broken love
Nov. 29th, 2007 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingsword"We don't love people's faults, but their faults make us able to love them. We love the people we can reach, those differently broken than ourselves, that seem beautiful to us."
Doug asked me to elaborate last week, but there's still some bits that aren't finished with my idea of the impulse toward love. People mostly ask questions that make sense to them, but y'all're some strange race to me so I get to ask questions about things other people already think are obvious and come up with cracked insights and look like a smarter person than I really am. :) I'm okay with that.
Today's question: Why do people want to fall in love with the people they fall for?
People say they want to love someone who is 'good'. The idea that any two 'good' people can give up enough of themselves and their desires to subsume their personality into a workable relationship is a creepy and popular one. That this is not seen as an alternative form of suicide by ego-death disturbs me. That this view is promoted as healthy in popular culture explains to me many things which are wrong with the world and how it fails to work. But the impulse is there, so maybe they've got the right feeling in the wrong context.
If you get down to it, the definitions of 'good' as pertains to relationships that most people fall back on are 'right for me', 'someone I can stay with', and 'someone I can talk to'. These imply that love IS person-specific, that the criteria are going to have something to do with issue-compatibility and communication styles, and with the difference in natures that causes people to want to communicate (which I have already discussed here). We want the people we love to be like us, and unlike us. It's an important dichotomy, and we'll get back to it.
Then there's the concept that people are so inherently afraid of being by themselves that they latch onto anything that draws them and seek to possess and control anyone who doesn't immediately run away. It contains in itself the nihilism that rationality is not possible in the face of fear and the disclaiming of responsibility for what the self wants as though no degree of choice is present. This is the view that people who have commitment phobias seem to ascribe to most frequently (in my experience), and if that's their context for relationships I can't fucking blame them for the dread and paranoia.
Taking the verifiable data out of the junk above we have our raw data. People are drawn to one another, even commitment-phobics. People may not mind being in love but dread fitting their lives and selves together, and generally screw up the doing of it enough to justify their own dread. There is a fear of being unloved, found unlovable, judged unfit - but here's the weird part: I've never heard anyone saying they fear never finding anyone to love. And they know the faults of their loves and not only don't mind, but seem to find reassurance in them.
Flawless beings could love us perfectly, unconditionally, but nobody defines "good" as flawless. So if the reasons for wanting to love someone aren't that we think they are perfect enough to love us with despite our flaws, then it makes more sense that we would find the kind of broken love we seem to be looking for in people as messed up as we are, whom we can love safely because of their flaws. We seek to love them because they are our equals, and we are okay with being loved by them because we don't have to worry that they will grow out of the flaws we have in common that help us identify with them, or the flaws they struggle to live with for which they are exotic and admirable.
In other news, I have a stomach flu.
Doug asked me to elaborate last week, but there's still some bits that aren't finished with my idea of the impulse toward love. People mostly ask questions that make sense to them, but y'all're some strange race to me so I get to ask questions about things other people already think are obvious and come up with cracked insights and look like a smarter person than I really am. :) I'm okay with that.
Today's question: Why do people want to fall in love with the people they fall for?
People say they want to love someone who is 'good'. The idea that any two 'good' people can give up enough of themselves and their desires to subsume their personality into a workable relationship is a creepy and popular one. That this is not seen as an alternative form of suicide by ego-death disturbs me. That this view is promoted as healthy in popular culture explains to me many things which are wrong with the world and how it fails to work. But the impulse is there, so maybe they've got the right feeling in the wrong context.
If you get down to it, the definitions of 'good' as pertains to relationships that most people fall back on are 'right for me', 'someone I can stay with', and 'someone I can talk to'. These imply that love IS person-specific, that the criteria are going to have something to do with issue-compatibility and communication styles, and with the difference in natures that causes people to want to communicate (which I have already discussed here). We want the people we love to be like us, and unlike us. It's an important dichotomy, and we'll get back to it.
