Manila Standard, 09 August 2001, p.24
There are more women than there are men in this world. Therefore not every woman has a man out there waiting for a perfect moment.
While reading a book about spiritual growth, I
came across an interesting theory about the “illusion of romantic love.” The
book called it a healthy illusion for without it, people would not get married.
Such illusions keep people going and encourage growth. The theory so bothered
me that I had to find some sort of counter argument. Was calling the illusion
“healthy” enough to keep “romance” alive?
Apparently, I guess. I do believe most people
survive life because of this illusion. Besides, to dream and to hope for
something are two of the few things you can actually do for free nowadays.
Last week someone from our “all single female”
mail group sent an anonymous e-mail defining in concrete parameters what a
“real man” is. I honestly thought it was a joke and was mocking the sad reality
that there are no more real men around, that is, if we use the definition on
the e-mail. The e-mail said, among other things, that a real man would “give
you a back rub without asking for one in return,” “send you flowers for no
reason at all,” write you a poem,” “send you a teddy bear,” “kiss you in the
middle of a sentence,” blah, blah, blah.
Sourly and bitterly, the e-mail ignited
violent reactions from the single females in our mailing list. One said that
the feeling you are supposed to be getting from a real man is not far from the
feeling you get from eating lots of chocolates. Another said if a real man is
one who writes a poem and gives you teddy bears, then she would rather not have
one.
It seems that even with all of our accumulated
experiences with men, nothing comes close to the definition offered to us. The
reactions led the culprit (the one who sent us the e-mail) to apologize to
everyone and declare she was just trying her luck. Despite all the
disappointments in relationships and men, there was still a flicker of hope, at
least for the one who wrote and sent the e-mail.
Again, let me reiterate that my narration of
this incident does not necessarily mean I have given up on men or that I am
criticizing any particular gender. It just means that things have changed and
the e-mail was probably written a century too late.
I guess the illusion of finding the perfect
man, or woman for that matter, has kept us going and looking forward to each
day, hoping that somehow there would be some sort of an inspiration to move on.
But the truth is that in our search for our partner in life, we have all sorts
of expectations that can fall short or, sometimes, even surpass reality. It
depends on what we can and can’t live with, what we can and can’t accept.
I had to go back to Dr. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled to find some
sort of a longer explanation about the so-called illusion of romantic love. Peck
called it a myth that tells us that for every young man, there is a young woman
who was meant for him. When they finally find each other, they get married and
live happily ever after. I need not to elaborate that this is not reality as we
know and live it.
Believing in the myth is probably one of the
reasons most single people fall into a depressing state when they still have
not found their partner. Aside from the self-inflicted mental torture, the rest
of society aggravates the matter by imposing the same myth, pressuring the
single person to look harder and be more available. Not finding a partner when
we are all led to believe we all have one somewhere out there could really
drive someone up the wall.
I strongly believe that recognizing romantic
love as pure myth would help single people accept reality and live happily by
themselves or until such time when they find a partner, if there is one for
them.
But Peck stresses that myths represent and
embody great universal truths. The myth or romantic love is perhaps necessary
because “it ensures the survival of the species by its encouragement and
seeming validation of the falling-in-love experience that traps us into
marriage.”
The real myth is that everyone will end up
with someone. It’s ironic, however, that the myth that causes misery in single
people is the same myth that encourages people to get married.
A single friend confessed to me she strongly
believes there is someone out there who is meant to be with her for the rest of
her life. I knew it was wishful thinking. But I didn’t feel like bursting her
bubble by telling her that the ratio of males and females in today’s adult
population is far from equal and that there is a possibility, that marriage
could remain an illusion for some people for the rest of their lives.
There is no way I can fault single people for
wanting to get married. The society that raised us made us believe that staying
single is simply just not the way to go forward, getting married is. I guess
the important thing is for every single person to realize that staying is not
as bad as we have all been led to believe.
Whether myth or truth, fact or fiction, we
cannot deny that romantic love is what we all believe to be one of the best
feelings in the world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting that. But
there is definitely something wrong if we think that it is the only thing that
could bring us real happiness.
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