Penguins, not.

Because we are but only humans.

He stomped out of the room after bashing one of her friends up. She followed suit and called after him at the corridor. He stopped, turned back. With tears welling up in his eyes, the initially ferocious man said ever so softly, "I want my wife".

She replied, "I am your wife".

He retorted, "No you're not. She's inside the room".

The human was talking to the surrogate of his wife. He hasn't been seeing the human form of her ever since the death of their son.

He is experiencing the stagnation stage whereby he is just going through the motions of the relationship. There is no joy and excitement, no nothing. He goes through routine "scripts" and persists to avoid the pain of termination.

She, on the other hand, is undergoing the avoiding phase in which she withdraws physically and emotionally from her husband. She stays in her room day in day out, living her life through her surrogate self. She avoids her husband and makes almost no effort to keep up appearances.

Towards the end of the film, she goes out of her room after cooping herself up from only too long, and goes into her late son's. The husband was anxious to find her room empty. As if sensing where she might be, he walked to their late son's room. He pushed the ajar door and found his dearest wife with her back facing him . There, they hugged each other ever so tightly you wonder if that whole stagnation and avoiding phase ever took place at all.

That, was from Surrogate.

You find it amazing that the progression and development of relationships can be so easily broken down into a series of ten stages in two phases - the coming together and coming apart.

First, you initiate meetings. You screen and filter each other, all the while being ever so cautious of your own presentation. Next you experiment. You gain as much information about each other as possible through small talks, feeding your own cultural, social and psychological facts. Then the relationship intensifies. Increased commitment, awareness and participation start to sit in. You disclose your feelings to each other. There is now physical contact. The relational identity comes into the picture. As the relationship integrates, you couple into a relational unit which encompasses both of your social networks. You start addressing yourselves as one - "we", "us", "our". Finally you formalise the obligation and commitment by going through significant rituals such as engagement and marriage.

But more often than not, things are not always so smooth-sailing.

This is when the "coming apart" phase comes into the picture.

The first signs of the relationship breaking apart is when you start to distance yourself. You differentiate between the both of you who used to be one. You reaffirm your individuality, you fight for your own personal space. Then comes the circumscribing stage in which you only tip-toe around the relationship, never really getting into it. The relational interest and commitment shrink. You excuse yourself from too personal stuff, restricting communication to safe areas. Subsequently the relationship stagnates. You go through the mechanics of being a couple with the absence of joy and excitement. You no longer look forward to meeting each other, to doing things together. You tolerate routine scripts just to avoid the pain of termination. Eventually you start avoiding each other. You do not even make the effort to keep up appearances. You just don't want anything to do with each other. There is limited connection; you withdraw physically and emotionally. Channels of communication are sealed - you do not even want to talk. Ultimately, you terminate the relationship. It ceases to exist and, to put it very ideally, parties move on.

Going through the stages now you find it amusing how when a couple is together they stick to each other like chewing gum, having to call each other almost every other day and be all so lovey-dovey, yet when they break up it's so difficult to even remain friends.

And you ask youself, why can't we be like penguins which are faithful lovers?