Friday, July 07, 2006

why love is bollocks

I have finally emerged a grumpy old cynic. Goodbye Naïve Peas, hello Peas With Chip On Her Shoulder. How did this happen? Well, I still bear fairly unscrupulous heart scars from the previous break-up, and am sitting fairly low on the Happ-Peas-ness scale generally. The product of the new me is here, and it's nasty. Allow me:

(Disclaimer: the following is not for light-hearted romantics that think fuzzy sweet thoughts all day)

A purely hypothetical synopsis on why being cynical about love and all the pathetic idealisms that come with it, is justifiable:

This Guy and That Girl meet, sparks fly, they get along, they fuck, no wait, they make love, they do stuff together, they get married.
You have GOT. To be. Shitting me.

Case Study 1: She thinks the chemistry and love is mutual, it is not.
This is a classic. Tragedy that is.
This Guy and That Girl meet, it’s as close as love at first sight can get.
This Guy is her quintessential The One. Even her flatmate says so. He is physically perfect, he fucks her like a machine, they merge spectacularly on an intellectual level. They have fun together.
It’s almost too perfect.
That’s because it is. This Guy actually gives a royal fuck about That Girl. She’s just as special as all the other girls he’s subsequently knobbed before. Even through adversity she thinks this is one of a kind, rare, poignant love. He must feel the same right?
Right. Until he introduces his new girlfriend to her.

Case Study 2: He just bid his time.
This Guy and That Girl are very similar. They laugh together, do the same things. It’s fun, light, and challenging. He treats her well. They have shitloads of sex. She adores him. However This Guy doesn't really give a continental fuck about her, while That Girl thinks he’s a pure slice of heaven. This is problematic for obvious reasons. He just hung out with her because he enjoyed her company and got a lot of free sex. She hoped he would fall for her. Then, no, he dumped her altogether. Does this scenario sound too familiar?

This is what happens time and again when people hook up.
Which is why I never expect to find that pathetic sounding ‘soul mate’, or someone who loves me enough to do anything for me. Love is a machine, an establishment. It’s a lie. It must fuck off.
I have chosen to be cynical about love purely because I believe it doesn’t exist.

Until a few months ago, I was a hopeless romantic. I wanted all those fairytale things that [stupid] little girls dream about. Someone willing.

This will never happen. And it’s ok. I’m dealing with it.
Just a few rules along the way:
1) Sometimes it’s easier to be on your own than with someone. You only have yourself to rely on and take care of.
2) People lie. Men in particular. No they probably don’t love you. They enjoy the sex and/or actually love someone else.
3) This whole ‘true love’, he was ‘the one’ deal is just naïve. This never happens. Hollywood has brainwashed you, here's your sign.
4) Get over yourself and expect nothing.
5) Close yourself off. You’ll thank yourself the next time someone with big blue eyes crosses your path.

This post may seem morbid, cynical, bitter. It is. But it’s also true sadly. So here’s a little reality check for all of you: the reason you can’t find love is because it’s not out there.
The few of you that have found it are exceedingly lucky.
I’m only 25, but have luckily experienced a series of not-so-happily-ever-after situations that have put me in my place. I should be content they all happened before I made a complete fool of myself.

Not to say I won’t live in hope of someone saving me from my own cynicism by loving me and me loving them equally back. I live in hope, not delusion. So I know the chances of this are slim.

I can still appreciate that other people think love is amazing, it exists. I won’t be a constant drag about love just because I know better. Especially since everyone around me seems to be attached or hooking up.
It may last for now, but don’t bet your life on it. Because it always falls apart. Eventually.

Save yourself from listening to toaster-in-the-bath music and taking the lyrics of the formidable Celine Dion literally. It has actually been proven that love is a madness, a disease. When ‘in love,’ your brainwaves and behavioural patterns change, and parallel those of a person who has gone twelve monkeys. (New Scientist December 2004, Vol 3.) So consider yourself lucky if you don’t have this unfortunate and heart-breaking disease.

It takes getting used to, but with enough discipline and a healthy dose of realism, you too can detach yourself from one of the world’s most deluded emotions.

PS: I told you this post would be hectic. I'm cleaning out my closet.

14 comments:

Revolving Credit said...

Ah, you look so cute when you pout I just want to tickle your belly!

muddlepuddle said...

Here here....I think.....I'm not sure.....ummmmm..

Anonymous said...

"to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong relationship" Oscar Wilde. Why is it that gay guys seem to be so much better informed?

Anonymous said...

Peas... where are you? It is still THURSDAY 6 July here.

Anyway, what you describe is lust not love. Love is something that hopefully develops from lust, given that both partners are mature enough to understand that the wonderful high of lust cannot last (what a shame!)and that there is something more, something different.

What comes now is building a relationship based on mutual respect and consideration. And it takes constant, daily work... forcing oneself not to be selfish and self centred, making and working towards shared goals, putting the other first.

It is bloody tiring, bloody hard work because you both have to work at it every second of the day, even when you don't feel like it.

Welcome to the real world of relationships.

Katie Possum said...

Hey, Peas
Despite being in love (real or not depending on your take on these matters) myself, I am not going to tell you not to be cynical about it. But I am going to advise you to be an equal opportunity cynic. Girls can be the asshole fuck ups in relationships too. I should know, I was! In every relationship before my present one, I was the one who cared less, usually cheated and almost always broke it off. Minus only two examples. Once a guy broke up with me for making out with a hottie at the same open air concert that all his mates were at (not my best, or most sober, moment).
Anyway, its that "he's just not that into you" principal from Oprah or Sex and the city. I've never read the book, because I hate self help crap, but I cheated because I was just not that into them. J and I have been together over four years, and I've never even thought about cheating, even when spending six months apart on different continents.
Just my two cents.
Happy Scowling!

