Anticipation. Blissful anticipation. The feeling once remembered as the night before Christmas. Of waking up every 15 minutes and checking to see if Santa came yet, but alas…we anticipate. It’s the feeling of thinking about something and planning for something and waiting for something and dreaming of something and feeling nervous about something going horribly wrong like in that one nightmare where you slept through it only to watch the bus drive away with you standing on a lonely street corner with a comical look on your face as if your insides had been kicked out. It’s such a good feeling it’s almost painful. And as it approaches, the anticipation heightens…the breathing deepens…the adrenalin rushes through your veins until it entirely consumes you. You can’t focus or function properly because you know…..you, know that in a short time…now a very short time, she will be there. She will be there and when she is everything will be okay. Nothing matters anymore at that point. Nothing but that moment. It is the ultimate in carpe diem, carpe noctem, then carpe diem all over again. There is only the distant worry…the OTHER kind of anticipation. The knowledge that it will end…as all good things do, so they say. And yet even as I know the sadness that will come is but transient, it comes as little consolation as the antibliss of that antiblissful anticipation slowly creeps up on you. Suppression is seemingly one’s only recourse and we must! I must. For I cannot bear to miss a single moment of what I have when I have it because I can remember before when I didn’t have it and I foresee the future when I will have it not once more and I know, as much as anyone can know, the all I can do, as limited as I then seem to be, is live. Live in that moment. Because love wins. It doesn’t always. No. thanks for that by the way. But it can and it should, this I believe I am smart enough to know now as I knew then. It’s just as the child and his love of Santa Clause and Christmas. It isn’t just a love of presents but a love of such a happiness that is experienced by all on such a joyous occasion as Christmas. Similarly it isn’t simply a love of a person, it’s a love of love. That feeling and connection and passion that trumps all other emotions carries with it the ability to love harder and feel stronger and be better than you knew you could. It allows for an interplay between two people that is by all accounts read and experienced absolutely unparalleled in our world and within our human capacity. What am I babbling about? It’s not rhetorical. I don’t entirely know. A cursory look back over the words on this page scream of starving artists rambling to whomever will listen on a some sunny street-corner in SoCal. And yet, I don’t care. Maybe those artists are on to something. Maybe what they lack financially they more than make up for in wisdom and happiness and understanding that many if not all take for granted…what the ancient Greeks would call eudaimonia. But what do I know? I’m just a guy sitting in an office basking in the blissful anticipation that is now filling the room, leaving no space left for anything else, subtly effecting everything it touches until it becomes too much, too much for anyone to handle but it’s okay because at that point, at that exact moment at which one has waited and waited and cannot wait any longer…the wait will be over. The anticipation will be paused, if only momentarily, if only to resume again after a short commercial break. But in the mean time, all will be well.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Relaps
I find myself here again. Here again. Again. Why? It would seem, to any reasonable, logical person, that of which I often claim to be, that time heals all wounds. A man smarter than I once said that you know; and clichés are supposed to be true right? If it weren’t my sad, pathetic excuse for a nostalgic love-life it might be funny really. A smell, a song, a road I haven’t driven on in a while brings me right back to years and years ago when pain was my only link—my only safety tether secured by a cheap 39 cent plastic carabineer—to her. And now it seems so stupid, so 7th grade, so tight-jeans-and-eyeliner of me to still be writing, thinking, shit basically a whole album worth of music was released in tribute to what turned out to be one self-centered User. Am I over it? Am I over her? Ya. I’ve moved on (more convincing myself). I’ve dated lots of other women. I allow myself the possibility every day to be awestruck by a member of a gender that experience has shown me to not always be the nicest when playing the cat’s cradle heartstring edition. And yet, here I is. This time it was a park. A place we used to frequent.
