On the other hand…I believe there are many people who are successful in love relationships specifically because they DO fall in love only when the love object loves them. Does this completely contradict the previous blog post? Not really, because there’s a huge difference between CONSCIOUSLY attempting to control your passions and doing it without self-awareness. Think about how difficult it is to “make” yourself feel generous, or angry, or almost any emotion that is basic in our emotional repertoire. Now there are many people who may not know they have an emotion – often it’s resentment, shame, or anger. They stuff it under until it’s not consciously available even to themselves, though it may be plain to others, thanks to their tone of voice, facial expressions, aggressive words, or body language. A corollary of this self-manipulation is talking ourselves into believing we do feel something we don’t. Romantic love is probably one of the most common feelings we believe we have, just because we want to feel it. How many of us say “When I look back, I thought I was in love, but I really wasn’t”? 

Why would someone believe they are in love when their deepest emotions don’t coincide with their desire to have a relationship or get married? The answer is obvious: it can happen to those who don’t know their own emotions when it’s pragmatically in their self-interest not to. That’s the counter to those who can’t help their own passion: those who are not always aware of their own feelings are perfectly capable of waiting to see if a desirable love object is in love with them before they “fall in love” – or more likely, never fall in love, but convince themselves and their partners that they are in love. I’ve known at least a few men who have done this unknowingly, with great success. It’s clearly a way to avoid rejection; it’s also a way to leave the relationship, if you want to do that in future, without heartbreak, since the feelings were never deep in the first place.

I don’t admire these people, and I couldn’t wish that I had less self-awareness, but I can’t help envying those who play the game of love this way to win. To me it’s like getting through life by constantly working the system, rather than finding out who you are.  

As for me, I always know when I’m in love, and to what degree. That doesn’t mean I’m a better person, but rather that my emotional barometer is sensitive (at times overly so) and unmistakable; I’ve been that way since childhood. It means I can’t suppress intense feelings and I never could. And therefore, when romantic love has not been mutual…yes, there has been pain. But I like to think that feeling an authentic passion gives joy that outweighs the risk of pain, and I’d choose that rather than the triumph of “winning” by smoothing out the process of loving. As Laurie Colwin wrote, speaking for her heroine in her novel, Family Happiness, “The pure feelings one had in adult life were complicated and mitigated, and they were dearly paid for, but worth everything they cost.”