a PVC pipe relationship!

yes! you got it right! its the same PVC pipe. The Polyvinyl Chloride pipe. PVC is a thermoplastic polymer chemically identified as the chloroethanediyl. Well just to give you an idea, though its pretty implausible that you wouldn't have heard of the PVC pipes, these are chemically resistant, hollow, plastic pipes especially used for water distribution and sanitary sewer applications.

Hmmm..... so where does this fit in?

When I think of a relationship, I weigh it against the extent of strength it inculcates in both the partners. Greater the strength, stronger the relationship and vice verse. The strength of going across horizons, the strength of fighting with your personal demons, the strength of facing the challenges of financial problems, the strength of coping with the difficulties of family matters, the strength of going beyond one's means to facilitate someone less advantaged, even the strength of nursing cheerfully an ailing family member, all in all, the strength of facing everyday challenges that come along the package of an ordinary monotonous routine of each day. That is what I believe strengthens a bond, builds and nourishes a relationship; the realization that you have a support system in form of that one individual by your side. And that support system does not paralyze your own personal defense mechanism by making you dependent on it, instead it gives you faith in your own personal capacity to handle difficult situations, it makes you aware of your own depths and urges you to dive yet even deeper to seek out the unknown treasures of your self. It keeps you surefooted in an ever swaying world of continuous change.

This to me is what a relationship should do to you.

But alas, every "should" is actually a possibility that lacks any possibility of being materialized. So this is not what a relationship usually does.

So this is where, my aforementioned PVC pipe fits in.

When the relationship is not what it should be, it becomes a bond that asks one to stay in it, oblige a set of responsibilities; give somethings, and receive some others. Instead of intertwining the two personalities, the whole purpose becomes to re-cast one's self into the mold of the other(whoever is dominant in the bond). Personalities just cease to grow together, instead of building upon each other, the strengths of both the partners just wash away through the sanitary sewer, for the two are just too busy fighting their own personal issues that no one bothers to notice that collective energy could do wonders to them. The expected result is that each partner loses on personal front and the sense of 'personal' loss drives any possibility of mutual capacity growth even farther. The relationship, in itself, becomes a hollow facade of something far deeper, far stronger; a true depiction of what Emily Bronte' once called, "hollow, servile, insincere'.

Why?

Because the Relationship, the Bond, does not provide the necessary support infra structure for the people to grow and reach out, beyond horizons. It simply can't afford it. It is a drape around two different people so that they are assumed as one. It is a sphere that, though, holds them together, does not unite them. This sphere is not built to take loads. It is not meant to be subjected to pressures. It is built with just as much contribution from each partner so as to contain them within. That it does. Its hollow (and, weak), since its a drape. Its none porous, because it doesn't absorb anything anything from the two lives it contains. Its simply like a PVC pipe.

And PVC pipe relationships don't last forever.