As I drove around the windy parking lot slowing frequently for the plethora of unnecessary speed bumps listening to a radio station whose name hits a little too close to home for my comfort on this day a song I used to know comes through my speakers. It was a song from a band we used to listen to, the words to which seemed to stream through my brain and out my mouth at the very instant they were sung…no verse remembered but to the moment it was to resonate through my car. The sounds mixed with the sight of that old park mixed with the highlight reel of our time together now playing in my head causes a golf ball-sized knot to form just below where I would imagine my stomach is. A smile flashes across my face as a fleeting happy memory hightails it from one ear clear through to the other and…and…now it’s got me. After four some-odd years of relative ‘sobriety’ I relapse. I’m told from AA that it’s “part of the process” and yet that offers me little consolation on my drive home.
I am now basking in it, figuring I might as well enjoy the misery while it lasts; it is, after all, the only connection I have left. A friend pointed out recently that I hold on to loathing her very existence as a way of keeping the connection open and the ‘relationship’ alive. I disagreed on principle at the time, but he’s probably right, as usual, always right, I hate him. And now I'm back to that ever-familiar feeling of almost-nausea I have come to associate with love. Optimism is such the ignorant man’s sport, the luxury of those who are already happy. Ha. That’s not even a little bit true. I’ve seen the impoverished happier than the wealthy more times than I can count. Yet it’s still hard to tell myself that my time will come when there really is no proof of that at all. Statistically most people get married and at least claim to be in love at the time so I guess, looking at the numbers, there is hope. But any statistician will tell you that one cannot extrapolate a statistic to an individual case, of which I am. So I'm back to realism…which is simply cynicism in disguise (and not a very good one either). And nothing seems to help. One would assume that venting it would help. Or maybe suppressing it. Maybe just a fake-it-‘til-you-make-it method will do the trick. Sorry folks, no such luck. I've tied them all. It’s just a waiting game now, now, now on this ridiculously long drive home, which seems much longer than the drive there, I find myself sitting in my car, engine idling, behind a grocery store where once-upon-a-time-ago we spray painted our initials in black and pink behind a dumpster. As I stare blankly at the faded lettering of our less-than delinquent youth wondering how I got there (and how frightening it is that I drove my car so absentmindedly as to not remember driving it) I am caught by the sharp sting of my best friend inside my head giving me a look of disapproval that could make a Jewish mother proud. Rubbing my bruised ego (which, oddly enough, is located on my left shoulder for some reason) I put my foot firmly on the gas and zoom-zoom off down the road allowing the roaring breeze from all the open windows to hit me square in the face, through my hair, and out the back of the car hopefully taking with it the stench of pathetic I accumulated over the last few minutes. As the electric guitars, base, and drums of the new rock n’ roll song I like fills my car there seems to be no room left in the cabin for nostalgia. I smile. I smile for real this time because I know I have survived an attack, not of panic but of reminiscence, and, though there will be more as I am not the strong shell I pretend to be, here’s to the thought that better days are still to come…how, with whom, and when are still sadly, irritatingly, tangibly yet to be seen.
As I drove around the windy parking lot slowing frequently for the plethora of unnecessary speed bumps listening to a radio station whose name hits a little too close to home for my comfort on this day a song I used to know comes through my speakers. It was a song from a band we used to listen to, the words to which seemed to stream through my brain and out my mouth at the very instant they were sung…no verse remembered but to the moment it was to resonate through my car. The sounds mixed with the sight of that old park mixed with the highlight reel of our time together now playing in my head causes a golf ball-sized knot to form just below where I would imagine my stomach is. A smile flashes across my face as a fleeting happy memory hightails it from one ear clear through to the other and…and…now it’s got me. After four some-odd years of relative ‘sobriety’ I relapse. I’m told from AA that it’s “part of the process” and yet that offers me little consolation on my drive home.
