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Feb 202012
May 092011
THE Relationship Blog
We have made it clear that there are some of these relationship advice gurus that we just do not agree with but we have always been nice about it. Well, no more nice CoupleDumb. This week we set our sights on some of the stupid love advice masters and, with some brutal specificity, tell you why these fools are full of crap.
Let’s start with the king of relationship wrongness: John Gray. Men Are From Mar, Women Are From Venus has become a classic in relationship self-help. The book is something like twenty years old at this point and people are still reading it. It has companion books, study guides and all of the trappings of a franchise. The problem is that he is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Are we clear here?
Dr. Gray’s work is more detrimental then helpful. He has created cages, labeled one in pink and the other in blue, and locked all men and women within. This kind of categorical pandering is very bad. Aldous Huxley, the author of the classic novel Brave New World, was one of the bigger brains of our time. He made a pretty strong case about the dangers of the reductive mind. He acknowledged that our brains naturally start with the big picture then breaks it down to the little pieces. This is a good thing to do only if you understand from the start that each of the little pieces are not fixed in dimension. They change, blending into the next piece such that we have one big picture.
Carl Jung, one of the founding fathers of psychology and a big brain himself, warns against creating a typology of a person. People are not one dimensional constructs that we can define in a couple of words or, for that matter, a million words.
It is simple for us to create little categories for our lives. Paul is a man. Lee is a woman. Paul is a white guy. Lee is a Cuban chick. Paul is a Scorpio. Lee is a Sagittarius. Unfortunately, these fun little names are only useful to racists and census workers. There are times when Lee is very unwomanly. There have been occasions when Paul has left his masculinity at the door.
So why do we say that we would not use Men Are From Mars as toilet paper? Because it is harmful. When a person is looking for help with love or they want to know how to love, the last thing that they need is some dumbass making pat statements that perpetuate the same old stereotypes. No, we are not done yet because this is another of the things that really chaffs our asses. One of the reasons that this book sold so well is that is continued the myth of dating and love and gender roles, even though it is not supported by science.
It is an interesting phenomenon, and on that has been researched a bunch now, that women feel oppressed by their roles in society and, at the same time, perpetrate that role. That is what Gray did with his book. He basically said that the way it has been is the way it is always going to be. In a back handed way, he slapped down women and put them back in their place. If you follow the stereotype, the one thing that women have going for them is that they have a handle on relationship but, because men are from mars, it means nothing since you can never communicate this to the man. Therefore, ladies, you are kind of useless.
The simple fact is that none of this is true. We are all from Earth. We wear are roles and shed them as we need. Never let anyone put you in a box with some simple label because you are greater than that. We are each infinitely complex, shifting and learning. So, Dr. Gray, we say ‘poopoo’ to you and your planets.
Jul 162010
Today we conclude our musings on love. It is just in time for the weekend so that you can enjoy a nice ‘love buzz’. Hopefully on Monday you will not be too hung over.
Paul says: Two weeks ago, I said that Lee and I are optimistic and uplifting kind of people. We have been writing about all of the wonderful things that make up love, their magical qualities and their inspiring practicalities. Now I can do the big uplifting finish to our two weeks of love.
Love is real.
How’s that for hopeful and sappy? Philosophy of the tangibility of the intangible aside, love does exist. Every poet, lover, romance novelist and adolescent girl knows this to be true. Love changes our brain chemistry. Under MRI, our brain’s light up in all kinds of new and interesting ways when we are in love. And the deeper, more complete the love, the more sparkly our gray matter gets.
Love has its place in the legal system. It always makes me happy to know that I can stab Lee as long as I am still in love with her because then it is a crime of passion. Any other time, it would just be run of the mill murder.
If not for love, we would not have had such a cinematic conflict as the Trojan War. Come on, who doesn’t love a couple of star-crossed lovers silhouetted on the backdrop of a long and bloody battle of gods and men?
Nothing motivates humanity, is given more readily, is misused more often, and is more coveted then love. And Lee and I are loves biggest fans. I know, sometimes you may not be able to tell how much we love love, with us bashing Romeo and Juliet for being the horny teens that they are, but we do believe in love. To be honest, it is one of the reasons that we write what we do, day in and day out. Consider it homage to the big L.
Unfortunately, I have seen so many people who have placed love into the same category as Santa Claus, bipartisanship, and hover cars. All cool things but we have waited a long time to see them. Eventually, we all get tired of the wait.
I am here to tell you that love is real.
Remember the “technology” of our youth, and here I am speaking to the age 40+ crowd, where a word or picture would be printed in a sea of red and blue lines? The only way that the word was recognizable was when viewed through a red cellophane filter.
That is my little analogy for love. Just look at it with the right filter and you will be surprised and delighted at how real (and prevalent) love is.
I am now done being uplifting. I think that next week I will write about the evils of babies. Believe me, they are just little demons in diapers, but that is a post for another time.
Lee says: I don’t know if I believed in love when I was younger but I think it believed in me. It smacked me across the head and said look at that! And there he was…6 feet tall, weighed as much as a taco salad, wearing funky clothes and bad haircut. But I loved the guy! I think I was wearing blue tinted glasses back then. Either way, I saw it and love continues to be as real as the pain in my back and need to wear reading glasses. I said real, people and that is as real as I get.
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