Disambiguation about my last article "True Love?" and further analysis.

The comment by my good friend Pratish about the last blog brings me to realize that there was possibility of such a big misinterpretation of my last article. {@Pratish: You totally misunderstood my point}.
I think the interpretation that Pratish did in his comments on the last blog is pretty dangerous and it is somewhat of my responsibility to see that such a thing is prevented lest many other also do this. Hence this post.

My claim is that the behavioural pattern that I was trying to explore in my last article is not specific to either of the sexes. I claim that in the incident narrated in my last blog if the affected person had been the wife then the husband would have been equally likely to desert her.
The only point in the behaviour of the lady that I see to be unquestionably unethical is that she almost robbed the guy of all his property. Running away is one thing but to desert taking with her all the resources is clear stealing.

The point that I am trying to explore and understand in these writings are the existence and magnitudes of the breaking limits in romantic relationships. I am trying to understand what is the maximum shock absorption ability of a relationship of romantic/passionate love between a man and a woman.

I think one can classify the reasons what may cause a shock or strain in such romantic relationships into 2 groups:

1. Reasons arising out of behavioural patterns like infidelity or one of them being a drunkard whereas the other detests alcohol or one of them being a physical oppressor on the other etc.

2. Reasons arising out of accident like physical mutilation caused to one of them due to a disease or accident or one of them being affected by some disease which is incurable and will surely lead to death.



I am not considering the causes of the first kind since somehow I feel that these are of too trivial in complexity than the reasons of the second type. Reasons arising out of behavioural patters is in some sense avoidable (no matter how difficult it may be either socially or psychologically), in general such behavioural mismatch can be looked upon as lack of foresight on both sides that they rushed into the relationship without thinking through the situation in detail.

The critical issue is when the shock arises from reasons of the second kind. It is an unexpected situation that none of them foresaw and now they are forced into it.

The question is "Whether a romantic relationship is capable of sustaining such accidents or more crucially is it by definition even supposed to be strong enough to sustain such shocks?"

Isn't the physical truth of the two persons somehow intricately associated to the fact that they are in love with each other? Can a romantic relationship be entirely disjoint from the physical truths of the persons involved?

Two people of the opposite sex might enjoy talking to each other over electronic means and strike a great resonance of thoughts and might "feel" that they are "in love" but is it anywhere near being a realistic situation unless they both are able to naturally accept the physical truths about each other?

I somehow feel that the answers to the above questions is negative. Probably the demarcating line between a "close friendship" and "love" is the existence or not of physical attraction.

Given these premises is it possible for a romantic relation ship to sustain shocks of the second kind since it anyway started off with a shade of physical attraction.

How many men have ever fallen in love with a women though they think that the woman is not beautiful? {Of course "beauty" is a relative concept and one should understand this in the sense that each side thinks that the other is beautiful}

I somehow feel that feeling that the other side is beautiful, is one of the fundamental aspects to the whole conception of being in love and when this basic aspect is breached it seems unlikely to me that the relationship can stand through.

Of course one doesn't rule out the most-common possibility that an accident/disease may permanently handicap a person but may not ruin his/her beauty and elegance.

Now the question arises whether a relationship based on feelings of beauty and elegance is worth its existence? Is it to be called "weak" since it is so based?



At this point let me state 3 statements which 3 ladies (friends and acquaintances in my peer group) told me at various point of time during the last 3 years:

Lady 1 : (she was reclining on one corner of a bed and I was sitting on the other corner and with a sigh she said the following..) "It is always 'your' problem or 'my' problem and never 'ours'"

Lady 2 : (over gtalk) "No guy can love a girl as much as parents can love their child. Then what use is such a relationship if you have parents to support you through all situations in life"

Lady 3 : (over gtalk) "How many people do you think ever find 'true love' ? One has to make compromises."

The question is to understand who among them is correct? Is any of them correct or it is such that these 3 ladies are looking at 3 different aspects of a very critically balanced relationship which is not as strong as motherly love but is stronger than close friendship?


Is 'love' a detailed equation of balance of factors where one must be ready to face a break up when faced with severe shocks and not expect it to be some infinitely strong bind like motherly love?...and hence "love" as a concept which is far far removed from the dreamy idealizations that very often romantic novels and movies try to portray.