Yes, the big word. Though, in English it is not quite as big as in my native language (hm, maybe I should write something on the effects of languages some day too). English loves cucumber flowers and chips and kids and friends and spouses all with the same word. This is about love-love, not like, or enjoy or being amused.
We can't do it.
I don't know where it got lost, I can flip through memories of being totally and embarrassingly infatuated, head-over-heels in love, the whole butterfly madness. We used to have it. And now it's gone.
The best current hypothesis is that it got weeded out as a damaging behavior.
Romance? Damaging? Sounds odd at first. But if you look at it, romantic love is a pretty recent and artificial idea. It stems from the first novels of courtly love in the middle ages and evolved into this big myth, that now looks so real. The one perfect mate, who you will recognize the moment you meet and fall into undying love for the rest of your lives and beyond... sounds great, so effortless.
And that's exactly where things go so terribly wrong. Lasting love takes effort. On both sides. We're never perfect (not even people who don't come with a whole inner family along for the ride), we can never fulfill all of our partner's needs, there will always be misunderstandings, mismatches, annoying little quirks. Love, to us, is a willingness to work with the other person.
Somehow these high-flying feelings of the first falling in love get in the way of that. The pink glasses let everything look perfect and great and thus the resulting disappointments are all the greater once the soap bubble pops and reality sets in.
I don't know how we weeded out something that is so hard-coded into the body like the hormonal responses to meeting a new potential mate, but somehow we did it. Like we seemed to have buffered all extreme emotions.
It is safer this way, maybe awkward to others, but when I meet someone I can right away start at the work part of love and don't have to fight my way out of delusional clouds of hormone induced highs first.
And yet I miss it. I've been made after the change happened. I never felt this extremely in my whole existence. I know it's not good for us, I know it did us tremendous harm, falling for people who hurt us... and still I kinda miss it.
Is this how a drug addict feels after getting clean? Perfectly knowing it's a Real Bad Idea, but still secretly missing the high flights?
I actually don't even want to fall in love for real. I do have access to the memories of falling out of it too and it hurts way too. But maybe I could be allowed a daydream? Some safe fantasy just to play out what it would be like? In the clear knowledge that it's really just that, an illusion?
What I want for real is a relationship where all partners are willing to work on shaping our lives together. I was happy to be alone for a while, gave us inside time to rearrange things and get to terms with each other. By now it's relatively peaceful, few upheavals are so strong that they can't be dealt with on our own. There is room now in life for outside relationships too.
Finding someone when I thought I was alone was hard enough, but now we're all awake. It's gonna get "interesting".
Mittwoch, 15. August 2012
Montag, 6. August 2012
Social Life
"Wanna come to a party?"
An extrovert might say "Yes, sure, where and when?", an introvert might say "Hm, maybe, who all is gonna be there? I'll think about it". Someone with family might say "Sounds good, let me see if I can find a baby sitter for the night.".
I can't find a baby sitter, the little ones are along wherever the body goes. Some of us are very introverted, others almost on the edge of being an extrovert. Some are painfully shy, some reckless, some love to chat, some get aggressive when people get too close.
It is extremely difficult to strike a balance where it's possible to have any semblance of a social life at all, not speak of going to parties.
To prepare for any social event takes between three days and two weeks. Inners will bring up their worries, what all could happen, what all could go wrong and for each of them there has to be a workable solution in place before the event. There will be people, possibly strangers, possibly people we have some bad history with, what can we talk about with them, who will provide the topics, who will make sure to get us out if things get uncomfortable, what are socially acceptable excuses to leave?
What little anchors can we bring along as a safeguard? A cuddle toy for the little ones, maybe a small game, a few books, something reassuring to smell or eat. I bring the car along as often as possible, just because it gives us a room to go back to and a place to store things we might need to help us cope.
How will we deal with noise and strange smells, with the speed of how things tend to proceed (few people accept that it might take me a while before it's ok to touch them, we do NOT do well with just being grabbed and kissed).
Small things that might not be a problem at home can be a big deal in company, for example being watched while eating. And most people do watch once they notice the intricate dance of cutlery while the body switches from being right handed to left handed and back every few bites. Being watched makes us anxious and clumsy, one big reason why eating out is just not appealing at all, even when the food is fabulous (and we love, love, love good food).
So the little ones will burrow deeper into the sheltered places on the inside, some will even be gently soothed to sleep so they won't even notice that we're gone. If things go really bad they'll still wake up and possibly get scared, it's something that still needs some work.
