Beyond Falling In Love
by Earnest L. Tan
Falling in love is easy. It is not even something we are in full control of. It is not planned. Sometimes you are minding your own business. Suddenly a girl walks into the room and one glance at her makes your heart goes pitter-patter. You can’t get her off your mind from then on. Or you have been turned-off by this guy who comes across to you as a total jerk. One day he does something totally unexpected that was rather sweet and thoughtful. You find yourself making a 180 degree turn and can’t wait to see him the next day.
Falling in love however is not real love. It is precisely what the phrase says it is—falling. It is something from within that is pushing us to undertake a quest. This “somethicng” comes in the form of a strong infatuation, desire, urge or dream that draws us to a particular person. Its sole purpose is to propel us to capture the heart of our beloved. This whole experience is nothing more than Love’s design to beckon us to take on a journey that invites us to transcend our Self and seek union with someone. Falling in love is therefore the beginning of discovering and experiencing true love.
The Anatomy of Attractions
Attractions are unique to the persons experiencing it. This explains why often our friends are baffled by our choices: “Yuck, why him of all people?” At times, we ourselves are confused: “I can’t understand why I am so drawn to her! Nagayuma ba ako? (Was I bewitched by her?)” Attractions actually stem from the part of our mind that is known as the Unconscious. This part contains mysteries about the truths of ourselves that are only eventually revealed when we attempt at relating with someone. Relationships therefore serve as mirrors from which we learn more about who we are. Let us explore some of the factors that spark our attractions.
Ideals. We are drawn at times to people who represent what matches with our notions of who an ideal partner is, what true love means or what comprises a perfect relationship. Consider these instances: a girl swoons over a guy who is “macho” because he is the epitome of what she considers as truly masculine—isa siyang tunay na lalaki (he is a real man); a boy falls for a girl with long and bouncy hair—babaeng-babae ang dating (she is so feminine); a gal perceives the suitor as the long-awaited prince charming who has finally come to rescue her; a guy believes that he has finally met the girl of his dream: “You complete me! We will live happily ever after!”
Needs. Our motivations are also influenced greatly by our needs. Some example of these needs are: the need for a person to affirm me sexually—I am beautiful and desirable!; the need for someone who will boost my ego or status; the need for a guy who requires my nurturance and protection; the need for a strong shoulder to lean and depend on; the need for someone whom I can dominate and control; the need for anyone who will offer me the joys, thrills and excitement of romance. Whoever is deemed capable of fulfilling our specific needs becomes the object of our desire
Compatibility. Compatibility is about seeking someone who shares similar values, interests, goals and aspirations. In the initial stages of infatuation, some psychologists theorized that we tend to fall in love with people who seemingly jibe or complement with our temperaments. Different people have different temperaments. Those whose nature for example is one of an adventurer will most likely be attracted to someone who is perceived to be a wonderful “play mate,” a person with whom they can have fun and entertainment with. Those who are traditional and old-fashioned are in contrast more drawn to someone who is stable and predictable. Those who are deeply-feeling and spiritually-oriented will instantaneously find someone with whom they can authentically connect with to be more appealing.
Scripts. It is also believed that we are in actuality attracted to people who conform to the scripts that we need to play out. We learn early on from our parents the pattern by which they live out their relationships. We adopt eventually their patterns but sometimes secretly desire to change the outcomes if they seem unacceptable to us. We subsequently find people who represent our “phantom parent” and repeat the scenario. Without being conscious, we are doomed to make the same mistakes as our parents have. With consciousness, we gain a second chance to redeem them as we alter their patterns and emerge on their behalf better and wiser. For instance, a woman may witness the pattern of a dominating husband and a battered wife in her parents. She unconsciously falls for a man who is very macho. Later to her dismay his machismo transforms into abusive words and actions just like her father and she inevitably ends up being a victim just like her mother. The guy may complement the same script from his own background by expecting the girlfriend to remain docile even when she is trampled on. We can also have a man whose single mom is cynical about love. She had her share of rejections and frustrations in love. The son ends up being drawn to a woman who is fearful of commitment and therefore keeps sabotaging their relationship. He ends up validating what her mom has come to believe. In dating, an opportunity for both of these persons to change their parent’s script and not bring the past to the present is provided. This is however only possible when they both pursue the relationship and heighten their awareness of the scenario or scenarios that they are unconsciously playing out.
Waking Up
Authentic love begins when we let go of all our illusions of love. Relationships cannot be sustained on the basis of attractions alone. This is especially true when the source or sources of our attractions are based on ideals, needs, compatibility and scripts that are illusory in nature. This is the reason why falling in love can be deceiving. We think that we are in love when in fact we are not yet fully there. For true love to happen, we need to wake up and see things as they really are. This involves having the courage to look at our beloved without our coloured glasses and accepting their imperfections as much as their beauty.
Infatuations can be superficial. A young boy may be mesmerized by the long and bouncy hair of his crush. But when she decides one day to cut her hair short, he loses eventually his interest in her. She has broken the spell from which he was earlier placed under—the illusion of what a feminine woman is. Desires in the same manner can be misleading. A girlfriend is drawn to protect and care for her boyfriend because he hails from a broken family. After some years, the girlfriend complains of the lack of reciprocity from her boyfriend. She eventually demands for returns as she recognizes her own need for protection and care. Urges can be temporary. A guy enjoys the company of a girl who is fun-loving and daring. Later he realizes that the playing field is wide and begins to seek out other enjoyable partners to have fun with. He dumps her because she appears boring to him now. Dreams can be unreal too. A woman finally found the man of her dreams. He seems perfect. He is stable. He is successful. It turns out later that he is no different from her father who is cold and distant. He hides his fear of being emotionally close to anyone by burying himself in his work.
