We are not negative people. On the contrary, we are very positive, happy and uplifting people in a cynically funny sort of way. So this week we decided to take a turn for the better and, after spending two weeks debunking the love myths, write about everything that love is. The good news is that we do not need two weeks to write all of the positive things about love because people that find love and recognize it for the beautiful thing that it is do not usually need to invent stupid stuff to screw it up. It takes creativity and imagination to really screw something up. Oh oh, there is the cynical coming out. Back to our peaceful Zen state of love.
Paul says: Let’s review. There is a scientific definition of love. Yes, I know that the romantics hate it when I use the words scientific and love in the same sentence but I need to because it is true. According to the white coats, love has three components: passion, intimacy and commitment. See, lust is good because it is one of the parts of love but it is not enough since it is only 33.333333 (repeating) percent. We can equate lust with passion but what about the other pieces?
This brings us to the first of our ‘love is…’ topic: Love is trusting.
Since we are reviewing, remember back to the topic of sex. Sex is not intimacy. Making love has nothing to do with the location of one’s genitalia. Intimacy is in the mind and in being vulnerable with your lover. It is a combination of convincing ourselves that we are trusting and demonstrating to our loved one that we trust them. Being trustworthy is a big plus also.
Which brings me to prenuptial agreements. As a legal tool, they are a great idea. I am a big fan of contracts and legal agreements and any other way that lawyers and the Devil can bind the weak minded to their wills. Sadly, as a tool of love, it is a declarative statement that the party of the first part does not, in its entirety, trust the party of the second part. If you can sign the pre-nup while looking the other person in the eye and informing them, in no uncertain terms, that you do not trust them and, therefore, cannot be intimate with them on a basic Maslowian level of sustenance then go right ahead and draw up the documents.
Putting all of my wordy sarcasm aside, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if everybody listed out all of the things that they can’t trust in their lives. I do not trust that you love me. I do not trust that I am sexy enough or beautiful enough to keep you. I do not trust that God will let me be happy.
The last one was for me. In all of the therapy that I have done, the bottom line to my issues, and subsequently the underlying reason that I could not be intimate, was that I did not trust God. Somewhere in my subconscious, I believed that God was kind of willy-nilly and that at any moment He would cut the thread and let me drop into whatever pool of misery was in store for me. From my own experience, I can say that there is a hierarchy to this. First, trust in God then in yourself then in your loved ones then in the world at large. From there, I was able to love God, love myself, love Lee, and then love everybody else. I will admit that I did not learn them in that order but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if I had.
Now you know why Lee does most of the writing. I just get all philosophical and shit.
Lee says: Dare I say it again? I love this guy.
Have you heard the urban legend that says all guys and girls are the same? Yeah, it goes something like a guy and a girl are in their car making out in a remote part of a forest. She hears a noise and breaks off a kiss to say ‘What was that?’ The guy, a total stud, by the way, says ‘Nothing but the beat of my heart, Baby’. She buys that stupid explanation and continues her pre-fornication rituals. This time there is a loud thud and he breaks off the intense session to say ‘What the hell was that?’ She immediately starts crying and saying how she’s fat and he doesn’t want her. He adjusts himself and leaves the car in a stupid search for whatever made that noise. Punch line to the story is that they both end up dead but their memory will live on at slumber parties and camp fires forever.
Lee says: They say girls are made of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ and boys are made of ‘frogs and snails and puppy dog tails’. Hmmmm. Apparently some of the bitches I have met along my life journey were some sort of the weird spice like old pantry oregano or something. And some boys I’ve met have been nothing but raw sugar mixed with deliciousness. But it doesn’t matter really. We are programmed to see men and women in a certain way and that same programming defines a very specific aspect of love myth which is:
Myth: Being an independent woman means you hate men/Being an emotionally available man means being a pussy.
Why the myth? Why do we need to pigeon hole men and women? Why is it so important to maintain this myth?
Easy. If we do not maintain these ideals then we run the risk of unbalancing the status quo. Society is accustomed to dysfunctional love. By letting men and women have love when they don’t play by the rules, in other words, they don’t toe the line by comporting themselves like good automatons with sweetness and machoness respectfully, then some people are gonna get a little uppity and think they can behave anyway they like. After this will come anarchy and then the dreaded people marrying their pets. It behooves a society to maintain a certain gender behavior requirement. It makes things easier, doesn’t it?
