Are We Loving Love For The "Right" Reasons?

Honestly, dating in your mid-twenties should be a documented social experiment. Whether we choose to openly acknowlege it or not, we are all on some sort of pursuit for lifelong companionship. With the pressure of friends getting engaged, married, and starting families, it's almost impossible to ignore the imaginary ticking time bomb in the back of our minds. And if you too are part of my little group of people who are stuck in the perpetual cycle of bad first dates and fruitless talking stages, then you've probably asked yourself the question,  "Are we loving love for the right reasons?"

I've said this many times before and I will say it again: I AM OBSESSED WITH LOVE! The media I consume, the conversations I enjoy the most, my art. It is all almost always centered around love. I think I would not be me if I didnt acknowledge just how much this emotion seems to rule my life. It's also hard to ignore the fact that the topic I seem to write about the most, is also the thing I happen to lack at the moment (romantically, of course). A case of those who can't do teach? I don't know, maybe.

In recent months, my friends and I have been "actively" dating. Like most people our age, we turned to the apps to meet eligible strangers who could potentially help the hopeless romantics up the romance in their lives. The swiping began, the group debriefings did too, outfits were chosen, date spots solidified. The matches? (Sorry to say) disappointing. And it's easy to blame the other parties for not matching the energy but in this case, we just sat there wondering if we really wanted this for what might be considered "the right reasons".

More than anything, were we even fully aware of what is it that we are searching for this intensely? This so called dream romance?

After an in depth post horrible date conversation with a friend and a Sunday spent reading The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, I had now been introduced to a different perspective towards the pursuit of love. I refuse to keep these thoughts to myself. So, with the help of wise words from Fromm, let's get into it.

What matters is that we know what kind of union we are talking about when we speak of love.

The most important and seemingly most basic thing to consider before you enter a relationship with someone is what you want out of it. Fromm suggests that in modern relationships, people tend to give romantic love importance as an object rather than a function. It is this gold nugget we are all trying to find and to experience for ourselves first hand. It is an invisible quest adverstised to us in our daily lives. Moments we're trying to chase. We are meant to think of love as this little firefly we need to capture in a glass jar so we can admire it and show it off to others. And so when most people chase love, they seem to seek the material rather than the long-term functional emotion that is meant to foster companionship.

And so this leads us to question the kind of union we are seeking when we say that we are ready to commit ourselves to a romantic partner. Are you wanting to find someone with whom you can exist as two halves of a whole, someone who will put you on a pedestal, or someone whom you can idolise in your own life?

“Do we refer to love as the mature answer to the problem of existence, or do we speak of those immature forms of love which may be called symbiotic union?”

Fromm says that when it comes to this symbiosis of love, people tend to take one of two stances.

1. Sadism

2. Masochism

The masochist seeks love so that they can escape the feelings of lonliness by foregoing separateness to make themselves a part of the other person's being. They have the desire to seek an individual who will serve the purpose of being a guide, a protector, and exist as a beacon of light in their lives. They follow the "I am nothing without you" mindset. Purging parts of themselves to allow parts of the other person to complete them.

The sadists on the other hand, escape their lonliness by finding someone who will idolise them. They seek an individual who will inflate them through a form of "worship". Although these two may sound so different, they share one thing in common: fusion without integerity. And the person who are you in the pursuit of love, depends on the object which is being desired.

It's funny to think that the one thing that seems to govern us all is also one of the things we seem to be taught about the least. And in order to love deeply and with purpose, one needs to understand why they have the desire to love in the first place. Many people might say that they simply have a lot of love to give, but do you even understand the complexities that come with giving? Especially in the context of love.

In some cases, people might feel that the best way they feel loved is when 'giving' is spoken of as a material being. While Fromm says that in a mature discussion of love, giving is actually seen as the willingness to share one's life with others.

So if love can be seen as the decision to dedicate yourself to nurturing another, then I can't help but agree with Bell Hooks in All About Love when she says that we all make a choice to love. If we invest a certain amount of emotions into someone then we start to feel deeply drawn to them. And that level of connection to their well-being becomes what we then describe as love. Each time, we are actively making a choice.

“Love as ‘the will to extend one’s self for the the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.’ Love is as love does. Love is an act of will–namely, both an intention and an action.”

So when you say you are seeking love, are you doing so with a willingness to dedicate time or are you simply doing so solely for what you wish to receive from love? Most importantly, when does one know that they are loving love for the right reasons? Is it when you approach love with mindset to submit or to be submitted to? Is it when you catch the firefly and show it off or is it when you find the firefly and you are able to just watch it roam the skies, completely free from your jar?

Even with all of these unanswered questions, we still continue on this pursit of love. Hoping that one day it'll just make sense.

“Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure….This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise.”