I am now basking in it, figuring I might as well enjoy the misery while it lasts; it is, after all, the only connection I have left. A friend pointed out recently that I hold on to loathing her very existence as a way of keeping the connection open and the ‘relationship’ alive. I disagreed on principle at the time, but he’s probably right, as usual, always right, I hate him. And now I'm back to that ever-familiar feeling of almost-nausea I have come to associate with love. Optimism is such the ignorant man’s sport, the luxury of those who are already happy. Ha. That’s not even a little bit true. I’ve seen the impoverished happier than the wealthy more times than I can count. Yet it’s still hard to tell myself that my time will come when there really is no proof of that at all. Statistically most people get married and at least claim to be in love at the time so I guess, looking at the numbers, there is hope. But any statistician will tell you that one cannot extrapolate a statistic to an individual case, of which I am. So I'm back to realism…which is simply cynicism in disguise (and not a very good one either). And nothing seems to help. One would assume that venting it would help. Or maybe suppressing it. Maybe just a fake-it-‘til-you-make-it method will do the trick. Sorry folks, no such luck. I've tied them all. It’s just a waiting game now, now, now on this ridiculously long drive home, which seems much longer than the drive there, I find myself sitting in my car, engine idling, behind a grocery store where once-upon-a-time-ago we spray painted our initials in black and pink behind a dumpster. As I stare blankly at the faded lettering of our less-than delinquent youth wondering how I got there (and how frightening it is that I drove my car so absentmindedly as to not remember driving it) I am caught by the sharp sting of my best friend inside my head giving me a look of disapproval that could make a Jewish mother proud. Rubbing my bruised ego (which, oddly enough, is located on my left shoulder for some reason) I put my foot firmly on the gas and zoom-zoom off down the road allowing the roaring breeze from all the open windows to hit me square in the face, through my hair, and out the back of the car hopefully taking with it the stench of pathetic I accumulated over the last few minutes. As the electric guitars, base, and drums of the new rock n’ roll song I like fills my car there seems to be no room left in the cabin for nostalgia. I smile. I smile for real this time because I know I have survived an attack, not of panic but of reminiscence, and, though there will be more as I am not the strong shell I pretend to be, here’s to the thought that better days are still to come…how, with whom, and when are still sadly, irritatingly, tangibly yet to be seen.
Monday, February 22, 2010
What Love Is; An Essay on the Logic of Love
Love can best be described as a folder; a filing folder that is kept throughout the entirety of everyone’s life. While not everyone is capable of love, for the sake of argument we’ll say that everyone on earth has a folder. Much like when starting some home improvement project, little clippings of things get placed into the folder so that when it comes time to start building, we know the things that we like. This folder is begun at birth and from that point forward is never empty again. That is to say, from the day we are born we never go into a relationship with a completely blank slate. We begin placing little tidbits of things into the folder right from the beginning. These “tidbits” are really more like qualities, feelings, emotions, and other characteristics that have been experienced throughout life and make up one’s idea about what love is. Sometimes these characteristics aren’t even so much thing liked as things not liked. That is to say it is possible to have a relationship or interaction and decide that the trait experienced is definitely not one that will be included in the overall picture of what love is, thusly, a tidbit of what not to do is placed in the folder. Interestingly, though unexpectedly, this folder is subject to change (though rarely ever radical change) throughout the course of life. Things are always being added and taken out of the folder. Every time a new person enters one’s life or a new situation arises involving human interaction we decided that we like or dislike what has happened, decide why we liked or disliked it, and then stow that little “tidbit” away in the folder.
The question then arises, when is the folder complete? At any given moment the folder is complete. To go back to the analogy, any time the contractor is ready to start building there is a folder full of clippings to pull out which, together, paint a complete picture of what is appealing. At any time someone could walk into our life and at any time we have a complete idea of what we want love to be and thus what we want our lover to be.