The older family members armor up, rehearse strategies, reassure each other that we can handle this and that whatever happens, family comes first, we can always just leave and go home. This security, to be free to leave, is most important, nothing will freak us out as even a hint of feeling trapped.
During an event the constant pressure of people around, of having to hold up the facade, the swift progression of small talk from topic to topic, the keen awareness of what's going on and trying to suppress the urges to flee... it wears us down. Everyone who stepped up to it takes some of the burden, but after an hour the first will drop out, totally exhausted and overwhelmed, leaving fewer and fewer souls to manage the load of input.
At the end there will be a few ragged souls, struggling to just keep on breathing, exhausted to the point of wanting to curl up on the floor and weep. Usually we try to leave before that, sometimes we try to push it just for the sake of looking normal. It's not a good idea.
Once we're back home it will take days just to find enough energy again to do the basics of everyday life, make meals, take showers, clean and organize the place a little, catch up with what's been ignored while we prepared. It's about the level of physical and mental exhausting like the first few days convalescent from a bad bout of the flu.
Sometimes I wish people would see how much work it is to be there.
I don't really care for parties, sometimes they can be fun for a little bit, but I'd much prefer spending some time with someone alone, or in a smaller group, talking and sharing. So if we do go to a party, it's always an attempt to make the person giving it happy.
Don't be mad at me when I leave early, don't push me to be louder, happier, chattier, I'm really already doing what I can and probably more than what is really healthy for us.
An extrovert might say "Yes, sure, where and when?", an introvert might say "Hm, maybe, who all is gonna be there? I'll think about it". Someone with family might say "Sounds good, let me see if I can find a baby sitter for the night.".
I can't find a baby sitter, the little ones are along wherever the body goes. Some of us are very introverted, others almost on the edge of being an extrovert. Some are painfully shy, some reckless, some love to chat, some get aggressive when people get too close.
It is extremely difficult to strike a balance where it's possible to have any semblance of a social life at all, not speak of going to parties.
To prepare for any social event takes between three days and two weeks. Inners will bring up their worries, what all could happen, what all could go wrong and for each of them there has to be a workable solution in place before the event. There will be people, possibly strangers, possibly people we have some bad history with, what can we talk about with them, who will provide the topics, who will make sure to get us out if things get uncomfortable, what are socially acceptable excuses to leave?
What little anchors can we bring along as a safeguard? A cuddle toy for the little ones, maybe a small game, a few books, something reassuring to smell or eat. I bring the car along as often as possible, just because it gives us a room to go back to and a place to store things we might need to help us cope.
How will we deal with noise and strange smells, with the speed of how things tend to proceed (few people accept that it might take me a while before it's ok to touch them, we do NOT do well with just being grabbed and kissed).
Small things that might not be a problem at home can be a big deal in company, for example being watched while eating. And most people do watch once they notice the intricate dance of cutlery while the body switches from being right handed to left handed and back every few bites. Being watched makes us anxious and clumsy, one big reason why eating out is just not appealing at all, even when the food is fabulous (and we love, love, love good food).
So the little ones will burrow deeper into the sheltered places on the inside, some will even be gently soothed to sleep so they won't even notice that we're gone. If things go really bad they'll still wake up and possibly get scared, it's something that still needs some work.
The older family members armor up, rehearse strategies, reassure each other that we can handle this and that whatever happens, family comes first, we can always just leave and go home. This security, to be free to leave, is most important, nothing will freak us out as even a hint of feeling trapped.
During an event the constant pressure of people around, of having to hold up the facade, the swift progression of small talk from topic to topic, the keen awareness of what's going on and trying to suppress the urges to flee... it wears us down. Everyone who stepped up to it takes some of the burden, but after an hour the first will drop out, totally exhausted and overwhelmed, leaving fewer and fewer souls to manage the load of input.
At the end there will be a few ragged souls, struggling to just keep on breathing, exhausted to the point of wanting to curl up on the floor and weep. Usually we try to leave before that, sometimes we try to push it just for the sake of looking normal. It's not a good idea.
Once we're back home it will take days just to find enough energy again to do the basics of everyday life, make meals, take showers, clean and organize the place a little, catch up with what's been ignored while we prepared. It's about the level of physical and mental exhausting like the first few days convalescent from a bad bout of the flu.
Sometimes I wish people would see how much work it is to be there.
I don't really care for parties, sometimes they can be fun for a little bit, but I'd much prefer spending some time with someone alone, or in a smaller group, talking and sharing. So if we do go to a party, it's always an attempt to make the person giving it happy.
Don't be mad at me when I leave early, don't push me to be louder, happier, chattier, I'm really already doing what I can and probably more than what is really healthy for us.
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