For my first post, I would like to engage you all in a theory of love. I heed you not take discourse due to thoughts of your own, yet to open your mind and to truly search deep down for what I am about to explain to you. With studies in biology, psychology, political science and philosophy, I assure you that these four subjects, and the experience of my own, have settled me on this mindset that I now carry with me.
Each one of us yearns deep down for a true love. In fact, many of us look back and wish we had that of the past, leading to the quote "the one that got away". Well I am here to tell you that "the one that got away" is just an illusion that plays itself onto you after senseless hours bent on the thought of that one person. As we rethink of this "special" someone, we elude the true feelings we had for them at the time. We have to step back and ask ourselves: What did we do for said person to leave? What did I do that made me leave? How was our relationship as a whole? All of which are valid questions to have you play on what your true relationship is like. But what you are really missing is that of which you never had. We want what we can't get, what we would never get in the past relationships that we have had. For example, why did I not treat my ex-girlfriends as if they were the Sun? Why did I not treat every chance I had to see this special person as if it were the last time I would? But as these questions bombard us, we lose sight of how our relationships really were. Here is a little bit of a history lesson.
Until the 19th century, the life expectancy was not exceeding that of 35. 35 years of age! Many of you who are reading this column may not breathe the air you did just now if we turned the clocks back. But this proves a point that I wish to make. We would once not have the thoughts that abuse our minds daily due to the shortness of the lives we would have had. If we all were to grow until 35, it is possible that one person of love could be our life partner but it is hard to say such when life expectancy has nearly doubled.
I have led you now to believe that in another time you might now have had the problems that you do. I have led you to what most other authors will tell you to help yourself and to find other things to bide your time, or to think of the reality of your relationship. But here is where I believe I am different in this story of love and lost. As with all honorable truths, this next paragraph may strike at your very core, and for that I do apologize. But, with proof, true love can never, and will never, exist.
We have all read, or have seen a movie of, William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Here I ask you to think for a moment. Had Romeo lived, and Juliet to have perished, would you think that he would be wishing that he would have been replaced by Juliet and that he would have died instead? Although this is an extreme case of love and loss it still hits the same purpose. What did Romeo and Juliet have, instead of say, favoring the site of one another? This wonderful tale strikes at the very heart of humanity, lust.
Most people who fall in love are at first embedded with feelings for their significant other due to certain attractions. Whether it is facial or bodily attractions, none can disagree that it is non-existent. And when all are in agreement that such an attraction exists, we are all guilty of passing love up for nothing more than intimate sex.
True love is a thought that is given to us by stories and tales that do not exist in the present of this Earth. In short, we make it up! We make it up because we want it. We all feel that we need it and that maybe one day it will find us. Some people make it their lives to find it, that of which I hope you do not do.
There was a psychological study, run by Schachter, once done with a bridge and an attractive psychologist. What was found, the two-factor theory of emotion. In summation, when aroused emotionally we can easily misplace those feelings for something else. In the study’s case, the more risky the bridge, engaging ones emotion, the more likely it was of that male to ask the attractive woman psychologist out on a date. This is where TV shows strike at your heart, but that will be in a later post due to my digression.
Lust. We all want to be physically pleased. With such, arousal inclines emotions. We then attach those emotions to that significant other. And after awhile those emotions build onto one another until you finally feel that you are truly in love with that other person. But reality takes its course, as it always does, and your relationship ends (I do not feel that this is the same way for those who are married, that will be in a later post). Now, those emotions we have attributed to that significant other build on us that make us believe that the person we had lost had much more meaning than they probably did. We start to look for the small things that they did, things that make us want to appreciate their presence more in our life. We then look to the negative things they did to try and help ourselves get over that person. What really happens down the road is a misconception. What you thought you had had, you probably did not. Every case is special, but the majority falls into such.
When we walk this Earth and yearn for that true love to take our hand and guide our way, we yearn for something that is but a shadow of a dream. Reality is a dirty depth, and it seeks no end. Had Romeo never slept with Juliet, he would have never attributed those feelings of lust to his infatuation of true love with Juliet but he would attribute the yearning for love with Juliet. This lust for Juliet would make Romeo believe that he is truly in love.
My take away message for you is to try and realize the length of time your relationship extended is the harder for you to get over that ex-lover. Those emotions we all had once had are mere complications to our road to recovery. But the road to recovery is one of certainty. New lovers can heal the pain of that of lost ones and new emotions can be confused with love for them as well. Don’t mistake yourself as a special case, the sooner we all realize that the sooner we all move on together.
I would like to end by saying that this post does not apply to that of widowers, divorcees and young teenagers.