So, every time someone walks into our lives there are only a couple (three to be exact) different things that can happen. The first and least likely by a long shot is what we have euphemistically entitled “love at first sight.” This is the equivalent of spending years and years compiling an extensive folder of everything you want and don’t want in your remodel project and then walking into a kitchen you’ve never seen before and realizing almost instantly that that kitchen is exactly what is in your folder. Every do and don’t has been followed to a “T,” nothing need be changed, and it is exactly what you want. If your folder of clippings were given to an artist with the instructions “paint me the perfect kitchen using all of the likes and dislikes in this folder,” this kitchen he would paint just so happens to be the kitchen you are standing in. This is the unlikely event that would need to transpire for the illusive “love at first sight” to occur. A person would need to walk into one’s life and possess every trait that was in the folder at that very moment in time as well as not possess every negative trait contained therein. Being as though, as previously mentioned, the folder is constantly changing, it is next to impossible for this to happen.
The next possible course of action one can take with a new person in their life is the most common. They are a partial match. They possess some of the qualities liked and some of the qualities disliked. From this we do a couple of things. First, we take away from the encounter/interaction/relationship new clipping to add to the folder. Second, depending on the ratio of good qualities possessed to bad qualities possessed we make friends, acquaintances, business partners, lab partners, and even boyfriends and girlfriends. We even decide who we dislike from such interactions. The majority of all the people that come in and out of our lives pass through this option. Transitioning nicely to the third and final option is the note that people can change statuses. This is possible for two reasons. First, because our folder is constantly changing thus the ratio between good qualities possessed and bad is always changing. Someone who comes into our live simply as an acquaintance can, theoretically, change into a good friend simply because the criteria they were being judged on changes in their favor. The second way it can change is similar to the first. Because the folder is always changing, and because the folder changes with many of the interactions we have, it is possible for one person, or rather one person’s quality traits to affect one’s folder such that they change their own status. We often call this, growing on someone.
The third and final option is simply just the change in statuses just discussed, taken to the extreme. This is the one option that gives hopeless romantics everywhere hope. In this option someone who initially did not meet all of the qualifications in the folder, because of their own influence on the folder, becomes the epitome of what one is looking for. This can happen in all varying degrees; obviously some more likely than others. The most often way this happens is someone is almost there to begin with. That is, they enter one’s life meeting almost all of the qualifications we have in our folder at the time in our life. These usually end up our boyfriends and girlfriends to begin with. Then, because of their influence on our folder, we then come to realize that we love them. This scenario becomes more and more unlikely, however, as the person’s starting ratio gets lower and lower. For example, if someone enters our life and we can simply tolerate them, no more and no less, we rarely end up in love with this person. It would be very unlikely for this person to influence our folders so much that they end up becoming the physical representation of what we know love to be. Even more unlikely (bordering on impossible) is to fall in love with an enemy. This brings up an unfortunate observation. In almost all cases, our folders can only be influenced be one person to a point. Our folders almost never change radically at one time or by one person. Because of this, we must conclude that it is not possible to love just anyone. Some people simply will never be compatible because our folder of qualifications will never be in line with their qualities.
Alright, so now we know how we fall in love and how unlikely it is that we not only meet someone who meets all of our qualifications that we have assembled over our entire lives but that we meet them at the exact moment in our lives when those qualities match up with the qualities they possess. The part of this equation we are now missing is that this has to happen twice. However unlikely it is that we meet Mr. or Ms. Right at exactly the right time, they have to experience the exact same phenomenon for there to be mutual love. You have to also have walked into their life at the exact right moment and possess all of the things they are looking for at that moment. If and only if these two things happen to coexist can there ever be two people in love with each other. If we accept this to be true, than it is truly a miracle that anyone falls in love with anyone that loves them back.
