Let's Talk About Love Again, Shall We?

[quidditchgrrl]

I got in on lissinthecity's post about love a little late, but it did get me to thinking.

There are many words one might use to describe my views on the subject. Cynical. Hard-hearted. Unromantic. Pessimistic. A misanthrope, if you will.

I don't believe in wuv, true luv, at least not in the sugar-coated, romantic, Pretty Woman kind of way, where a person can meet and just know that a person is THE ONE. Soul mates? Only of the same sex. Love at first sight? Gag me. A person who knows all of your hopes, dreams, fears, wishes, and dislikes, and loves you all the more for them? I'd run the other way as fast as I could.

Yep, I have a Honeybunch that I love dearly. We love each other and tell each other so every single day. But more importantly, we are each our own person. There's mutual respect of each other. When one asks a favor, the other performs the request, or explains why they can't get it done. Apologies are handed out on occasion when an agreed-upon request is not honored. If one of us forgets a request made by the other, we feel badly.

I'd never trade that for all the candy and flowers and jewelry in the world. If Honeybunch quit helping out around the house or ignoring me when I ask him to pick up milk or throw a load of laundry in, all the romanticism in the world could not make me love him. Honoring each other means respecting each other as a person, and honor and respect are tied inexorably with love for me.

Honor is not going out to dinner because my SO hasn't lifted a finger around the house for a month. Respect is not buying me a nice necklace when he can't be arsed to help with the kids.

That aside, Honeybunch is a romantic (who would have thought the woman completely unromantic and the male the fluffy partner) and I can handle that in small doses. But I can understand the irritation and feeling of suffocation one can feel with a person who cannot be without the other. When the other person needs you to be validated, a full person. Honeybunch isn't like that, thank goodness. He just needs some extra attention and hugs on the hour. :)

I like to spread my intimacies around. I have friends who know most everything about me, Honeybunch knows what he wants to know (and really, there are parts of every person that you don't care to know), and other friends that I can let loose with sides of my personality that I don't use every day. I'm a mess of contradictions, and I wouldn't wish upon any one person the task of deciphering all of them. That doesn't mean that love should be conditional, but that sharing every facet of oneself kills the mystery, doesn't it?

But then again, one could call me lucky. I've never felt completely unloved. Even when I was single, I never felt like there wouldn't be someone to love me. I just figured it would simply be a matter of time. I got involved with things I enjoyed, did what made me happy, and found someone who I could share my time with and who loved me back. I loved unconditionally, gave freely of my love to others, and received love in return. Now that's cheesy. :-P

So says PBG, lover of romantic novels.

Comments

[lissannej.livejournal.com]

Wow, interesting take, Donna. Especially on the soul mates being only of the same sex. I wish I'd made the post earlier, it's been really grand to see so many different opinions.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, all the comments and differing views really make you think, don't they? :D

[tonksnymphadora.livejournal.com]

men are often the romantics. Women have roles to fulfill that require them to be mentally tough, which can diminish the romance in the air. I know my dad was always the one to bring home the roses...and mom would brush them off (all the while loving it secretly, which dad knew so I never understood why she kept it secret).

it is the base of nature. Women pick their partners based on certain criteria, the way they woo their partners, smell and so on. So of course by science, they have to be romantic to win their woman or they get lost in the shuffle.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

It must be based on a personal definition of romance. I hate chocolates, roses, all the commonly-held romantic trappings that are to somehow make up for the lack of any other action on the man's part.

Take out the trash, put away the clothes, let me watch a program during basketball season - for me, that's romantic.

Honeybunch does buy me flowers or chocolates once in a while, and it's nice, but yeah. They're just flowers and candy, not personal energy. *shrug* It's just not the same to me, but I see why women like that stuff.

[tonksnymphadora.livejournal.com]

see...romantic for me is just being held, spoken to sweetly, maybe a nice dinner (I love food) even if it is tke out, after a long day that is really special, especially if there are candles involved.

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

Throwing in my US$0.02:

I'm polyamorous, so the idea that there is just one love out there for me is not even a workable one (although I understand the whole monogamous mindset, some people are, some people aren't) but...

Even if I weren't, I still wouldn't think that there is just one perfect person for me. I've experienced so many different kinds of love over the course of my life: the intensity of teenagehood loves, the first steps into adult commitments in my twenties, the unfulfilled promise of married love in my 30s. I know what unconditional love means now that I have a child. The love of my friends, which is deeply fulfilling in ways that a sexual love relationship will never touch.

To ask just one person to be all those things in your life is a bit unfair, to be honest.

And on another note, can someone point me to the Harry/Hermione story/ies mentioned in the post so I can see what this paragon of a relationship looks like?

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

Exactly! No one person can be all things to another. Both parties would stagnate and end up unhappy.

Ooh, Paradigm of Uncertainty - the series *is* very good.

Link to PoU:
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Lori/The_Paradigm_Of_Uncertainty/

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this story ate my brain all day yesterday! Thanks! *grin*

(At least I had time yesterday in which to have my brain eaten by good writing.)