Champagne Heathen said...

Probably not the best person to bail you out of this funk, I actually am in full agreement with most of what you say. And as soon as I start seeing birds singing & the sun look that much shinier cos some guy is calling me, I realise I also have about 2 married guys also calling me...taking me straight back into cynicism of the lasting/reality of 'love'.

"1) Sometimes it’s easier to be on your own than with someone. You only have yourself to rely on and take care of."
Babes, that's completely where I am at. As soon as the guy starts giving me grief I think, "Do I honestly need this? I have been more than happy for 25 years of my life with just myself & more than enough friends, so no...fuck buddies be brought on & cheers to singledom..."

So, if you chose to stay a cynic, you'll always have a virtual-partner-in-crime! If you go back to love, I hear it is one damn wonderful feeling & experience you'll never forget.

[Although inyoka makes some bluddy good points!]

sugar@gmail.com said...

well well....let me not say it again and again....blah blah blah!!

LUST RULES! - LOVE FADES - LOVE IS FUELLED BY LUST - LOVE GROWS FROM LUST - IF U LUCKY - WOTEVER WE THOUGHT WAS LOVE IN OUR DELUSIONAL MINDS - WAS INFACTUATION - UNREAL - AND IN FACT - UNSATISFIED LUSTFUL DESIRES GONE SOUR -

peas ...catch the rest of it here ....http://sugarsweetheaven.blogspot.com/2006/06/lustful-blood.html

fida . . .

sugar@gmail.com said...

http://sugarsweetheaven.blogspot.com
/2006/06/lustful-blood.html

by the way peas......i had to go past 12 lustful men before i found love and lust in one!.the combination of both is deadly! hahah!......

ps: 13 is my unlucky number...???

fida ....

Anonymous said...

Ahh. An introspective post. And a well thought through one too...and the post and comments all have very valid points. Methinks perhaps different strokes for different folks. We all need something different to make us feel alive. For some it is the lustful look of someone new. For others the comfortable loving look of a lifelong partner and friend.
But lust and love.....wow.....what a combination....something I have had and lost - through a tragic accident and not through either party screwing up though.....and something I yearn to one day perhaps find again with someone else.

Yes it may sound like romantic crapola but for those who have experienced it the experience is worth the wait and the broken hearts that may come and go along the journey of finding "the one"

Take heart. All is not lost....
And for the finale....something the love of my life wrote for me a few months before she was killed:
"Blue Green Spheres Capture my Soul
My body drifts on silver clouds
My Heart Pulsates in a rush of love
Serenity, lust, wonder and desire
Look inside me, Fulfil me
You are me and I am you"

Anonymous said...

Hey Peas, I honestly believe that cynicism comes and goes. Right now I`m cynical and actually rather angry with the whole love thing, and become the weekend Don Juan after nothing more but a bit of lust (well try anyway, haha)! Here comes the but… BUT after a while, can and do flip right back into being the Romantic, which perpetually lurks beneath……..M

Anonymous said...

What to say, what to say? Peas, what I feel is that any extremism on the position of love and happines is to be avoided. Just as the saccarine sweet romanticism that we are raised with is to be treated with skepticism and suspicion, so should absolute cynicism and the rejection of intimacy that your post implies. The truh of the matter is that, as human beings, we are ultimately entirely seperated from each other by dint of our bioogical set up. Psychologically we seem geared to seek to over come that seperation and love and romance are two of those mechanisms. The key for me at any rate, is to be engaging fully and with commitment to situations that work for you. Do not rashly over expose yourself to those who will do you harm but equally do not hide from those that will love, support and succour you. The trick lies in being able to tell the difference!

Peas on Toast said...

Hey chaps

Inyoka, I was in a relationship for almost six years. The lust fell away and we were genuinely in love - meaning it was hard work, we relied on each other through thick and thin, there were good times and bad. But eventually we grew apart and things deteriorated. So I really do believe I have experienced the fully-fledged love you spoke about. It's not glamorous, it's not all butterflies the whole time. But what happened? It didn't work in the end. And I suspect this may happen to me again.

Then I met Small Bum, who I absolutely adored despite all his strange little foibles. I was prepared to sacrifice alot for this guy. I believe that I was within the first stages of real love with this man. Then he dumped me. Go figure.

Another guy I adored, I was not in love with. It was pure lust - agreed there. However, as the story goes, he had a girlfriend. And I'm not really the homewrecker type.

The guys in my life that have been in love with me and I couldn't reciprocate, although they probably would've been good for me and treated me like gold, I couldn't do it. So essentially I fall in love, 'love', with people that can't or don't love me back, and vice versa.

To conclude: I am fucked when it comes to matters of the heart.

So here I am, pissed off and angry with the world and all it's stupid little idealisms. I am sulking like a motherfucker.

But thanks everyone for your advice and objective knowldege that things may change. And perhaps they will. But for the moment I remain with a wall around me.

Sigh.

Peas on Toast said...

Marika - you're right. Luckily I haven't lost who I am, I'm just trying to deal with being ok with who I am. ;)

Anonymous said...

Peas and Rox...peas off the same string!!