On the Current Unpleasantness, Pt.3
3. I think romantic love is all about incremental intimacy. People crave intimacy in our times. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me and tell me that they just want to find their soulmate, someone to share their life with. I don’t disagree with that sentiment, but there is a danger is making a statement like that, and it shows in our youth culture more prevalently than anywhere else. The danger is this: jumping into intimacy is a serious mistake. The most prevalent example is physical intimacy in our times. People want intimacy, and so they jump to the end of the scale, as though somehow they could work backward from there. Then we wonder why there are so few good relationships. Real love is all about being interested enough in another person to find out about them in stages, to do the work of knowing someone on one level before you go a level deeper. Most (if not all) of the messed up relationships I’ve seen in my life are a product of miscommunications regarding intimacy or the painful and difficult situation of what happens when you skip a step. I know it sounds puritanical to go about love this way, but it’s the best way to guard your heart and your soul until you are sure that the person you are with is a person who will take care of you. That leads to the next issue.
4. I think romantic love is all about trust. This is closely tied to intimacy, but there is one important difference, and it comes down to investment. Intimacy is making an investment in someone. Trust is the interest that investment bears. Intimacy without trust is a sham and a lie. I know plenty of people who are intimate with one another and then go out and break one another’s trust, and then wonder why they have difficulty being intimate again. It’s incredibly important to match intimacy with trust. This is why the incremental part is so important.it gives you a chance to see how much you can trust someone. Only a great fool trusts their heart to a complete stranger with no inclination of how they will keep it. There is a necessary tension between giving intimacy and earning trust. Real love is heavily dependent on both.
5. I think romantic love is all about honest communication. You have to be forthcoming with those you love. You have to be. I’ve heard plenty of excuses why you wouldn’t want to do that, and the only one that holds water with me is if by telling someone, you’d cause them pain. Even then, you’re treading dangerous ground if you bypass communication with someone you care about because you perceive it is for their own good. You’re making the assumption that you know what’s best for them. (There undoubtedly those among you who are calling me a hypocrite for saying this here, knowing something about my make up and past and recent experiences. I’m not going to say you’re wrong, I’m only trying to tell you here what I think real love looks like. I didn’t say I was good at it.) Communication is soooo important. And I’m not talking about conversing about the weather, I’m talking about sharing real issues, your thoughts, your opinions, your life in a meaningful way. (This is also tied to intimacy and trust, as you’ve probably figured out.
6. I think romantic love is all about delighting in another person. Everything about them, even the things that make them annoying to others. The way they flip their hair, the color of their eyes, the way one side of their mouth crinkles up when they smile. It’s those things that make love precious, that make it special, that make it desirable. It’s about them wearing that tie you like, or a dress you know pleases them. It’s about reveling in someone’s company, just being around them. It’s about that tingly feeling in your insides when you hear their voice when you didn’t expect it. It’s about your whole body starting when they touch you, even in the most casual way. It’s about finding out their favorite word, or reading their eyes. It’s knowing their favorite color, their favorite flower, their favorite football team, so you can surprise them with the knowledge later. It’s about ingraining an image into your mind so that you can recall it at a moments notice. It’s about smiling for no apparent reason just thinking about them. This is the stuff people jump to when they talk about love, but jumping to this part without the rest is asking for a swift kick in an uncomfortable place. (Like the back of a Volkswagon.)