Unsolicited Advice

Not all relationship work is worth doing. People become more who they are over time. It's not always bad; it is almost always a little bit weird, but that's because "normal" is a theoretical construct. A little awkwardness is charming when it's one of your friends. Other times, it's a disaster. I've recently had occasion to work with another artist on something. I'd known them casually before, in a related context. They were always cranky, but the main crank was centered around a day job they loathed. I know how much having to get up every damn day and do something that's destroying your soul can fuck up the rest of your life, so okay. This assumption was... incorrect. The details are too identifiable to share, and the point here is my own thought process and not other people's dysfunction, but the more time I spent with them, the farther afield the complaints started to range. The list of topics it was unwise to bring up in conversation

There is a school of thought that good relationships require effort, but should not need work. You mostly see it quoted at people who want help with their love lives, but it sometimes pops up in the context of family issues, and rarely for friendships. I'm not sure I agree. It depends, I think, on what kind of work you're talking about. Is it work you want to do for your own sake? Does the other person give you room to do it? Do you feel like the relationship is worth the work involved? I have had to think quite a lot about relationships in the past couple of months, on top of the actual practical work I've been doing. When you work in the arts, your business relationships are also your friendships. It's got pros and cons. I stay adamantly freelance mainly so that I can be prickly about the cons, because they are way up there on the list of things that will tank my mental state. The pros are a helluva thing, though. Ye Ballroom Instructor and I each have our own dem