This Thing Called Love

robingoh wrote: Or maybe we have all been conditioned by centuries of parochial, heterosexual and social psychobabble to think that we NEED someone. Not just someone, but a SPECIAL someone. So much so that we are made to feel inadequate, incomplete, unhappy if we are less than two. I once told a friend( single, female) that if she finds someone, great. But if not, there are always her family and friends. And even if she were an orphan and socially inept and had no family or friends, she would still have herself! I don’t think anyone realises how important that is. We’ve been taught that “self” is bad, that we’re “selfish”, that we should be “selfless”. But without the self, who would we be? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we do have an intrinsic, natural, all-consuming need for “the other half” that has nothing to do with social norms or expectation. Did the need come first, then become packaged into the TV shows and romances and products of our society? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I guess we’ll never know. But after all this time, even if the need is that basic, maybe we should have figured a way out by now.
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Babe – looking back at the many years we’ve been in and out of relationships …. I’d say the first few relationships you go into ’cause of the conditioning you talked about. We look at everything around and its telling us we SHOULD be in love. Then later, we learn about the importance of knowing-understanding-coping-loving oneself before being able to do likewise to / for someone else. That’s the discovery of your self.

Having gone through all that, deep down inside, I know that I want someone to know me so completely and to love me so absolutely that all I can think about is to give back double the intensity of what he feels. Its a place I’ve been in only a few times.

Strangely enough, lately I find my friends filling that need of knowing me and loving me. Remember Jay’s comment about “he’s ONLY the boyfriend” when it comes to choosing between his boyfriend and his close friends? Is this the cure or the way out you speak of?

I don’t know … maybe it is … or maybe someone has figured another way out. But given the choice, would you choose the “way out” over sharing your life with someone, “the one”, or not?

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