love » CoupleDumb

What's love?

Jul 062010

          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.

Love 101

Reader's Questions

Jul 022010

          We are pretty sure that there are some people out there who are really good at loving and being in love. We are positive that there are a handful of folks who could teach a class on Love 101 at their local community college or adult center. We are convinced that just statistically there are those couples who do not need to fret or freak about their relationships because they are healthy and good and all the things people dream about. Unfortunately, we haven’t met a lot of those people so we would love it if you would step up.

          Lee says: I would love to teach the class Love 101. I can see myself teaching the class to adults on a Tuesday evening next door to the Tandoori Today class. The hall will reek of cumin and there would be a good deal of smoke in the air. I would come in early the first day hoping to get a quiet moment to settle and focus on my first class. First impressions are everything. I turn to the dry erase board and write my name in my typical print-penmanship combo. I flourish the ‘Lee’ so the L looks like a Laverne one to see if anyone catches the reference. Then I write the following myth on the board.

          Myth: Love is natural.

          I’m sure I’ll get a lot of crap for that one but if love were a natural thing that people do automatically, why the hell would you be in a Love 101 class?

          I know that at one point in the span of human existence, love was natural. But no more. We have created so many myths and fairy tales and beliefs surrounding love that the natural desire to be open with the one you love is bitted and reined in by the paranoia of pain. You hear the little voice in your head say ‘If you tell him you love him he’ll think you’re needy or trying to trap him or crazy or you just stole his ATM card and purchased tickets to Peru.’ We have sapped the unthinking nature of love and made it a blood sport where you have to wear jerseys and crying is allowed.

          Do I sound a little bitter? Maybe I am. It’s just that I was lucky to find another innocent soul out there who had not been completely warped by the playing field of love and could be honest with me. I fear for my kids. I fear for my friends and family who still hopes for a love connection. I mean, how fucked up are the people out there?

          The other day I heard a lady actually say that she was really good at relationships and proceeded to list out all the men she had been with including the one addicted to pills and the guy who only wanted to have anal sex which she adamantly refused. She considered these the good relationships. I was afraid to probe her on the bad relationships? Me! The psychotherapist who worked with pedophiles, rapists, crack whores and all the other needy souls out there was afraid to ask about the guys this whack job lady thought didn’t stack up to the pill popper and butt fucker.

          Love is gentle and kind and with hard work in the beginning you can lay down an honest foundation. Take the time to be in integrity and responsible with your partner and I promise it will be natural to love, kind of like falling off a bike. Once you’re on the floor, it’s really easy.

          Paul says: I do believe that love is natural. Unfortunately, we have made it into a topiary elephant cut from an artificial bush. Most people wouldn’t know natural love it is tried to trample them with its freshly manicured feet.

Prostitutes make better lovers

Kids and why you can't kill them

Jun 292010

          The kids are alright. We think. Truth be told we haven’t seen our kids since the last day of school. We basically did a Costco run, bought tons of easy packaged food, bricked up our door and have been living in our bedroom. Sure we can hear them wreaking havoc and we are sure they are doing some kind of construction out there but we stay hidden writing about love myths. Today’s myth has been perpetuated for eons and continues to be among all cultures and forms of media. This myth is one of the worst things a parent can teach their child, aside from eating Cheese nips for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

          Lee says: I have been told that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I have been told that I’m talking out of the wrong orifice and that my opinions are suspect because I lack one very important thing. What could I be missing? I have a good education. I have 23 plus years of experience as a psychotherapist. I read tons of research daily. So what is wrong with my opinion?

          Myth: The quantity of experience is what is important. (Love is about quantity).

          In other words, since I did not bed dozens of men or have my heart broken on regular intervals, I am not to be trusted. How could I understand the complexity and pain of love? To the naysayers, I say I have never been bitten by a shark but I know that their teeth are very sharp.

          To these people who believe that sewing your oats is how to learn to love I give them the following analogy: I love to play baseball/softball. If I, without any coaching or sage advice decide to go to bat with a crappy swing, and play hundreds of games swinging the bat wildly without any correction, sooner or later, I will be benched and not allowed to play the game. My teammates/friends will cringe when I go to bat. My confidence will plummet. My game will suffer to the point that I may choose to stop playing all together all because I have a dysfunctional swing. As in love, swinging the bat poorly in hundreds of games will never make me successful, neither will having affair after affair.

          As parents, we tell our kids to go out there and take their swings without coaching or an idea of what they should be doing. We tell them to experience things and that will make them better people. Ultimately, too much heartbreak makes them bitter people. Also, this advice may actually have your child miss the opportunity of love. If we are so concentrated on quantity of experience we forget about the quality. We could possibly pass on the real experience of love for another batting cage of empty pitches with no base running (and that’s where we will end this silly analogy).

          I have been blessed. I did have my share of crushes but I have only loved one man. I am also a little leery whether the amount of love people report is real. Sure, you can care for people and be passionate and have orgasms and kids and all sorts of experience but are you really in love? Many people who have divorced or broken up and subsequently started a new relationship that is healthier find that they may have never really been in love with their former partner. An experience, yes, but to what end? Personally, I would prefer if my kids avoided the pain and watched for the good pitches instead of swinging at everything. And you thought I was done with the baseball references.

          Paul says: I think that I disagree. I am a fan of learning by trial. Teach a kid how to swim by throwing them into the deep end. Letting them bounce from car bumper to car bumper is a brilliant way to teach them how to cross the street. If they survive the lesson, all you need to do is shrug and push them back into danger. Yes, I like it. Love is a lot less romantic when you apply a little old school Darwin and some survival of the fittest mentality.