"so . . . what is love? good night."
~ message from a friend, received late late on valentine's night
"i don't know exactly what it is, but it's what i want to offer you, always. good night."
~ reply to a friend, late late on valentine's night
prof. mealey talks a lot about how romance isn't what love is all about. how the best marriages are partnerships between the best people. and there is choice and sacrifice and so on involved. it's not all fun and games, folks.
steve mentioned a couple weeks ago that many romantic comedies implicitly argue that marriage is true love's greatest nemesis. seriously, almost all of meg ryan's movies involve her leaving one guy for the love of her life. granted, we can have false starts, realizing only later that we're settling. but the number of broken engagements and marriages that are celebrated in film is deplorable. that's right: deplorable!
real love, of course, is when a man fights for my family's honour (fitzwilliam darcy) or patiently waits for me, hoping that the fool i'm with won't hurt me (christopher brandon) or whatever the case may be.
and for all that . . . really, g.mango, i wouldn't get married just for the conversation. may have blogged on that before, but i can't find it now. see, i rather like the passionate side of things. cold, calculated commitment doesn't thrill me. i want the passion - not drama, mind you, but passion. warmth and mystery and that fear that comes with being vulnerable and that irrational protectiveness and a wee bit of "you make me melt" . . . sigh. so, i want real love that inspires those feelings.
it's wonderful to think that i won't have to choose between passion and commitment. i want both, and i will never settle for less.
(fyi, in case it's not apparent, on this particular day i'm wishing that would happen soon.)
7 comments:
Your wonderful examples are all from Jane Austen. For a women who never married she sure knew what a great man ought to be like.
upon closer inspection, you are indeed right.
on the second reading, i didn't even have to roll my eyes. they rolled themselves.
painlessly single,
g.m.
I remember when I first saw "You've Got Mail" and Meg Ryan was living with someone else already - it ruined the entire film for me.
Are you in Ethics this semester? Mansfield Park is brilliant (your conversation bit led me to think of this book).
yeah, ethics inspired it. i love that class . . . but there's this fear that comes with raising your standards (on any subject, not just love/marriage): what if no one can live up to this? what if i can't live up to this? are ethics that are only ideals even worth discussing?
I think ethics that are only ideals are well worth discussing. I discuss controversial issues with people for many reasons, not the least of which is to develop a closer relationship with the other person. Even if nothing 'practical' comes from the conversation, we at least understand each other's ways of thinking a bit better.
isn't it kindof an inevitable part of learning to love Jesus that we'll never live up to His [and therefore hopefully and eventually our] ideals? that fact doesn't make discussing them less important...it may do just the opposite.
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