A final point that need be addressed in this discussion is the point of rationality and logic. Many claims are made about love such as that it is blind or that it is mysterious or that it follows no rules and is irrational and illogical. This is simply not true. For love to be illogical and irrational it would have to be random and random it most certainly is not. I pretend to make no assumptions about the way we meet people or the fait that causes people to come in and out of our lives when they do. I simply observe about the reasons we make the decisions we do. Everyone’s folder isn't different; that’s how people fall in love; they have the same folder at the same time, but everyone’s rationale for the things they put in their folder are unique and further, are rational regardless of whether or not the tidbit placed in the folder is rational. For example, a person who grows up in a home where their father abused their mother may look for abusive people when they are older. While it is not rational or logical to want to be with someone who is abusive, the reason they put that tidbit into their folder is perfectly logical. We can follow why they put it there and where it came from. Thusly, if everyone’s folder is based on logic and rationality and the only way to fall in love is via the folder, we can conclude that love is rational and logical. Further, because we know that everyone’s folder was reached though different circumstances, no two the same, it is impossible to predict what someone’s folder contains. In fact, the claim could be easily made and argued that almost no one knows what is in their own folder at any given moment. We often find ourselves looking back at past relationships and interactions wondering why we ever liked or disliked a certain person. This is proof that we didn’t know what was in our folder at the time, and still don’t know. All we know now is that it has changed such that if that person were to reenter our lives we would not categorize them the same way we did when we met them the first time.
In summary, it is not possible to know what love is specifically though we can see quite clearly where it comes from and how it came to be. It can be fallen into and out of because of many different factors though there are a few things for certain. Once someone has found another person who has the same folder as them at the exact same time, in other words, when someone finds their soul mate, often their folder stops growing, or, rather, doesn’t grow as fast and often grows along with the other person’s. It is so rare and so improbable for two people to catch each other at the exact right moment in life to fall in love that when it happens people try to hold onto it forever (known as marriage). And while it is possible to get confused and think we are in love when we are not, more often than not we find ourselves settling for something that is not love—for someone who meets some fraction of the tidbits in our folder, but not all of them. This common occurrence ends mostly in divorce as it is very hard to live with someone knowing that they aren't right. They don’t meet all of your qualifications and thus don’t make you happy—don’t complete us.
I don’t pretend to offer advice because I am in no position to give it. All I have is insight gained through much debate, thought, input and desire to understand. My opinion on this subject, much like my folder itself, is still evolving and changing; though for now I believe I am content with my understanding of what love is.
Addendum
When two people are married their folders don’t stop growing, rather, they continue to grow, however, the main contributing factors to the folder are coming from the person they are in love with. That is, as we get to know the one’s we love better, and as they change, their new qualities need be added to our folder for us to continue loving them. This seemingly happens naturally.
Because of this, we can then conclude that when we fall in love, we are falling in love with all of the qualities that we know about. Because of this, it is possible to actually be in love with someone or, sometimes, the idea of someone, until we know all of their qualities (who they really are). Unfortunately it seems that it is possible to whole heartedly believe that we are in love, and actually be in love, though upon finding out about a quality we were previously unaware of, we realize that the person we thought we were in love with actually does not meet all the requirements in our folder…and then we don’t so much fall out of love as realize that we are not in love with the person that we thought we were in love with.
Addendum II
The claim is made that you never know what’s in your own folder however the claim is also made that a person has to meet all of the qualifications in one’s folder. This raises the questions, how can you know if someone meets all of the qualifications if you don’t know what all of those qualifications are. Well, the easy answer is, you just know. While this doesn’t sound very satisfying, it makes sense. When someone annoys you, you know it. When someone is compatible with you, you also just know. When I say you don’t know what’s in your folder, what I really mean is that it is difficult to say or actually verbalize all of the things. There are a lot of them and they are of varying levels of importance and, as mentioned, are constantly changing. Because of this, is can be said that we don’t really know but when it comes down to figuring out if someone meets or doesn’t meet certain requirements, it will be rather easy.
The question then arises, when is the folder complete? At any given moment the folder is complete. To go back to the analogy, any time the contractor is ready to start building there is a folder full of clippings to pull out which, together, paint a complete picture of what is appealing. At any time someone could walk into our life and at any time we have a complete idea of what we want love to be and thus what we want our lover to be.