Then there's the concept that people are so inherently afraid of being by themselves that they latch onto anything that draws them and seek to possess and control anyone who doesn't immediately run away. It contains in itself the nihilism that rationality is not possible in the face of fear and the disclaiming of responsibility for what the self wants as though no degree of choice is present. This is the view that people who have commitment phobias seem to ascribe to most frequently (in my experience), and if that's their context for relationships I can't fucking blame them for the dread and paranoia.
Taking the verifiable data out of the junk above we have our raw data. People are drawn to one another, even commitment-phobics. People may not mind being in love but dread fitting their lives and selves together, and generally screw up the doing of it enough to justify their own dread. There is a fear of being unloved, found unlovable, judged unfit - but here's the weird part: I've never heard anyone saying they fear never finding anyone to love. And they know the faults of their loves and not only don't mind, but seem to find reassurance in them.
Flawless beings could love us perfectly, unconditionally, but nobody defines "good" as flawless. So if the reasons for wanting to love someone aren't that we think they are perfect enough to love us with despite our flaws, then it makes more sense that we would find the kind of broken love we seem to be looking for in people as messed up as we are, whom we can love safely because of their flaws. We seek to love them because they are our equals, and we are okay with being loved by them because we don't have to worry that they will grow out of the flaws we have in common that help us identify with them, or the flaws they struggle to live with for which they are exotic and admirable.
In other news, I have a stomach flu.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 01:01 am (UTC)(Of course I mean "get well soon.")
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 01:06 am (UTC)In all honesty I can't argue with anything you've said here because it makes a kind of sense. I have fallen in love several times in my life, because I found someone who felt the same way I did about a great many things, and I thought that those common traits were enough of a bond to stay with them. But it never was.
I now know that until you are COMPLETELY happy with yourself and who you see yourself as, you can never hope to be with anyone else.
That being said, I do love you, in my own special way. I hope you feel better soon.
Hugs
no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 10:20 pm (UTC)I love all things I find beautiful, and this includes you. Yes, yes. Be happy. That we have emotional connection is neat, too. But there is more to relating to people than just loving them, and I'm going to hunt those things down to their meanest elements until I understand them in some way usable by me. Because I'm bad at loving and letting people love me, and Douglas only thinks I'm a great girlfriend because he doesn't know any better. I think maybe we're all bad at love, but I have foretelling feelings that so much more is possible than what we have achieved.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 08:58 pm (UTC)I don't see the why on breaking this down and analyzing the smallest bits. Some things just are.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 09:22 pm (UTC)Love is a great thing, but so is architecture. When you understand the principles fundamental to it, so much more is possible.
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Date: 2007-12-05 04:35 am (UTC)It seems to me that the problem to solve isn't really love, but the things that impede it, like self-servitude and unrealistic expectations.
I agree that more is possible in different ways for each individual.This comes in time with effort, and real caring. People have been puzzling over it ad-nauseum forever, and I think there's merit in simply enjoying it.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-05 04:39 am (UTC)Not trying to argue too much, just offering another perspective.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 02:48 am (UTC)If they can't, they aren't compatible.
Overall, this is more than I want to discuss right now,working things out for myself.
Hope you get better soon!
Drive-by on the way to the gym
Date: 2007-11-30 02:55 am (UTC)Someone isn't a Buddhist *g*
Solemnly, there are reasons beyond the limitations of corporeal reality & finite resources that make ego-reduction have worth in certain contexts. One of those definitely lies in the realm of intra-sentient relations, whether it is tolerating freaky dolphin-people talk*, or learning how to deal with other people when they do not always conform to your expectations or needs besides intersecting the freedom to swing one's fist with the freedom of their nose.
That being said, dominant views of love, like so much else, is totally fucked-up & full of stereotypes about both people's needs & what they should do to address them (& which parties are supposed to attempt to see which needs addressed). There is perhaps a baby somewhere in this bathwater, and where there is more "encouraging introspection about one's desire/needs and behave accordingly" & less "maybe you just haven't sacrificed enough" might be its feeble wake.
