Lovers
My passion for her, even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love.
One is about you, the other about someone else.
- Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with.
- Mac MacGuff, Juno
To me, these two are the essential quotes about romantic love, what to do, who to work for, how to know as best you can.
I've loved people who've invented themselves, or even invented themselves specifically for me. And I'm in love until I see the invention, and see through and can discern the person, and have yet to fall in love with the person underneath the invention. I think it compels them to keep inventing, and that makes me sad. It is done then, though, and I rewrite history that I was never in love, because it wasn't real to begin with.
I've fallen in love. And as one of John's good friends pointed out, when it's real, you will stand and let them rip you asunder with their own hands, and you won't retaliate because you could never hurt them. It's true. You might eventually walk away when you know, you really know, they can't or won't love you the way you want, need or deserve, but you only feel love for them as they act out. You don't have to want to work for it, you do it as naturally as drinking water. I've been the person standing there, and the person tearing someone else apart as they tried to love me. On the one side, I can never apologize enough for the cruelty, and on the other side, I know no apology was needed. Someone who loves you that deeply already understands that you didn't intend harm.
I've loved people I've invented, or more specifically - I've loved the romantic paradigm itself, where all people and interactions are an invention of a kind, a reading of a script.
This is what I've been thinking about lately.
Who I am. What I want. If I want romantic love.
I also know in recent years I've given a lot of extra attention to the inventions because it creates a structure in which I can get safer, more loving, more bonded sex. It's an increasing motivator as I ramp up into my 30s. It confuses the questions and the answers a bit.
One is about you, the other about someone else.
- Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with.
- Mac MacGuff, Juno
To me, these two are the essential quotes about romantic love, what to do, who to work for, how to know as best you can.
I've loved people who've invented themselves, or even invented themselves specifically for me. And I'm in love until I see the invention, and see through and can discern the person, and have yet to fall in love with the person underneath the invention. I think it compels them to keep inventing, and that makes me sad. It is done then, though, and I rewrite history that I was never in love, because it wasn't real to begin with.
I've fallen in love. And as one of John's good friends pointed out, when it's real, you will stand and let them rip you asunder with their own hands, and you won't retaliate because you could never hurt them. It's true. You might eventually walk away when you know, you really know, they can't or won't love you the way you want, need or deserve, but you only feel love for them as they act out. You don't have to want to work for it, you do it as naturally as drinking water. I've been the person standing there, and the person tearing someone else apart as they tried to love me. On the one side, I can never apologize enough for the cruelty, and on the other side, I know no apology was needed. Someone who loves you that deeply already understands that you didn't intend harm.
I've loved people I've invented, or more specifically - I've loved the romantic paradigm itself, where all people and interactions are an invention of a kind, a reading of a script.
This is what I've been thinking about lately.
Who I am. What I want. If I want romantic love.
I also know in recent years I've given a lot of extra attention to the inventions because it creates a structure in which I can get safer, more loving, more bonded sex. It's an increasing motivator as I ramp up into my 30s. It confuses the questions and the answers a bit.