I am one of those ‘independent thinking women’ who has been called every name you can possibly imagine because I was not dressed in pink, I did not coo or squeal with joy at the thought of puppies and I have been known to drop more than one word from the seven you aren’t supposed to say on TV. Most of those words I like to string together to paint a perfect picture. On good days I have been called a dyke and on days where people didn’t care how I felt about the insults I was called unlovable. All this because of my way-of-being, which people think was created because I did not like men. How wrong they were.
I am an independent women and I adore men. I have a deep admiration for the complexity and simplicity of a man. I also know that a man’s vulnerability defines his manliness only in that the more vulnerable he is, the more powerful he is. He can handle the roller coaster of life better than a man that uses his teeth to open his bottles. He allows himself to feel the pain and joy of life. Thus, these are the real men not the two dimensional Marlboro assholes who have more in common with robots than a real man. But why listen to me? I’m just a bitter, unlovable dyke who hates men.
Paul says: Unlovable!?! When she says things like that, I just want to cry and give her big hug. Then, again, I am just a big pussy who is obviously pussy whipped, possibly gay, and completely without a backbone. Apparently, that is the downside of being in touch with my emotions. The upside is that I love to give hugs.
CoupleDumb wanted to take a second and send love and felicitations to all the fathers, stand up guys and Mamas out there that do Daddy duty for a child. Thank you for giving of yourself and being there for a kid. We hope your Daddy’s Day was everything that you deserved! Now to business! What’s going on? It struck us last week that we needed to get some focus. We have the kids home for summer and since we would need to sell a kidney and retina to pay for summer camp, they are firmly wedged up our ass while we try to bring you gem-posts like usual.
We have also been working at getting an agent for our relationship book. This has the added benefit of us discussing the contents of our book which is exciting and ultimately giving us ideas of what to write for you! Aren’t you lucky? You had no idea that, when we steal away for an hour to Starbucks, we actually discuss you! So, one of the realizations that we had, actually it was more like a visceral knowing rather than an aha experience, was that we operate under so many relationship myths in this society that it behooves us to begin dispelling those to get to the authentic love we all deserve. In other words, these next two weeks, in honor of the cleansing we are actually doing now, we are doing a relationship myth enema!
Lee says: We started a toxin cleanse a couple of weeks ago. We drink a really gross thing in the morning which tastes like sand and old celery salt with essence of orange and take fiber pills and Aloe Vera. This has the general effect of Roto-Rootering your colon. So with a clear colon and mind I have been watching you guys and listening to your conversations and hearing the vapid lyrics. I have been checking out the trends and reading the articles. All this research has lead me to the first myth that we will discuss.
I warn you that this one is going to be a tough one to let go. It is everywhere but this simple change in how you see things could make such an incredible difference in your life you will be dying to name your fist born after me. So here it is:
Myth: Love hurts.
You know me, right? I tend to be emotionally honest and am quick with the joke. I cry at the drop of the hat but have few filters if someone deserves a verbal beating. What you may not know about me is that I have a very high tolerance for pain. I have fibromyalgia and do not take any meds for the aches and pains. I have given birth and had kidney stones clean and sober. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a control thing but honestly, I can deal.
What I have never understood is describing the physical feelings of love like you have the flu. Nausea. Dizziness. Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Lack of concentration. I have no idea if they are happy or need a fucking vaccine! Seriously people, does that sound appealing to anyone? Of course it doesn’t because being in love is not a viral reaction. Falling in love is like jumping in a pool when you’re hot or taking a hot bath when you are cold. It is the yang to your yin.
Love is not painful. It does not leave marks or send you flowers when it kicks the shit out of you. What they are describing when they say that love hurts is relationship addiction. Love does not allow you to accept abuse. Love reminds you that you are important and deserve the world. If we remember this, we will save ourselves from much drama, lots of therapy and possible hospital visits.
Paul says: The only time that love should hurt is if there is leather and handcuffs involved. But that is the stuff of a different post.
Unlike Lee, my pain tolerance is old snail ass low. So trust me when I say that, if love hurt, I would never do it. You would need to hypnotize me to fall in love the same way I had to be put into a trance so that they could take blood without me fainting. Hell, I’m getting the cold sweats right now thinking that love might hurt me. No, no, no.
