Still trying to get my bearings, but here is a reprint of something that I recently posted on another forum. I had explored some of these ideas a few months ago in a discussion on John Smulo’s blog, and I’ll probably continue to explore them quite on my own.
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Understanding love (of any sort, but particularly romantic love) first requires an understanding of intimacy: A relationship characterized by a deep and mutual knowledge of the other. True intimacy is something that must be built up over time, during which the parties to a relationship need to interact fairly consistently, particularly throughout the significant changes and milestones that life brings. There is no shortcut to intimacy: “Chemistry”, “rapport”, or even the nebulous concept of the “soul-mate”, are no substitutes for a shared history in vulnerability, conflict and its resolution, empathy, support, and trust. Intimacy is by its very nature mutual, symbiotic, reciprocal, and shared. There is no such thing as “unrequited” intimacy nor is intimacy particularly accidental or uncontrollable. For intimacy to exist, both parties must desire not only to fully know the other, but to make themselves known as well. A desire to only know the other, without making oneself known is best defined as obsession, whilst a desire to only make oneself known should be considered narcissism. Intimacy is at odds with both of these states.
Love, on the other hand, is best defined as the desire for intimacy with the other, which means that love is not dependent on reciprocity, trust, or even good sense. Our desires are not entirely voluntary, and as such, we can love (or worse yet, “fall in love with”) those who are unable or unwilling to know us and be known in return. Furthermore, desires can be fickle and are greatly affected by circumstances that can hinder, or encourage, their development. When love ends it is characterized by a lack of desire for intimacy. One no longer seeks to truly know the other, nor does one seek to make oneself known. Eventually intimacy disappears, along with the love, thus bringing stagnation to a relationship, if not the end of it (the latter being typically the case in romantic relationships).
All this is not to undermine the importance of love. Love is clearly one of the most powerful forces that we know. Love as a desire, can itself be unstable, but its overwhelming power forges some of the most stable of relationships. The love that a parent has for his/her child is that which keeps the exhausted mother/father from tossing a squalling newborn out the window. Likewise, it encourages new couples to overlook minor (and sometimes) major differences early on in their relationship, so that a more symbiotic intimacy can be formed and the relationship solidified. Love encourages friends, who have no legal or familial obligation to each other, to form strong bonds and support networks. It needs to be understood, however, that love is that force, that power, which enables the development of a truly intimate relationship. Love does not define a relationship, nor is it the relationship itself. When we remember that it is a desire, nothing more, nothing less, we are better able to understand, channel, master and use it, rather than being dominated by it to no good end.
