Some relationships, I have learned, are best when dysfunctional. Having been around such severely dysfunctioning relationships all my life, I can't say I would ever be happy in a conventional happy relationship. Perfection, or even the semblance of it, both frightens and amuses me, like that odd dream where you can just feel that everything's just too darn good to be true and something very, very nasty will come by to break the sheer monotony of this perfection very soon.

Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. When everything's going well, you're engaged in cautious enjoyment with an eye towards the pessimistic turn you're convinced is coming. When everything starts to sour, you're so happily involved in the gloating over your prediction come true of bad things to come, you're slightly oblivious to how bad everything really is. This air of unreality helps keep that little optimistic flicker you try to supress kindled and alive.

Life's good when you're a pessimist.