Well, it has been almost two years since I last wrote on this illusive and complex topic. I have greatly changed as a person since then. I have done a lot of growing up, and I still have a long way to go.
The person that motivated my writing of the past four editions of "What is Love?" no longer troubles me. In fact, we are even on speaking terms now. Part of the reasons why I wrote was because I felt so hurt and alone; I feared that I could never again have that sort of happiness again. Almost two years have passed since the end of that relationship. I have moved on to new things now and it is great.
The reason for this entry comes from my latest endeavor at finding love (if it can be found at all).
If you read my other blog entries, you will see that I traveled to Turkey and Greece six months ago. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life! I hope to have many more awesome travel adventures.
The problem is that I "fell in love" (whatever that means) during my travels. To make a very long and complicated story short, this is what happened. I liked a girl; she liked me. She had a boyfriend of five years. We kissed. We spent a lot of time together. We came back to America. We kissed some more. Several weeks went by. I tried to convince her to end her relationship. I failed. I was heartbroken, then sad, then bitter.
I have learned so much from this very strange and unique experience. My mind has thought a great deal about this. My friends have also provided me with tough-love and honest criticism of my decisions and rationale. When I told his girl that I liked her, I figured that she would have just reacted like I expect every girl to react; indifferent or apologetic. Instead, she said that she too liked me (whatever that means). That was all she had to say to make me completely comfortable with her. We spent a lot of time together for the remainder of the trip. By some unknown power, I even worked up the courage to kiss her! I surprised even myself! She kissed me back and there is no debating that. Problems did not come about until after we came back. I honestly thought that I could convince her to end her five year relationship... for me! What a spell I must have been under! When she told me that she would not, I almost fell apart. I became so angry at myself, and then at her. What the hell had I done?
I now realize that I was a victim of that dreaded "i" word... infatuation. My best friend made me realize that I jumped at the first girl that said she liked me. I thought I had found that happiness again, however short-lived it was. But this happiness was not built upon anything stable or suitable for nurturing anything long-lasting. It was the product of attraction, proximity, and the fact that both of us were away from our "normal" lives back home. I acted upon my impulses as did she. Neither one of us is blameless. She spoke very poorly of her boyfriend and their relationship. I thought for sure that I could be that wonderful guy that steals away the damsel from the evil boyfriend. I am going to guess now that he probably is not that bad of a person, but she did not paint a favorable picture of him. I saw it as an invitation to swoop in. Guess not.
Now I see that I am (and mostly have been) a victim to infatuation. All of the girls that I have "liked" throughout elementary school, high school, and college have been based on the superficial; the part of us that we allow others to see. Let me be clear about this. When I say superficial, I do not strictly mean a person's looks or physique. I mean that "mask" that we all put on in front of certain people because of certain social situations or levels of comfort. The reality is that none of us act as ourselves in front of everyone (or anyone!). I became infatuated with the person that this girl portrayed herself to be.
It is one thing to be infatuated, but it is another thing to let it run your life and make your decisions. Thinking about past girls, I realize that I have let my infatuation blind my decision making ability. I played up the positives and rationalized the negatives to make them seem ok. Having a boyfriend for five years should have made my conscience say, "NOT OK," very loudly, but I either ignored it or closed my ears to it. I let myself be fooled by the person she wanted me to see, not who she truly is. A clever act.
One very disturbing thing about this whole mess is the fact that she was willing to be unfaithful to be dear boyfriend of five years. I assure you that it did not go any farther physically than kisses. More importantly, however, was the level of emotional intimacy. It was made very clear that they only had a limited degree of emotional intimacy. Without being too critical of them, I will say that an emotional connection is not something that they demonstrate. Look at me acting as if I actually know the dynamics of their relationship. I lose points for that one. But what I am trying to say is that I believe an emotional intimacy is equally, if not, more important than physical intimacy. I will say, however, that physical intimacy has an important place in any relationship. This will be a great topic to discuss later.
Another problem with infatuation is that it is like a tapeworm for your emotions. No matter how much you feed it, it will never be satisfied. It takes any sort of sustenance that you give it and it engorges itself until it eventually destroys itself and you. Perhaps that is a bit graphic, but the point I want to make is that an infatuation is not based on anything of substance. Everything looks alright on the outside, but on the inside, things are very wrong. Using this metaphor, you can see that infatuation also affects your decision making. You want to do anything to please your tapeworm (infatuation) to make it happy, but what you do not realize is that it is not healthy for you. I sacrificed aspects of my own personality to make sure that she was happy, in order to sustain our "relationship." I did not realize at the time that I was, in a way, pretending to be something that I am not; I was changing to fit the situation instead of being myself. I was more concerned with making my emotional tapeworm happy rather than myself.
Even after this girl, I find myself infatuated yet again. But after this experience, I do not want to make the same mistakes (although I doubt I could screw up that badly again). Perhaps I am just rationalizing again, but I think this girl is great. Which leads me to the last point of this entry...
Can infatuation lead to love?
A high school religion teacher of mine asked this to our class. He himself did not have an answer, but wanted to stimulate some critical thinking. Four years later, I still do not have an answer. For my sake, I want to say yes, but I think that my conscience is leaning toward no. I think that in some cases infatuation can lead to love. I think it depends on the people, their particular relationship goals, and what they want in a significant other. If two people are infatuated (or attracted to the superficial), but finally see beyond those superficial things, then I suppose it could work out. I think that many infatuations fail because we become disappointed by the realities beneath the superficial, causing the infatuation to crumble. This needs more development... perhaps in another entry.
I'm glad to have finally caught you up on my love life (or lack thereof)... I hope to write more in the near future.
As always, keep learning to love...