So, every time someone walks into our lives there are only a couple (three to be exact) different things that can happen. The first and least likely by a long shot is what we have euphemistically entitled “love at first sight.” This is the equivalent of spending years and years compiling an extensive folder of everything you want and don’t want in your remodel project and then walking into a kitchen you’ve never seen before and realizing almost instantly that that kitchen is exactly what is in your folder. Every do and don’t has been followed to a “T,” nothing need be changed, and it is exactly what you want. If your folder of clippings were given to an artist with the instructions “paint me the perfect kitchen using all of the likes and dislikes in this folder,” this kitchen he would paint just so happens to be the kitchen you are standing in. This is the unlikely event that would need to transpire for the illusive “love at first sight” to occur. A person would need to walk into one’s life and possess every trait that was in the folder at that very moment in time as well as not possess every negative trait contained therein. Being as though, as previously mentioned, the folder is constantly changing, it is next to impossible for this to happen.
The next possible course of action one can take with a new person in their life is the most common. They are a partial match. They possess some of the qualities liked and some of the qualities disliked. From this we do a couple of things. First, we take away from the encounter/interaction/relationship new clipping to add to the folder. Second, depending on the ratio of good qualities possessed to bad qualities possessed we make friends, acquaintances, business partners, lab partners, and even boyfriends and girlfriends. We even decide who we dislike from such interactions. The majority of all the people that come in and out of our lives pass through this option. Transitioning nicely to the third and final option is the note that people can change statuses. This is possible for two reasons. First, because our folder is constantly changing thus the ratio between good qualities possessed and bad is always changing. Someone who comes into our live simply as an acquaintance can, theoretically, change into a good friend simply because the criteria they were being judged on changes in their favor. The second way it can change is similar to the first. Because the folder is always changing, and because the folder changes with many of the interactions we have, it is possible for one person, or rather one person’s quality traits to affect one’s folder such that they change their own status. We often call this, growing on someone.
The third and final option is simply just the change in statuses just discussed, taken to the extreme. This is the one option that gives hopeless romantics everywhere hope. In this option someone who initially did not meet all of the qualifications in the folder, because of their own influence on the folder, becomes the epitome of what one is looking for. This can happen in all varying degrees; obviously some more likely than others. The most often way this happens is someone is almost there to begin with. That is, they enter one’s life meeting almost all of the qualifications we have in our folder at the time in our life. These usually end up our boyfriends and girlfriends to begin with. Then, because of their influence on our folder, we then come to realize that we love them. This scenario becomes more and more unlikely, however, as the person’s starting ratio gets lower and lower. For example, if someone enters our life and we can simply tolerate them, no more and no less, we rarely end up in love with this person. It would be very unlikely for this person to influence our folders so much that they end up becoming the physical representation of what we know love to be. Even more unlikely (bordering on impossible) is to fall in love with an enemy. This brings up an unfortunate observation. In almost all cases, our folders can only be influenced be one person to a point. Our folders almost never change radically at one time or by one person. Because of this, we must conclude that it is not possible to love just anyone. Some people simply will never be compatible because our folder of qualifications will never be in line with their qualities.
Alright, so now we know how we fall in love and how unlikely it is that we not only meet someone who meets all of our qualifications that we have assembled over our entire lives but that we meet them at the exact moment in our lives when those qualities match up with the qualities they possess. The part of this equation we are now missing is that this has to happen twice. However unlikely it is that we meet Mr. or Ms. Right at exactly the right time, they have to experience the exact same phenomenon for there to be mutual love. You have to also have walked into their life at the exact right moment and possess all of the things they are looking for at that moment. If and only if these two things happen to coexist can there ever be two people in love with each other. If we accept this to be true, than it is truly a miracle that anyone falls in love with anyone that loves them back.
