You need to get over your addiction to falling in love – Dave Doolin
May you live in interesting times. – proverb/curse
Eros is in the mundane – Dave Doolin
Hallmark, Harlequin Romance et al, the Valentine’s Day cartel, Disney, most mainstream women’s magazines, almost all dating advice aimed at women, chick flicks, and the wedding industrial complex (this list is not exhaustive) conflate the blush and the rush of New Relationship Energy with the entire experience of romantic love.
Even so, infatuation does not get its due.
In fact, infatuation gets a bad rap.
My friend Ricardo – a deep, passionate, romantic Pisces – once told me he doesn’t “do” infatuation because infatuation is not real. When I’m in a new relationship, my friend Z despairs of me. I’ll say “do you want to hear what ____ did? Can I tell you about _____? And he’ll sigh and say “If you must”. And then he’ll make disparaging remarks, mock every sweet thing the new man might have said and conclude that my new dude is full of shit or a pussy (which I don’t actually find offensive because I think vaginas are MAGIC and a man should be so lucky as to be compared with one). Once, I got frustrated with him and heatedly asked him,
Why do you ALWAYS have to do that? Why can’t you let me enjoy the sweet and fleeting moment? Why can’t you be happy that someone is making me happy?
- Because we’re in a sex haze and we’re out of our damn minds.
- Because we’ll wake up in four days, four weeks, four months or four years and wonder what the hell happened.
- Because I’ll get lured in by soft words and hard lovin’, suspend my disbelief and my romantic judgement, and get fucked over. Again. And then in addition to this mushy bullshit he’ll have to hear about the heartbreak, too.
- Because what I’m feeling is not real. Infatuation is not real.
Infatuation is chemistry, chemicals, biochemicals.
Doesn’t that make it more real?
Scientists tell us infatuation is oxytocin and dopamine and therefore simulated, stimulated, induced and ruthlessly temporary, as though “temporary” is a synonym for “illusion” or “delusion”.
(A note on induced experiences: saying that because infatuation is chemically induced, it isn’t real is like saying induced labour and birth isn’t real, either. Trust me. Induced labour is agonizingly real.)
Still, the needle amongst this stack ‘o hay is this: the effect of infatuation inevitably wears off. And if we think that infatuation is the entire experience of love, then when (no if, it is absolutely a when) we lose it, we feel – nay, know – that we’ve fallen out of love. And we want love. Lots of love. We’re jonesing for it. So, like good addicts, we’ll be driven to abandon our families and our lives to go out and chase that high.
The function, then, of anti-infatuation arguments is to convince us to stay the course. To convince us that infatuation isn’t the prize, the stuff that comes after it is. To convince us to be patient. (And, arguably, not a lot of us are being taught or teaching patience. I’m short of it and need schooling and I’m convinced most of the modern world does, too.)
Denigrating infatuation doesn’t do that, though. Telling me infatuation isn’t real – when I know, viscerally, in my blood, that I’m feeling something – is futile. My body knows the truth.
Instead, giving infatuation its due might be the solution.
There’s research that says the way we tell our love stories tells us the state of our relationship today and the future of our relationship tomorrow.
When my friend Heather told me about how she and her husband started out – long distance, e-mails, endless phone calls – she felt the butterflies. She re- read their e-mails and was feeling sweet on her man. She was remembering the halcyon days, and it helped her handle some of the daily irritants – and yes, that is love. Dave’s right: eros is in the mundane.
And infatuation is the bonding agent that gets us there. The evanescent thrill of infatuations is insurance against boring. And boring is thankfully inevitable.
Because interesting relationships, like interesting times, are exhausting.
Back to our straw man. Let’s not forget that all along, with every step on the yellow brick road, the seemingly empty-headed scarecrow did have a brain.
And infatuation has an intelligence, too. It’s brief, it’s primal, it’s butterflies, it’s bliss. It’s lizard-brain logic and it’s useful because the memory of your shared bliss gives you and your lover the wings you need to soar on through boring and interesting times.
And without infatuation, I wouldn’t have found my husband of eleven years (so far…)
That rush often doesn’t lead to sonething long-term, but show me something long-term that didn’t *start* that way (or involve it along the way).
Tangent: Also, I try and take my relationship advice from people in relationships I admire…
Yes, broken-hearted-again is pretty painful, but stable doesn’t start stable.
A friend of mine said the other day: Don’t trust simple binaries… I think that probably applies here…
.-= Andrew Lightheart´s last blog ..I got nothing but I like you =-.
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I suspect that to Z, if he can’t touch it, taste it, see it, hear it or smell it, it’s not “real.”
What’s “real” depends on who gets to define the meaning of the word “real.”
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Beautiful. (and, for the record, where have you been? I’ve missed the regular updates of Cleavage in my inbox.)
I love thinking of the infatuation stage as crucial to the “rest” of the relationship. And, it’s 100 per cent true — I have been with my loverman for a little over three years now, and even when in cohabitation frustration I often find my mind tripping back to the glory days of our first six months or so. It makes me smile, and inevitably leads me back for more.
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I agree completely. If a relationship doesn’t start with infatuation, how does it start, then? And yes, maybe it’s a little primal. A little caveman-esque. But that’s what I love about it. Infatuation makes me feel MORE human and MORE real–not less.
This post made me wish I had a crush. ;D
xoxo
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you’re a beautiful writer, i just wanted to tell you that.
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Oh, Kelly! Once again, you have totally nailed it.
