Thank you.
I think I am still working out how the mechanics of relationships are going to work for me.
I believe a relationship is two people moving their lives in line with each other, so if it's one-sided the person who is doing the more has a choice of hang in there or back off- but not move closer!
I do know what beauty is. I see it in everything... from a leaf to a person to a color I happen to notice. But the beauty is a fact to me lately. I can see it and capture it, but I don't think I feel it. I am feeling very clinical.
that's exactly it- emotion cuts off when things are painful or ambivalent.
I too FEEL CLINICAL to have all this love and to put up a barrier and not move toward the other person the way I would free a trapped animal or try to paint a leaf, instinctively with no thought of me.
But that doesn't work where reciprocity is required I don't think: I don't need the adoration of someone rescued or to gaze upon someone as though they are a beauriful object.
Does it make sense?
If the other person were full of love also though so we were both moving toward the other and caring about the other it might be more satisfactory? My Buddhist friend is very like this and we have become very close in the same time my crush has been doing this dance back and forward and never moving any ground.
That's what it feels like actually- a kind of negotiation, the Judith Sils book says it's to get a balance between intimacy and engulfment.
But I think it's also because people see things superficially: extracting the maximum advantage from a situation without committing to it really. It's cultural: I am entitled therefore why should I give unless I am sure it will bring me material rewards.
I've sort-of gone beyond this really, I don't care if my partner is super-cute, or what he earns, or if we'll fit into a category someone else defines....it's the intimacy of two people aligning themselves and growing together which attracts and intrigues me.
My friend yesterday who has been married to 2 guys now and the second time is going sour said 'I'll marry for money next time' and I didn't say anything but she actually married for money this time, because her first husband was unreliable that way. Her second husband has taken on board everything she instructed him on that, but he doesn't want to be faithful! She told me she would not have sex with him until she was certain it was leading to marriage, she was very formulaic about it, what she wanted and she wasn't budging until it was what she got. From the outside I can see the frustration of her husband now, who believes he is giving her that and the intimacy they have not explored together ( which she thinks will make her weak and vulnerable ) he is looking for elsewhere. Because you can't manipulate someone into that, or control it. That's what I meant when I said 'love goes where it will'. It empowers the other and hopefully it empowers them to love you the way you want them to. But like with my ex- it just empowered him to start loving himself, which was what he needed but he still didn't want the intimacy I was seeking with me....
being farther along the curve in recognizing lack of reciprocity SOONER
which is why I can't go back, and the love which has developed with my Buddhist friend is showing me this in many ways, I can feel a shift in reality almost physically when I am with him because I never had this degree of being with someone before. Of understanding and being understood. And not worrying where the love will go or trying to make it into anything ( romance/ not romance etc ) other than love.
they naturally are uninterested in being used.
it's interesting Hop, because somehow when we start preconceiving and trying to control it and decide what we are to each other a distance occurs.
I don't want to be like my friend and start to believe i have a formula for 'getting what I want' because I don't, and anyway what's that phrase 'be careful what you wish for...'
Oh, this just arrived in my inbox as I type:
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato
He also said: there is no such thing as a lover's oath!
