Why don’t they ever tell the truth about love?

(a then-20yo OD woman wrote)

"The Most Amazing Entry I Have Ever Read                                        Sunday, January 18, 2004 

Hi all. 

Confession time – I read the most interesting diary by MindsetofaJohn.  He is a man who frequents prostitutes and talks about his experiences, in relation to the insights has has acquired over the years.  Some people may find that lurid, but I have to say that the craftsmanship of his writing and the messages he presents are truly wonderful, and have fascinated me since I was 17.  Recently he reposted an old entry I seemed to have missed, or didn’t really understand at the time, and it left me in tears.  It was so amazing to me I have asked him to let me post it in my diary so you can all read it.  The entry is called "Why don’t they ever tell you the truth about love?" or something to that effect.  If you see it posted, its a must-read."

Why don’t they ever tell the truth about love?? 

The popular definition of love is something that changes its stripes to fit the context of any conversation. Matchmakers and the like would have you follow "The Rules" while teaching you how to screen men (or women) to sift out the supposed culls so that you devote your precious dating time to those who meet your supposed standards.

They never really mention the high probability that most of what we call "love" is the result of our own outward projections onto another person where we then delight if they somehow manage to land near to what we expected and hoped for. Think of those pictures of the fine U.S. military bombers in the middle east who first ‘project’ a bullseye on their target which then guides their missiles (hey, this really IS an accurate analogy!!) to the mark.

In keeping with the obvious similarities, the military immediately circulates a report of "90% success" (as might the matchmakers) and it’s only years later that the truth is unveiled that these high-priced war machines (or matchmakers) only hit five to fifteen percent of the time.

What they never admit is that love is most likely the result of our own endless desire to have expectations of all sorts for every man, woman and child that we encounter anywhere. As is the case with those we might find online, our minds want them to live up to a certain image and will continue to perceive that high image until it is clearly proven that they just don’t qualify for that lofty place.

I have said all along here that the fairy tale of "soulmates" is just that, and that the greatest barrier to almost all of us being in love at any given point is our unwillingness to put our emotions/souls at risk. I am quite sure that the single greatest thrill that men can get from women is to witness those women being clearly vulnerable and trusting at the same time. That must really take a great deal from any given woman to reach that stage in a society where some guys make it their obsession to violate and abuse that potential trust while going so far as to sexually force themselves upon different women.

I’m reasonably sure that most humans could potentially share "love" with most of their desired gender and, taking this a step further, I think that most people (is it fifty-one percent or ninety-nine?) have the aptitude, if not the conscious desire for sharing love with a partner of the gender opposite their sexual preference.

Would it be wrong to say that the single most important precursor to love is to reach a place of significant comfort and familiarity with that potential mate? This plays out in relationships ranging from college coeds and their professors to gothic high schoolers who also happen to be stoners on to illicit office romances at the highest corporate levels. When people, especially women, are caused to actually start trusting and clearly expecting to be safe, challenged, and intrigued in someone’s company (no matter the crowd) then the foundation of love begins to build. Mind you, that foundation of love is entirely innocent and generally undetectable because it builds to that level between grungy men shooting hoops down at the YMCA as well as those in love to the great proportions suggested by most Celine Dion songs.

So many of you out there probably want me to somehow reaffirm that your "Tommy" or "Jim" or "Lisa" or "Mark" or "Margaret" is the one single meant-to-be person for you but I just don’t think it’s true. I say that it doesn’t matter that the "soulmate" routine isn’t true. Fact is, YOU made an investment in someone, somewhere, at some point in your life — and beyond that you are as much honoring your own investment as you are that significant other. In so doing you are indeed doing the right thing. It’s so easy to look outward and project all of the credit toward that other person because it’s human nature to not notice the good in ourselves first.

All you know is that something feels good, usually, and you want to identify and understand the what and the reason for it. Immediately you look elsewhere aside from within your own brain for the culprit. The fact is that it was YOU who put the value in that man, on your terms, and then when one guy out of twenty took significant steps toward being the man you envisioned yourself with then you were inspired to show yourself a little more (I’m not necessarily talking sex or physical intimacy here). That action in turn inspires the best guys to show heightened interest in you and as your image of him grows and grows, his image of you is doing the same. In both cases it took a preconceived image of one another to define "good" or "right" or "ideal" before you could possibly understand he was a suitable companion and only at that point did you begin to let your natural guard down. Most of us just don’t understand how attractive we are when we are vulnerable.

So yes, I want to know love with a partner who is open with and understanding of her ability to love. I imagine myself to be a great potential partner for a woman with a sharp mind who has the knack for stopping to think, analyze and consider at a whim.

If as I suggested earlier the single most important precursor to love is significant comfort and familiarity then I say that the intense enjoyment I share(d) with (my favorite) prostitute(s) is more near to that which I really desire than I have known up until now in real life. The money may be significant in some ways but if indeed love is the result of our own projections onto others then I am free to sense extreme similarities between what our physical intimacy has been like and what any shared

 intimacy with a real lover might hold.

Perhaps that is the best explanation I’ve yet offered as to why I do it…

This has again been the mindset of a John.

That entry is a reprint of mine dated April 3, 2002

At the risk of really tainting an entry which may stand alone, let me draw your attention to this list of female teachers who have been charged with having sexual contact with their students.  Firstly you will barely believe the numbers (are they just caught more often than male teachers run amok? – perhaps for the male student penchant for bragging about sexual conquests).

I fully feel that there is a clear line of impropriety when you signed on as a teacher, in a "position of authority", and then in any way violated that position of authority.  These women were indeed wrong but there may be some rather tame psychology which partially explains some of these terrible acts.  (terrible at least for the fact that they would be more obviously so had the gender roles been reversed)

I used to view news of teachers strikes with a hint of disdain given the obvious reality that teachers only work 9 or 10 months a year when compared to the standard 12-month work year traded by most wage earners.  Now I know a couple of veteran teachers and I get to see first hand that not only are their evenings filled-up with lesson planning, but I realize that they spend a large chunk of their work years in the company of minors who are socially off-limits.  The teaching environment simply does not give those teachers access to the chance of meeting scores of adults as the rest of us might do in food courts, restaurants, board rooms and at after-work watering holes.  (Then, when glorious summer arrives, indeed the teachers have the luxury of freedom, but there again nothing forces them to get out and meet and be around the same people every day – which is from where the above-mentioned comfort originates)

Teachers everywhere, still largely women in their 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, have just as much desire to invest themselves in other human beings as do the rest of us.  Perhaps far too many of those teachers are single just for the severe limitations (relatively speaking) on meeting like-aged, singles of their preferred gender in situations where true "comfort" develops as noted above.  So what do teachers DO?  They invest themselves (in wholesome, good ways) in their students.  Teachers find a way to make those kids matter to themselves, both your little angel as well as many of the deadbeats in the back of the class who do nothing but disrupt your little angel’s learning opportunity.

If indeed you are caused (either by yourself, or by someone else) to live in a world wherein there is just a big void where you might otherwise be making someone ‘matter’ to you, it is most likely the case that you will evolve (as living creatures do) to find ways to place considerable value in somebody.  Ideally teachers can limit their student-related "investments" to admirable things such as having great interest in the academic or athletic triumphs or successes known to those students.  But the whole exercise of doing just that tends to put teachers perilously near to the places in their minds where they make romantic "investments" in what should be other adults.

So while I can’t exactly forgive any of the women listed and chronicled at this link, I can clearly understand that they too were reacting to raw human psychology.  Mainly this is just one more hidden factor which gives a teacher’s 9-month school year much more substance and challenge than those contemplating the school levy sometimes want to admit.