I think the greatest problem we in the West have when it comes to love is how dreadfully huge the gulf is between our expectations and the reality of love. We have a major problem, collectively, in bringing our individuated, manufactured ideas about love and romance together with the sometimes-harsh realities of modern relationships.
I'm not going to just blame media-constructed fantasies like Sex and the City or the "rom-com" genre of films that seem to create a culture of unrealistic expectations for women or how males are taught by much of the media to repress our more emotional, sentimental sides. The media does play a role in creating false emotional realities for both genders, sure, but it's not the only reason.
A lot of our deeply dysfunctional approaches to love is really about how so many institutions are intent upon reinforcing a culture of discontent with ourselves and each other. Fact of the matter is that one of the biggest reasons marriages or co-habitations fail has a lot to do with non-acceptance of your Significant Other's flaws. Culturally, us Westerners cannot cope in a long-term social environment that involves selfless acceptance of someone else, warts and all. We've been taught that not only are we, as individuals, the centre of the Universe, but that our needs are most important above all else. And if those needs aren't met in a reasonable timeframe, then forget it, the relationship's over.
This is to say that some relationships are doomed to fail from the start or that love does, sometimes, take a natural course -- I'm definitely sure love isn't always forever.
The problem is that we've learned to equate certain symbols, mannerisms and signs with Love (TM) and not looking past what these ideas are trying to tell us about love. For example, marriage.
Marriage is not love by definition. It is merely a public verification of a pair-bond, plain and simple. It's a big form of social and State validation from a community that this couple is married. But what does that even mean? Culturally we've become indoctrinated that marriage and love are the same thing, when they most definitely are not. Marriage is a legal contract that only became equated with love in the 20th century. Before that, it was more of a way to ensure class mobility and offspring and legal/religious security for couplehood. In fact, marriage is probably the least romantic thing a couple can do. I've been to a few weddings in my day, and I can tell you that there's no day or event more stressful or exhausting to a couple than their wedding day. The best part of the day is the reception and the Wedding Night when there's no social expectations left.
We're in a time right now where social institutions that governed how we saw love in the past and our more realist, individualistic ideas about love are in conflict. Nobody has a damn clue because the old rules are breaking apart, while the new ones are unfulfilling and possibly more destructive than rigid social mores of the 20th century. If there's no capacity for certainty when it comes to your work, home, et al, how can you possibly expect love - an idea that requires real commitment and energy - to function without any kind of certainty?
Bottom line for me: we have to, here in the West, learn to find certainty and security in ourselves more so now than ever. We can't expect guiding social mores to instruct or assist us when it comes to love, and we certainly can't let the media provide us with insights about real love.
If we can learn to accept ourselves - flaws and all - then we will probably be a lot more collectively successful at accepting other's flaws too.
20 Mar 2009, 2:15 pm
