Machine Guns and Relationships.

It's come to my recent attention that people in relationships can be somewhat loosely compared to people in a war zone getting shot at.

When a solider is on the battlefield for the first time, they find out certain interesting things about themselves. One of these things, I'm sure, is how that person deals with the knowledge that they could, at any moment, suffer intangible amounts of excruciating pain while trying desperately to stop various fluids and other important parts of their anatomy from making its way to the outside world. In my opinion, you pretty much have three ways this can go.

1. The person genuinely doesn't care or get phased by this and, with an impressive display of indifference, treats it in the same manner that someone might treat the possibility of getting into a fatal car accident every time they hop in their car and drive to work. It's simply not worth worrying about. They go home with a chest full of medals or a chest full of metal, nothing in between.

2. The person does care and is phased, but with an impressive display of self control they master this fear and continue to function at a pretty much normal level. They tend to be a little more careful and take less risks due to the fact that they are not quite comfortable with the idea of a screaming death. Shit gets done in an orderly fashion but the results and risk factors involved aren't as high.

3. The person does care, is phased, and, with an impressive display of an utter lack of self control, simply loses their fucking mind and becomes a gibbering wreck. They become that asshole from Saving Private Ryan. They are pretty much useless on the battlefield. They are so preoccupied with fear that they cant concentrate on anything else.

Every relationship has a varying level of emotional and monetary chips being placed on the table by the participants. For those that have gone "all in" for the first time, they are suddenly faced with the realization that, like all other gambles, they could lose. When the results of losing are done being absorbed, they have a choice... Are they going to be someone in category one, two, or three?