Reading this book about gender and sexual agency has made me think about love. Some of the interviewees expressed that their friends had sex (esp. unprotected sex) because they thought that their partner loved them and would never leave. So, what does it mean to love someone?
I have said, "I love you" to two very different guys at different points in my life. I loved my first boyfriend, but it was more about comfort and experiencing everything for the first time. I loved him for sharing all of these new experiences with me. The second guy, Ephram, was the passionate, deep-down, life-altering love. At this point, I learned what love meant to me: sacrifice. Love means that you are willing to sacrifice your dreams (or at least truly consider it) to be with someone else. I knew that I truly loved Ephram when I started to attempt to fit Ephram into to all of my life goals. If he didn't fit, I considered changing them. (We are very different people with very different life goals, so this presented some serious problems) However, the universe had other plans for Ephram and me, so we broke up. Thus, it saved me from having to enact those choices, but I still thought to myself, "whoa, you must really LOVE him if you considered that." So, sacrifice...that's what love means to me.
Lots of LOVE,
Lady Lola
The idea of the meaning of love being "sacrifice" scares the crap out of me, because from what I've seen in many hetero relationships, it's usually the woman sacrificing to go where HE wants to go. I understand the idea of bending one's specific ideas and goals to incorporate someone you love into your life more, but it MUST be mutual or else you'll live a life of deep seated resentment for them ("Remember how after college, I moved to Albania for you?" etc).
ReplyDeleteTo me, love is more about that person bringing out the best in you. NOT changing you, but encouraging those qualities that really make you shine. And that might mean letting you go off and do your thing without them by your side, hard as it is, so as to allow you to experience and enjoy your life most fully.
--The Albright Sheriff