Two people who undertake a journey of love soon realize that the travel is never a smooth one. There will be many bumps and turns ahead. They soon come to terms with the fact that each partner in truth possesses issues that unwittingly trigger the other and vice versa. This sparks a number of disagreements and conflicts. At times it leads to big fights. Without real love, one or both are easily tempted to pull out and give up on each other. With genuine love, both finds courage to confront the issues and explore if they can be truly good for each other. At times, the fruit of such work is the realization that they are better off when they are not together. Thus they offer each other with the painful but liberating gift of letting go. Other times, the process leads them to discover that they are really good companions in the journey of life. They can help each other address their individual issues.
Love Requires Work
Loving is therefore not about feeling good. It is the willingness to work through our relationships. It entails the effort to smoothen out the flaws and problems in the efforts of being together with someone. This means we elevate the initial experience of “falling” to one of “being” in love. The love expert, Leo Buscaglia, reminds us: “Relationships require work. It will not work for people who are not willing to work. It will not work for people who are not willing to work without any guarantees.”
Let me offer some of the considerations to make love work:
Love Waits: The Value of Time. We often hear the saying, fools rush in. This is a truism that we need to heed wisely. Only time can tell if there is indeed true love. There is ironically no formula by which we can measure the proper length of time to test love. The right time to me will highly depend on how soon and how fast both parties are able to let go of their illusions of love. It commences once the “honeymoon” is over, so to speak. Sometimes, it takes decades of living together before someone bumps her head and realizes that it was not love at all that led her to marry him. It was the security he offered at the time she desperately needed it. Sometimes it will be quick for an honest person to admit that he was only after the campus queen because she would make a great “trophy girlfriend,” someone whom he could parade in public to enhance his ego. In both these cases, coming to terms with these truths is already a breakthrough. Both then could bide more time in order to elevate their impure motivations to ones that are more noble and pure.
Know Thy Self. True love demands also a movement from an “I” to a “WE.” This can only be attained if the “I” is healthy in the first place. This means that, as individuals, we possess a full sense of our Self. We are reconciled with who we are and who we are not. As such we have come to terms with ourselves. We therefore readily claim our strengths as well as our weaknesses, our pure and impure motives, our inner demons as much as our potential divinities. In relationships our personhood are inevitably mirrored. The healthy self will never be defensive or elusive when confronted with truths of the self. In fact, it is rather easy for one to admit one’s contribution in either making the relationship work or fail to work. We can respond to the charge, “you seem to always be thinking of yourself,” with an honest appraisal: “Yes, I know that I am a spoiled brat.” We eventually realize that the needs and expectations of our partners from us are challenging us to work on our own unfinished business. We therefore take the responsibility to meet and address them in place of expecting the other to do our work for us. We conduct this because we desire to be better not only for ourselves but even more for our partner. But we also appeal to our partner’s understanding and patience as change takes time. In contrast, the unhealthy self will simply deny, blame and project all their weaknesses and issues to the other. We refuse to see the truth. We will dump the responsibility on our partners. As a result, the relationship gets stuck rather than flourishes. When accused of thinking too much about the self, the unhealthy one retaliates: “You are worse than me!” To quote once again from our love guru, Leo Buscaglia: “Perhaps your greatest statement of love is (no longer to say I love it) but to say: I am, I am becoming not only for me but for everyone.”
The Four Pillars. Relationships thrive when lovers offer each other these four important elements: Openness, Honesty, Respect and Care. In openness, we willingly disclose our stories of fears and vulnerabilities, hopes and dreams, joys and pains. The more our beloved learn about us, the more we become endearing to them. This is because people tend to love those whom they really know. That is why love requires knowledge of our beloved. In honesty, we confront each other with the truths that particularly affect and impact on our relationships. By struggling with these truths, the probability for our relationship to grow is higher. In respect, we accord each other with the basic right to be our own person. No one, even the most important person in our lives, can and should take away this basic right from us. Finally, in care, we show interest to look after the welfare of each other. This entails not only catering to each other’s needs but also denying what will do one harm. Mon says he loves Cindy. Yet he treats Cindy as his ego extension. This means, he dictates to her how she should talk, think and act. He talks incessantly about his plans in life but Cindy never seems to be a part of it. He demands Cindy to always be there at his beck and call. When Cindy expressed her difficulties in her relationship with him, he refuses to discuss about it. He threatens to leave her if she persists with the issue. There is no indication of love on Mon’s part. It would be wiser for Cindy to walk away. M. Scott Peck offers us probably the best definition of love: “Love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing both one’s own and another’s spiritual growth.”
In Closing
When Cupid strikes an arrow in our hearts, it is nothing more than an invitation for us to love. The easy temptation is to remain in the stage of falling in love. Aside from the fact that it does not require work, it gives us such wonderful feelings. It takes courage therefore to come down from the clouds and place both feet on the ground. We need to awaken to the fact that love is only real when we let go of all our illusions of love. And as we invest in efforts to make our love work, we discern if the fruits they bear are indeed life giving for our beloved and ourself. In the Broadway musical, Funny Girl, a song entitled “Who Are You Now” proposes how we can best measure genuine love that is borne out of what love asked of us. I close with these stanzas for you to ponder on what love really is all about.
Who are you now,
now that you’re mine?
Are you something more
than you were before?
Are you warmer in the rain?
Are you stronger for my touch?
Am I giving too little
by my loving you too much?
How is the view?
Sunny and green?
How do you compare it to
the views you’ve seen?
I know I am better and braver and surer, too.
But you, are you now?
Who are you now?
Are you someone better for my love?