Why relationships are a lot like fire

I went fishing with a couple of friends today. Standing by the side of a lake, life often starts making much more sense than it does while you're sitting in an office, wishing that gravity will pull the hour hand of the clock on your wall to 5 o'clock. It's also good for dealing with all kinds of crap.


Admittedly, me and my friends were ill prepared for the braai (barbecue, for my international readers) that we had planned. Fire lighters were in scarce supply, and with only a couple of blocks of charcoal on hand, we were forced to make do with wood and dry reeds. Since we also didn't have an axe, we had to use other pieces of wood or rocks to smash wood into pieces small enough to start a fire. Preparing raw meat on an open fire and using rocks as tools – if we carried on any longer, I'm pretty confident that we would've invented the wheel.

Was it not for bad planning, this blog post would not have come to life. You see, while trying to make a fire, I realised that relationships were very similar to what we were engaging in. (A special thanks goes out to Prometheus and Aphrodite)

When you make a fire, you start small. You throw dry grass and very thin pieces of wood onto the fire. No matter how good a fire-starter you think you are, you can't go throwing huge logs onto a fire that hasn't even started burning yet; it just doesn't work that way. Start small, get it burning properly before trying to put any huge logs (i.e. 'I log you') into it, otherwise you'll just kill it. Just because a fire is small, doesn't mean that it isn't burning. Nothing starts big, and no matter how much it seems to suck, you've got to do the small things first – that's just the way it works.

Have you ever noticed that charcoal makes an awesome fire? Why? Here's my opinion – it's because it's been burned a bit before – it's learned how to burn. Sometimes, you might come across a beautiful, juicy, young tree that no one has ever used to make a fire with – very pretty and attractive, but it's a bad idea to try and make a fire with it. It'll make a lot of smoke and a fire that won't last long. Before being able to burn really well, it needs to dry out and burn a bit and be stuffed in a brown paper bag marked 'Charcoal'. (Guys, please don't grab random girls and stuff them in brown paper bags. Use cloth sacks – that makes it easier for them to breathe.) For your own safety, before starting a fire with anyone, make sure that they're not still burning for their previous fire, otherwise, someone will end up gettting hurt. Yes, that means get over your ex - I can't stress the importance of this enough. (Oh, and by the way, nothing in this paragraph refers to sex.)

On the subject of burning – a lot of people die because of real fires (3.4% of deaths in the US, according to statistics). I haven't got any statistics on this, but I'm sure that a lot of people die because of metaphorical fires as well; if not physically, emotionally. Fire is great – as long as it's controlled and not controlling. Never, ever, allow a relationship to control you. Fire gives us light and warmth, but when it goes rampant it can also give you loads of pain and burns and scars that take a very long time to go away; if they ever go away, that is. Control it and keep it healthy and productive!

A fire rarely starts by itself – it's either due to some jerk leaving glass lying near dry grass, or it's started by someone for a purpose. If you start a fire (metaphorically), your reason should be the latter, not the former. Unlike logs and dry grass, we humans have feelings (even us strong, tough men). Random, uncontrolled fires cause chaos and heartache. Before lighting anything, make sure that that is what you really want to do, and that it is where you really want to start a fire. Don't go starting a fire at location Y, even though you really wanted to start a fire at location X, but it was unavailable. Even more so, if you have already tried making a fire at location X, and it didn't work, don't even try it again! (Shame on you, you fooled me once; shame on me, you fooled me twice.)

A fire doesn't keep burning by itself – you need to keep it burning. You keep it burning by paying attention to it and nurturing it. Same with relationships – they don't magically work, they take work. Do sweet little things for each other, talk, spend time together, whatever it takes.

Once in a while, some [censored] will come along and take your fire. This often leaves a man with an urge to set said [censored] on fire (not the nice, romantic, metaphorical kind, but the nice, painful, scorching kind). Sadly, although he probably deserves it, it won't get you your fire back. You just have to pull yourself together and make a new fire – you don't want the old, burned out fire back once the [censored] is done with it. However, when applied to relationships, give yourself some time to get over the old one (by crying, screaming or setting things on fire) before pursuing a new one, otherwise you'll end up increasing the circle of hurt, and the wrong people will get hurt.

Lastly, I want to leave you with this. Fires are a source of light in the darkness, fires make you warm, fires are pretty cool to look at and one gets a great sense of achievement from starting a good fire (at least, guys do). However, the sun is also a source of light, it makes you warm and it's pretty cool to look at, even though you didn't create it and it's not intimately bound to you. Don't forget that – relationships are awesome, but they're not the only thing that can make your life awesome.