Love. Love love love love looooooove. Today I want to write about love. Being out, on my own, I've had a lot of time to think about things and get some perspective on my own life. Yes, it's been a lot of self-centered navel-gazing, and yes, I'm looking forward to caring about people other than myself for a while. But it's been pretty helpful, just to clean out the cobwebs in my brain. Two nights ago I met up with an old friend from high school, Bob, and after talking about things like jobs and high school the conversation inevitable turned to women and relationships. His relationship life has been remarkable like mine, especially the last 6 years or so. That was comforting to hear; sometimes I feel like I'm the only one with my problems, but of course that's not true. He dated a crazy person, has been single for a long time, and has a lot of the same observations about dating - and especially online dating - that I do. (By the way, ladies, he's an awesome guy, tall, attractive, and super smart, so if, you know, you like that sort of thing, feel free to hit me up :).
A friend of mine on Facebook posted an article today that I just finished reading. I don't agree 100% with everything that the guy wrote, but he does a good job of summarizing some of the thoughts I've been coming around to over the last few years. I'll put the link here - http://markmanson.net/love/ - but don't feel like you have to read it to understand what I'm about to write. If you like what I write here you can read it when you're done.
The start of the article focuses on Lennon's line that "all you need is love". When I was younger, and even as a young adult, I genuinely believed this. My parents used to say that "your relationship is the most important thing in your life". I took that to heart; I thought that if you had an awesome romantic relationship, then your life - no matter what else might be true - would ultimately be rewarding. And, conversely, if you did not, then whatever you did as a single person would ultimately feel hollow and empty. To some extent, I still feel that way; I don't think that a life spent without someone to be in a relationship with would feel fulfilling. But I've started to see how damaging that concept can be when taken to an extreme, and how it doesn't work as a baseline philosophy for life. In simpler terms, the relationship isn't where you *start* solving your problems, it's where you *end up* after you solve your problems. In some ways, it isn't the solution, it's the reward. Let me explain what I mean. There's a good line in the article that "a loving relationship is supposed to supplement our individual identity" (emphasis included). This is a powerful realization. To some of you this will be obvious, but it wasn't obvious at all to me. When I moved to San Francisco, I was fresh off of my divorce, and I really thought that my next relationship was going to be the solution to my problems, the linchpin of my life. I put a lot of weight on finding an awesome woman. Her beauty would solve my self-confidence issues about my body ("if I'm with a woman this hot, I must be attractive"). Her devotion to me would solve my self-confidence issues about my social skills ("if I bagged a woman this interesting and devoted to me, I must be an interesting person"). Her income and financial expertise would solve my economic problems. Her desire for kids would solve my family problems. Etc, etc. Basically, she was going to fix me.
Perhaps it will not shock you to find that didn't work. I met - and "bagged" - a series of women, many of whom were very attractive, and most of whom were very cool people in many ways. But I kept being disappointed by how confused they were. How they didn't seem to want to just spend all their time with me. How they hated their jobs, or their bodies, or their family. Totally ignoring the fact that I hated my body, my job, and sometimes even my family. Why weren't they perfect? Why did they get depressed? How come I wasn't meeting the normal ones? I went down these various cul-de-sacs: at one point I thought it was because I wasn't attractive enough. For a while I thought it was because I didn't have good enough "dating skills" (whatever that means). For a time I became focused on fixing women. Then, for a while, I became convinced by friends that the problem was that I was dating women who were too attractive (as if unattractive people have fewer problems). Finally, I came around to the idea that maybe there was something wrong with me - but of course, I approached it childishly and far too extreme. First I thought I needed to be perfect - fancy car, fancy apartment. Then I swung the other way - I needed to be perfectly happy with my life, and then the perfectly happy women would recognize that in me and flock to my side. I stopped working for a while and focused on just having fun. I worked out. I stopped working out. I bought fancy clothes. I bought workout clothes. I hired a photographer. I didn't like her pictures so I hired another one. I hired a matchmaker and a wardrobe consultant and got $50 haircuts. After all, I figured, this was the most important thing in my life. I needed to get this right. It was worth it; worth all the money in my bank, worth all the time in my day, worth all the thought in my mind. It was the only thing that mattered.
"Love is all you need".
I have no idea what Lennon meant by that sentence. He was a bit of a Buddhist, so what he may have meant was that "love", i.e. internal peace, compassion for your fellow man, etc. is all the world really needs. He may have meant that material possessions won't make you happy. In these senses, I might agree with him. But what popular culture has latched on to is "Romantic love is all you need - so sacrifice everything to make it happen, and oh by the way if you don't get it, you have failed". Quick - name a movie where the hero neither has a romantic interest nor develops one over the course of the movie (Jean Claude Van Damme movies don't count). Romance is a key element of almost every story told. If a character in a movie is single, the immediate assumption on the audience's part is that, at some point, a romantic interest will emerge.
Relationship - affection, companionship - are still incredibly important to me. But I'm not super sure that "love" really is. It certainly is not "all I need". If I was miserable in my life but had an amazing person by my side - well, actually, I think what I'm realizing is that if I'm miserable in my life, I won't have an amazing person by my side. Amazing people are the reward for not being miserable. Maybe that statement seems cold, and callous. I'm not suggesting that a relationship should be dependent on being awesome. I'm not suggesting that I would cut and run the first time my significant other had some kind of problem, like that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dumps the guy because he gets in a car accident. Obviously there has to be a balance; that's what commitment means. But what I want to see is that the other person "has their shit together"; is actively trying to make a positive life for themselves, without my assistance needed. The bible says that "God helps those that help themselves", and I think that's true for relationships. And, of course, that means that has to be true for me, as well. I have to have my shit together. Then, and only then, does love become the final piece of the puzzle.