Let's be honest: there is more than one kind of love. There is no such thing as the ultimate and superior "True Love" nor is there only one way to get it right.
I am starting to suspect however that there are at least one or two ways to get it pretty wrong, and I want to issue a warning about the deceptive nature of one kind in particular. It frequents the hearts of late teens, early twenties, romantics, sensualists, and naivetés. I'm talking about when you are not in love with a person, but in love with them loving you. The entire relationship circulates around craving their fidelity, their attention, their desire, their friends, their family, their email inbox and their facebook password. When you have it, things seem rather dull. When there's even the slightest suspicion that you don't have it, one can become an emotional, lovesick, clingy, mess of a person.
We've been there, right? I'm a glutton for relationship talk and I'm fairly certain I've heard the common cry of dismay that this sentiment inspires around the table frequently. When person A wants person B to want them so badly, person A forgets to ask themselves if they even want person B to begin with.
Come to think of it, can we actually classify this as love or just a sinister decoy that preys on insecure or sentimental hearts? How can we be so desperate for another person's approval that we actually forget the person? I've been there: I would call my relationship with K before moving to France this all over, and I stuck it out for years before I realized that under all the layers of my needs for self affirmation, K himself wasn't in my heart. Are you following me here? Lovers on the lame side of love: Are we loving people, or are we loving love?
I just have to tell you.... I just discovered your blog and I'm slightly addicted. Ok like I've been reading for the past hour and a half and loving it! I think you should write a book.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I said!! This would make the best book! Also, very insightful posting. Made me think about my own situation. I will consider this more often now.
ReplyDeleteYou have got that so right ... we are more in love with being loved, than in love with those who love us, or whom we want to love us. How come more people don't see that? And we're in love with the drama of love, and of unrequited love, and of the conflicts, and so on.
ReplyDelete