losing yourself to love
Please, read this. All credit to a friend of mine at GJ. Her points are not only dead on with my opinions, but are also very eloquently expressed.
note: this isn't aimed at this community, rather, it's about several people i know in real life. however it's something i feel strongly about that applied to relationships, so i thought i'd post it here.
some of you will disrespect me for saying this, but i firmly believe that every couple shitting themselves over each other and declaring undying love constantly in any manner that i am exposed to should die slow, painful, separate deaths.
when did every other couple in the world become so fucking stupid? it's like everywhere i look, formerly intelligent people with distinctive personalities and individualistic traits have melded with their significant other into a sticky-sweet mass of public displays of affection verging on obsession. it's so fucking pathetic to see completely capable human beings relying on each other for absolutely everything. i know some girls who probably couldn't take a shit without consulting their boyfriends first. couples who've dated for three weeks and are already slinging around "i love you"s and telling anyone who will listen about how they plan to move in together.
i used to believe in "uncontainable, inconvenient, grand passion in love" but then it occurred to me that passion isn't love, it's a synecdoche for it, and anyone who considers the two as interchangeable is delusional. i suscribed to winterson's concept of love that smashes your heart because i liked the notion of unnatural disasters, titanic, tragedy. now i think that part of growing up is realizing that not everything good in life has to be painful, theatrical, and perpetuated by your favorite stupid fucking bands.
have you considered, for a second, that a long-term, committed relationship isn't structured from calling each other three times a day "just to hear each other's voices?" maybe it's about trust and patience surviving over distance and time. maybe it's about compassion built off of a real, solid friendship, not the shit you call friendship that was basically the two weeks you knew each other before "going out." maybe it's not comprised of publicly fawning all over each other and announcing to the world your personal love and the dreams you share with each other. maybe, just maybe, what the two of you have would be a lot more special if you kept your affection for each other behind your closed doors. if you're truly in love, what does social validation matter?
i believe i have been guilty of this in the past, but i feel like i'm starting to figure things out about myself and my relationship. i used to feel anxious over the fact that daniel and i seemed more like friends than lovers, by the fact that we were never publicly affectionate. after two years together, we don't seriously talk about getting engaged or moving in together. but to me, that's no longer the mark of an immature relationship too slow to come into full bloom. to me, it defines characteristics of a mature, adult relationship. we don't have to see each other every day. we don't have to talk to each other every day. regardless of either factor, we're very much in love and wholly committed to each other, and to the relationship we share.
love is not math. it is not implicit differentiation. it is not defining yourself in terms of another. you are not your relationship, you're a separate entity with a functioning brain and no matter how many times you fuck each other with your foreheads pressed against each other, you are still two different bodies, two individuals. those who lose sight of that come out hurting the most. people who have lost sight of other priorities like their education, career, family, and friends just to blather on about how their love is the most important, holy concept to ever exist, and how they cannot live without each other. you can, and you will. grow up.
i can't relate to this needy bullshit and i never want to.
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i can go on, and on, and on about this. but i won't. why? because she's said it perfectly already.