Infatuation is the spark, the beginning, the catalyst that turns two thinking beings into a hot melt of together. Anyone can claim they don’t believe in it, and it’s denial, plain and simple. It exists, we feel its glow, its heat, its resonance…
And when it fades, a lot of us react and think we aren’t melted together anymore, that somehow without that constant application of heat that we become asunder. But that doesn’t have to be.
I am grateful everyday that that was not, is not, the story of my man and I.
Why did it work for us? Who knows! Youth and all its lack of baggage? Respect? Patience (really?)? I can’t tell you the answer, only that every day I am grateful to be on this journey with my best friend beside me, connected to me, in so many ways.
Even still, I love that you wrote this! You’ve reminded me that it’s time for a date night. Yippeee!
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
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I think when infatuated we do NOT have blinders on. We really are seeing the beautiful true essence of the other person. Later we see the other crap that’s attached to the person. Sometimes we can deal, and sometimes we can’t.
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Infatuation… What is it, really?
Three times in my life, in my teens, my twenties and again in my thirties, I’ve felt like I was floating off the ground in a glowing bliss, wrapped in ecstasy, but also painfully craving the rush that made me feel more alive and yet more wanting than ever before. As if I were dying of thirst, I needed to kiss and inhale the energy in their their lips. I needed to drink it, and there was never enough. I needed to be inside their minds and souls, and I needed them in me. It took only minutes for the trance to envelope my will in tightening shrouds, and days to fight my way out of those suffocating cocoons. Why did I need to escape my coffin of gloom? Because I had lost the source that fed the flames. In all three experiences, my physical connection to those feminine fire-souls lasted only hours, but the embers left in my heart glowed for days. And that hurt. Badly. During that time, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I could not think of anything else but gulping the air for more of the love that had left me. Was I infatuated? I don’t know. But to this day I wonder, did those girls feel what I felt? Or did I create my own heaven and hell?
Interestingly, there was no cascade of heaven and hell when I met the girl I later married; no rush of hot fire, no cravings, no pulses of lust, no vacuum that needed to be filled by a butterfly soul. What I did feel, was the lightness of freedom, the freedom to be me, nurtured by a confidence where I could expose my deepest secrets, doubts and fears, knowing I was safe within her kind soul cradling my heart. Those knowing blue eyes spoke to me. They said, “All is well, my friend. Everything IS, as it should be.” And they reminded me that I had known her forever, in the past, and into the future. From deep inside I knew I could trust her. I KNEW that! Because no yearning did I have to be one with this girl. I WAS one with her! And I felt so comfortable understanding this truth, that every cell of my body screamed, “YES! Marry her!” And I did, in a two-person ceremony meant only for us, three and half weeks after we met. You see, there was no doubt that we were meant to be together. Not even a hint. And there isn’t today, many years later.
So from my own limited experience, for me, infatuation is needing. Love is knowing.
Irv
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Tony Teegarden
replied:
on August 11th, 2010 at 7:21 am
@Irving Podolsky, Well articulated my friend.
“All is well, my friend. Everything IS, as it should be.” And they reminded me that I had known her forever, in the past, and into the future.”
Image all of us living in such an experience with each other.
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Irving Podolsky
replied:
on August 11th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
@Tony Teegarden, Thanks for you comment, Tony.
Irv
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Interesting perspectives, as the word infatuation implies a feeling someone experiences, which is a belief. I see beliefs that one knows what the word implies specifically.
Ironically a feeling that is intangible yet seems very real, like oxygen.
I believe the feeling of which the word “infatuation” implies can be and will be interpreted differently by all of us based on our experiences such as loves, crushes, desires and yes beliefs. Otherwise known as our attachments.
The only reason any of us may challenge, argue or agree with each other on what infatuation is, is because of our attachment to the word.
If I live without attachment then I am to live without infatuation, accumulation and the puppy dog love we imply it to be about. But yet I can still have the experience without an attachment to the word.
Talk about infatuation to a movie star who has a stalker, they would have a much different definition (attachment) to it than a woman who is infatuated with her BF who adores her and provides for her in ways that she feels fulfilled and loved.
Embrace your infatuation whatever it means to you without the word. What you may resist persists and therefore you may head for unhealthy heights of attachment. Attempting to box it in may inhibit your ability to be open to the next experience.
I’m just choosing to experience love as it comes in it’s many forms. Doing my best without attachments. I appreciate it for the experience but I’m not attached to keeping it. In my past that’s when I’ve created the most suffering.
Maybe that’s love, maybe that’s crazy. I feel good about it and that’s what matters to me.
I love what Irving said above:
“So from my own limited experience, for me, infatuation is needing. Love is knowing.”
Much of what he shared resonates with me. Because he implies living “without” attachment or to meaning. At least to me
Wonderful thoughtful and intelligent post. Makes for great conversation.
Much love Kelly
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I always became infatuated with impossible men, usually handsome, exciting, extremely talented, and taken. There was an archaeologist, a screenwriter, a martial artist, a stunt man and a few I’ve blanked out. It took a while, but I finally realized that I didn’t want to be WITH them, a wanted to BE them. I wanted to do those things, so I did.
When I finally met my husband, there was a stage of floating euphoria following by more of what @Irving Podolsky described,”Ah, there he is.” Knowing, trust. He proposed four weeks after we met, and that knowing has kept us through the boring and difficult times.
So I think infatuation works differently for different folks.
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Sometimes I love my lizard brain.
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If you have never known infatuation you haven’t lived.
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