People lie. It is something we all know and yet we tend to trust that it won’t happen to us. How ironic, as most of us lie often, too. Many times this is socially accepted, for example when one would unnecessarily upset a friend by telling the truth. Imagine, one of my close friends has a partner I absolutely cannot talk to, for various reasons. Yet instead of telling her that to me, he is a dreadful conversationalist, I make up excuses so I do not have to meet him that often. Yes, it is not honest but much kinder on everyone. At any rate, that was just an example.
Big and small lies
Lies about petty things are so common place they frequently go unnoticed. Still, I have lived for a long time in the belief that people do not lie about the big things, at least not to their closest friends and family. New jobs, lottery winds, or their current health would be big things. The biggest by far though, in my overly romantic mind, is certainly love. As a kid I believed true love lasts forever. Actually, I still believe that. What shocked me was the realization that most people do not believe it. That they meet a person, fall in love, proclaim that love is eternal, roses and flowers… only to fall out of love again and declare any previously made declarations of love null and void. Scarily enough they often go beyond friend-zoning, too, dropping their former loves like hot potatoes, forever.
A romantic relationship may end, but does love too?
In fact, this hot-cold approach to love is the most incomprehensible part to me. It is natural that one needs time to recover from a relationship that did not work out for some reason or the other. The recovery process varies from person to person and a year or so may pass without contact, yes. But are people really serious when they say they do not care about their old flames, not one bit? That all over sudden the person they once glorified above all others has lost all their good, lovable traits? Are most people truly lovers foremost instead of friends?
Great people stay great people and the endless capacity for love
Anyways, you may have guessed, with the exception of ONE of my acquaintances everyone I know is not on good terms with people from their past relationships. S and I feel like the odd ones out but I suppose we finally found someone like-minded in each other. We are both friends with and still love the great loves of our lives for their for who they are. The type of love may have changed, the form of love may have changed, and the relationships themselves certainly did. Even so, great people, 95% of the time, stay great people. That life comes between lovers happens, yes. People meet new people. Circumstances alter, new loves arrive. Hearts though can love endlessly.
They really can. Don’t believe me? One can love more than one child equally (or at least to an equal degree with different individual emphases). This is largely undisputed by the general population. One can love multiple extended family members on top of that. Not to mention one’s actual current partner and one’s parents and siblings. And what about pets? All at the same time, everyone agrees, one can love these many people with ever varying intensity. Yet people are making a big fuss about limiting “romantic” feelings of love to one person only. How strange.
Self-deception or the greatest lie of them all?
Even stranger is that older loves are expected to cease completely for the newer ones. Ouch! No wonder people are mean and get hurt like crazy, all the time. On occasion I have wondered whether the cutting off of former partners is a coping mechanism with our seemingly inappropriate (i.e. not accepted by society) feelings of love for them. Inappropriate for whom? A recent study revealed that more than 75% of the population still have feelings for their old flames. If this proclaimed loss of interest in old lovers is not a widespread form of collective self-deception to fit in, there is only one alternative: people must truly be lying, then, when they profess their eternal love. For while it may be love, it sure is not eternal. Sad.
What other people do is, ultimately though, of little consequence. To me, love is eternal. When I was younger I believed I had to conform to the mainstream and pretended I did not care about my former loves, either. Major fail. I may have chosen to live my life with more heartache, endless justifications and awkward encounters, but also with more love, understanding and less self-denial. Because my old loves are still wonderful people and most honest critics of who I currently am. (And, no, there are not that many of them out there, I was a relatively decent kid).
No offense if you don’t buy it
I understand not everyone shares my beliefs. Papa, for one thing, probably thinks I am the greatest oddball and he is most likely jealous of the close platonic relationships I still maintain with my old flames. He stays with me regardless because his love is for all of me, including these oddities – I hope ;). Of course, when one shares a close history the friendships sometimes seem “not only friendly” from the outside, I get that. Each relationship has its unique communication style that emphasizes us about them, which leads to others feeling excluded. That is just how it is, read social research. There is nothing to worry about though, Papa, for while I believe in eternal love and keeping great people close, I also believe in monogamy in one’s current relationship – so chill everyone, and please do not lie to those you love!
To my closest loves, with love