In love, we regularly face terrible disappointments. An unfulfilled promise, an attachment that does not turn out to be reciprocal, we tell ourselves that love is very cruel, when we were ready to give body and soul to live it.
But what if these regular clashes did not come from our bad perception of what “love” is? Wouldn’t this love rather be mere desire?
What is the nuance between true love and excitement from the first moments?
And above all, what do we really want?
The vast majority of us do not want to understand love. It is a feeling that one feels, or not. A fact that cannot be explained or controlled.
To this vast word that is love, we transpose everything and its opposite, without trying to dissociate the different forms with which we are confronted.
We prefer to call it irrational, because to venture to intellectualize it is to risk moderating the flame which animates us, to alter the beauty of the feelings which we experience.
We prefer to know it out of our reach in order to make things easier.
But reason sometimes helps us to see through this storm of unexpected feelings. It protects us from the disappointments that lie in wait for us.
Indeed, our expectations, our desires, our projections should revolve around the degree of affection that we carry to the other. However, confusion reigns when it is necessary to differentiate the true attachment from a passing addiction.
And yet, if a link between the two is undeniable, the dissimilarity remains significant.
Attraction VS Love
The attraction rests on a combination of biological reasons and a good pinch of projections. Love is confirmed by gradually discovering what the other really is.
The attraction comes without warning, relatively suddenly. And very often, we did nothing to make it happen. Conversely, love does not fall from the sky and builds its foundations over time. It develops into something serious because we have chosen to put the happiness of the other before ours. He may even have asked us for an effort, that of loving each other’s faults.
Love cannot, therefore, be immediate, simply because you cannot love someone you do not know. Even if you have the impression.
But as soon as love is present, you can choose, on a certain scale, to invest yourself or not. Contrary to attraction, or ultimately we are generally passive towards it.
Thanks to this factor, love is something solid, because we have decided to make it solid. Contrary to attraction, ultimately fragile and too dependent on stimulation.
However, love or attraction, each of them is born from an accident. If love is controlled in part thanks to our investment (or our absence of investment), it retains a part of the unexpected: we have not chosen to fall in love. This man crossed our path “without asking us”.
Why make a difference?
Confusing love and attraction are dangerous.
To take attraction for love, that is to say, a simple sensation that arrives without warning and which is relatively uncontrollable is to take the risk of rejecting the other once this “sensation” disappears. Generally, for the benefit of another person who makes us experience this feeling again.
To take the attraction for love, it is finally to undergo its emotions and to be in search of an ideal that perhaps does not exist.
To take attraction for attraction is to know that this aphrodisiac cocktail diminishes over time, to eventually make way for something else, not necessarily more unpleasant.
It is also discovering that there is a choice when the pivotal stage arrives: after the excitement of the beginnings, is the game still worth the effort?
To take love for love is to be aware that it does not make you blind that much, and that other person will be brought to please us. It is to be aware that they could even have really corresponded to us. And it’s still, not wanting anyone other than the one we love because it fulfills us (or can potentially do it).
Amalgam has a bright future ahead of it
We are no more cruel, dumber or less sentimental than before. And yet, we tend to favor the attraction to love, while confusing the two.
With the abundance of possibilities offered by romantic applications (but also large cities for those who live there), it is not uncommon for couples not to go beyond the stage of the excitement of the beginnings.
If at the time, our grandmothers were trying everything for everything to save their marriage from a potential affront that was divorce, with the liberalization of manners, the relationship must now be perfect from the start.
A kind of “all or nothing” where almost nothing is tolerated. The offer is so enticing elsewhere, so why “chastise” yourself for making efforts and sacrifices?
Love is no longer seen as something that is built, but rather as something that is there, or that is not.
And therein lies the problem. You have the right to prioritize the benefits of attraction over the harms of love. But you can’t catch a fly with vinegar.
If you are looking for love, you will not be able to find it by thinking only in terms of attraction. And sooner or later it will take your pickaxe to build this relationship.
What if I was not made for Love?
And then first, who said that love (as understood by society) should be the goal of a lifetime?
Perhaps your mother, your books, newspapers or advertisements told you so. Maybe in the end, you never questioned these things.
Behind this questioning, it is much more than just protecting yourself from excitement or disappointment. It’s about being the master of your life by not letting anyone else choose you for you.
It’s about getting to know yourself.
Do I prefer :
- Favor passion and live the excitement of repeated beginnings with different conquests? Even if it means not living A great story and having to face social pressure.
- Favor the trust and support of a man by your side throughout your life? Even if it means perpetually taunting time to maintain attraction. Leaves regularly doubting when boredom and routine set in.
- Explore other forms of love: polyamory or platonic love.
I still see too many women choosing a long-term monogamous relationship and faltering when the excitement is no longer there.
I still see too many women seeking love thinking that it will magically appear like attraction.
I still see too many women disappointed because they imagined that the attraction that linked them to their target was love.
While sometimes, it would be enough to take a step back to limit the breakage.
