Romantic Relationship…Help or Hinder?

The Martian itself was not meant to bring in romance to the storyline. The author obviously did not want the story to become a love story, but the matter or life and death itself. For the audience, it is not directly mentioned in the story but it is a safe assumption that Mark is not committed to a relationship back on Earth due to his lack of pictures or significant items that may tie him to a person back home.

This is where the question “Was it easier or harder to endure the isolation?” comes into play. Personally, I think he suffered just as much either way. 

On the side that the author wrote about, Mark was fighting to stay alive in order to get back to Earth for himself. When he was back home, he would not have anyone to come home to except possibly family (which was also never directly pointed out in the story). He made video blogs every day of his troubles for the sake of having a diary from himself, his team members and NASA to look back on. 

Although he had enough problems to face without a committed relationship on Earth, if the author would have included a significant other he would have had more things to take into consideration. I believe that he would question the strength of their relationship while in isolation, which would be significantly harder knowing that the person on Earth has no idea if Mark was alive or dead. Mark would question his actions more, thinking to himself that he needs to be more careful about his ventures because he wanted to make it home safely. 

The reason why I think it would be the same amount of suffering either way is because Mark would have something to look forward to. Although he would question a lot of the things that he did while on Mars, his video blogs would cater to one person as if he was talking directly to them which would give him a piece of mind that he did not have in the book. Also, he upon his return Mark knew that someone would be waiting for him when he landed. So at the same time that it would be hard for mark knowing that someone was missing him, it would also get him through the hard times and give him hope.