*Strictly a hypothetical, as I am down with our aquatic cousins- besides, can we prove that those sharks weren't asking for it? :-D
Re: Drive-by on the way to the gym
Date: 2007-12-03 09:12 pm (UTC)The baby in the bathwater of self-sacrifice for relationship longevity is the willingness to compromise one's unrealistic expectations. It's when throwing out the realistic expectations in a becoming-codependent relationship that you get the diminishing sense of self. In love as in all forms of sharing one's self, we must have a self to share. So perhaps this baby has a clone who can fill in for him, because compromise is still possible even when you've thrown out the idea of giving up on yourself in favor of being one with someone else.
Throwing down the gauntlet.
Date: 2007-11-30 11:38 am (UTC)Conformity is a major theme of current society. We subsume ourselves for the required cults: school, the military, churches, jobs, and love. Maybe it's a fine distinction, but I feel that singling out love for this one is a weak opening argument. It's easy to point at a symptom and define it as the problem.
I know that I am an atypical practitioner... but I have never wanted to love someone who was good. I never really wanted to love anyone. I do, and it is sometimes incredibly wonderful, and sometimes incredibly frustrating.
It is so easy to lose track of one's argument this way. Simply put, there are many wrong reasons to seek love. You have listed some of the more prevalent ones, but do not make the mistake of assuming that what you have seen is all there is. Because much love is fucked up does not mean all love is fucked up.
Finally... It is often said that true conversation can only happen between equals, and in many ways this is true. True exchange is much easier when there is the perception of equality, no matter how false that perception may be.
Argh. There is so much I want to say, but this comment is already beastly long. I'm going to link you to some of my earlier arguments on love. I would love to discuss this with you, if this particular post does not send bore you to tears or send you screaming into the mists.
http://bardkrisp.livejournal.com/137248.html
Re: Throwing down the gauntlet.
Date: 2007-12-04 05:38 pm (UTC)I am saying that the maxim that it is possible to conform and thus make people stay by you is mythic, that without personal integrity there is no self for them to stay with. Well, that's an oversimplification. Hmm. How about: if you are presenting actions as sincere when they are artificed to reflect an image that is not your self, then the self that your partner thinks they have is not the one they really have. And then Ivanova and Marcus are right: all love is unrequited. Because at that point we're in love with who we think of as you, and that person is not you. And that's a tragedy.
The ways I was listing (while badly done) were supposed illustrate more about why we fixate on the people we do love, less than why we want to love at all. I haven't gotten that far yet in the figuring out of things.
And now I have a whole other journal to peruse, when things get boring. It has to happen sometime.
Uh-oh.
Date: 2007-12-06 05:28 am (UTC)Still, you are correct in many ways, and I may well have simply misunderstood. I missed a lot of maxims that are considered 'common sense' due to my upbringing. Much that has to do with the posturing and conformity of modern society is about putting up walls about what is ok and what is not, and denying others access to our true selves. We've been taught that privacy is a necessity, not as an occasional thing, but as a way of life. "No one should be allowed to see you, ever." It's an odd Victorian thing, only instead of hiding ankles, we hide ourselves.
*shrugs* It all comes back to guilt, which is where religions start really fucking with shit. The moment you define something as wrong, people think they need to hide it. Most of the worst crimes come not from doing wrong, but from what you have to do to hide them. *grins* Ever see "A Simple Plan"? In a world where everyone has a different idea of what's wrong, hiding has become second nature. And that is tragedy. Because it's not just from lovers, but anyone we love... friends, relatives, and mentors. We hide parts of ourselves away and deny communication. For me, it is most tragic with lovers, because it is there we come closest to partnership.
Good luck figuring things out, and I hope that my thought process has not in any way interrupted or crowded yours. I am perfectly willing to remain silent to hear what you have to say. I'm just excited to have someone to talk to about all of this, though perhaps my enthusiasm was a bit overzealous. I hope you will forgive me, and also that you will feel free to tell me when you do not feel like debating, but are rather simply thinking. Don't hide that irritation, should it exist. You'll be letting the terrorists win.
To end with, a quote from a cheesy but pertinent poem (though this part is nearly doggerel): I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end.I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. -William Blake
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 05:54 pm (UTC)