I think most of you would agree that since the recent reinstatement of my singledom my "love life" has been somewhat unconventional. There's never anything of any real substance going on; just a series of encounters (some of them random, some of them ongoing) with unsuitable men, with people from the past occasionally poking their head in... Wait, isn't that actually the definition of singledom? Oh well. Either way, I'm kind of tickled by how random and often funny things have been lately; but I don't know, maybe it's boring (upon examination, it's certainly conventional). I also don't know if it's even the reason I got to thinking about love on my run this morning (I refuse to attribute it to Valentine's Day, though the coincidence pleases me); but I just realized I have a pretty solid opinion on the subject, so I thought I'd share it.
First off, while we are talking about romantic love here; I think most of what I'm about to say applies to friendship love too. I need to acknowledge that because it has only just occurred to me in the past few years how much I really love my friends; and I've also recently taken notice of love that has converted, either from romantic to friendship or vice versa, both in my own life and that of my friends.
It is my newly formed opinion that there are two kinds of love: object-love and egocentric love. Object-love is the love you have for another person, their qualities and attributes. Egocentric love is the love you feel for someone based on the way they make you feel about yourself. They're definitely not mutually exclusive; I dare say they even feed into eachother; but they're very distinct. My experience has always been object-love; which is why I hate so many love stories, even the good ones. So often there's this great, otherworldly love depicted; but you're never made to understand what these two people love about eachother; or even how they could love eachother. Any notion of love at first sight confounds me. Slumdog Millionaire is a great example of this. Those kids spent like what, 5 minutes of their lives together? When they finally got to be together, did they have anything to say to eachother? It was actually in thinking about this movie that the concept of egocentric love really occurred to me. I was thinking about how Jamal continuously risked his life for Latika; and how, after the first time he tried to save her and prevailed; he must have felt so victorious, maybe even immortal. And maybe once he had associated that feeling with her; his everlasting love was born. But that makes it a narcissistic love, doesn't it? It's almost as if he really fell in love with himself. I think this is the sort of love that men usually experience, and need. And I think this is why my own relationships have failed thus far. There's always that mutual object-love there; but I'm no ego trip. This also explains why my exes seem to still be in love with me. After the initial pain of the break up is over and done with; they remember all the good times and wonderful things about me (I know, I know), and neglect to recall how fucking shitty I made them feel. Luckily, I do not have this problem. Nor do I think I'm really in need of any ego-centric love; but I do think that when I find it; that will be it. If there's someone out there who can break my ego ceiling; he's a fucking keeper.
What do you people think?
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