A final point that need be addressed in this discussion is the point of rationality and logic. Many claims are made about love such as that it is blind or that it is mysterious or that it follows no rules and is irrational and illogical. This is simply not true. For love to be illogical and irrational it would have to be random and random it most certainly is not. I pretend to make no assumptions about the way we meet people or the fait that causes people to come in and out of our lives when they do. I simply observe about the reasons we make the decisions we do. Everyone’s folder isn't different; that’s how people fall in love; they have the same folder at the same time, but everyone’s rationale for the things they put in their folder are unique and further, are rational regardless of whether or not the tidbit placed in the folder is rational. For example, a person who grows up in a home where their father abused their mother may look for abusive people when they are older. While it is not rational or logical to want to be with someone who is abusive, the reason they put that tidbit into their folder is perfectly logical. We can follow why they put it there and where it came from. Thusly, if everyone’s folder is based on logic and rationality and the only way to fall in love is via the folder, we can conclude that love is rational and logical. Further, because we know that everyone’s folder was reached though different circumstances, no two the same, it is impossible to predict what someone’s folder contains. In fact, the claim could be easily made and argued that almost no one knows what is in their own folder at any given moment. We often find ourselves looking back at past relationships and interactions wondering why we ever liked or disliked a certain person. This is proof that we didn’t know what was in our folder at the time, and still don’t know. All we know now is that it has changed such that if that person were to reenter our lives we would not categorize them the same way we did when we met them the first time.
In summary, it is not possible to know what love is specifically though we can see quite clearly where it comes from and how it came to be. It can be fallen into and out of because of many different factors though there are a few things for certain. Once someone has found another person who has the same folder as them at the exact same time, in other words, when someone finds their soul mate, often their folder stops growing, or, rather, doesn’t grow as fast and often grows along with the other person’s. It is so rare and so improbable for two people to catch each other at the exact right moment in life to fall in love that when it happens people try to hold onto it forever (known as marriage). And while it is possible to get confused and think we are in love when we are not, more often than not we find ourselves settling for something that is not love—for someone who meets some fraction of the tidbits in our folder, but not all of them. This common occurrence ends mostly in divorce as it is very hard to live with someone knowing that they aren't right. They don’t meet all of your qualifications and thus don’t make you happy—don’t complete us.
I don’t pretend to offer advice because I am in no position to give it. All I have is insight gained through much debate, thought, input and desire to understand. My opinion on this subject, much like my folder itself, is still evolving and changing; though for now I believe I am content with my understanding of what love is.
Addendum
When two people are married their folders don’t stop growing, rather, they continue to grow, however, the main contributing factors to the folder are coming from the person they are in love with. That is, as we get to know the one’s we love better, and as they change, their new qualities need be added to our folder for us to continue loving them. This seemingly happens naturally.
Because of this, we can then conclude that when we fall in love, we are falling in love with all of the qualities that we know about. Because of this, it is possible to actually be in love with someone or, sometimes, the idea of someone, until we know all of their qualities (who they really are). Unfortunately it seems that it is possible to whole heartedly believe that we are in love, and actually be in love, though upon finding out about a quality we were previously unaware of, we realize that the person we thought we were in love with actually does not meet all the requirements in our folder…and then we don’t so much fall out of love as realize that we are not in love with the person that we thought we were in love with.
Addendum II
The claim is made that you never know what’s in your own folder however the claim is also made that a person has to meet all of the qualifications in one’s folder. This raises the questions, how can you know if someone meets all of the qualifications if you don’t know what all of those qualifications are. Well, the easy answer is, you just know. While this doesn’t sound very satisfying, it makes sense. When someone annoys you, you know it. When someone is compatible with you, you also just know. When I say you don’t know what’s in your folder, what I really mean is that it is difficult to say or actually verbalize all of the things. There are a lot of them and they are of varying levels of importance and, as mentioned, are constantly changing. Because of this, is can be said that we don’t really know but when it comes down to figuring out if someone meets or doesn’t meet certain requirements, it will be rather easy.
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