that all single people should have because hanging out with them is brilliant. They never make you feel like the third wheel because they’ve been together for so long and are so comfortable with one another that they don’t have to constantly be on top of each other to be amazing. If I can crawl into a fetal position in between two people for the rest of my life, it would be them. Not my parents. THEM.

But then there are those couples, the ones that flirt and it’s all cute and what not, but once each party gets their fill of the other they get boring and they get bad. The spark that was once there is no longer showing any signs of life and you just hate being around them, and in your heart you just know they don’t want to be there either.

I don’t know much about chemistry, but it seems to be a fickle little jerk. Sometimes the people you flirt with aren’t always the people that you should try to have relationships with. And sometimes the people you don’t really know how to flirt with are the best people to be with. I do know one thing though, some people can maintain sexual tension forever, it could always be there. Look at Marshal and Lily on How I Met Your Mother they’ve been together forever and still want to jump one another’s bones. And then you have Ted who ruins every relationship because he confuses sexual chemistry with real chemistry.

The point I’m trying to make, and I almost lost it there, is that once you lose that tension relationships are just really damn annoying. Some people keep it forever and some people lose it the moment they get it. It’s a shame it has to dictate our lives and our favorite TV couples but it’s the damn truth. Flirting is easy, sex is easy, but relationships without sexual tension is hard.