Odnoliub, a Russian word for which Google offers no
translation, allegedly means “someone who has only one love all life long.”
The idea that, in all the world, there is one person who can
make you happy— a soul mate out there waiting to be found—is a concept on which
ideas about Romantic Love are founded.
Plato teaches that “’Love’ is the name for our
pursuit of wholeness, our desire to be complete.”
Sound familiar? It should. It’s an idea that
shows up everywhere in Western culture. Think Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.”
In The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes tell the
story of humans.
Originally, says Aristophanes, humans had four arms, four legs,
a single head with two faces, and two genitalia. Some had one each of male and
female genitalia, but others had two male or two female. They all felt happy
and complete. When the humans became prideful, Zeus punished them by splitting
them in half. Apollo had their bodies sewn closed, leaving the navel as the
only indicator that they had once been linked. From then on, each human would
experience a feeling of being incomplete and would forever long for his or her
other half.
Aristophanes describes how it feels to finally find that person:
“And so, when a person meets the half that is
his very own, whatever his orientation, … then something wonderful happens: the
two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one
another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another,
not even for a moment.”
We know this feeling. We also know that we are
not always supposed to act on it. Teasdale’s poem prompted me to think about
the constraints placed on love and desire.
THE MYSTERY OF LOVE
Elijah
Bond based his 1890 patent application for a Victorian parlor game on the
“talking boards” used in many cultures to contact the spirit world for advice.
The mysterious-sounding tradename “Ouija” is a combination of the French and
German words for “yes.”
Romantic
love is mysterious. Just ask a kid.
Starting at about kindergarten age, children become
curious about romantic relationships. They understand love of family members,
love of pets, even love of inanimate, cuddly toys. But “falling in love” with
another person? That’s just weird. It’s what happens in fairytales. As one
preschool boy solemnly informed me not long ago: The prince fell in love with the princess. But I’m going to marry my
mom.
To school-age kids, the idea of a romantic attachment
between peers is just plain icky. Any evidence of preferential affection
results in targeted teasing, starting with jump rope rhymes:
“Sally and Tom, sittin’
in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love, then comes marriage,
Then comes baby in the baby carriage!”
This popular playground chant communicates mainstream
societal norms that were dominant during my childhood: love leads to marriage
and marriage is, of course, about having babies. I internalized five “commandments” as I was
growing up.
THE
FIVE COMMANDMENTS
1)
Everyone gets married.
This was so basic as to be unquestioned. Anyone who wasn’t
married was presumed to have failed adulthood. In Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love
Conquered Marriage, author Stephanie Coontz reports that four out of five people surveyed in 1957 believed that
preferring to remain single was "sick," "neurotic" or
"immoral” (New York: Viking Press, 2005). Talk about pressure.
2)
Couples are comprised of a male and a female.
This was so fixed a notion that for years I failed to
recognize that I knew a different type of couple existed. My Aunt Mary’s
partner was a woman named Pearl. I loved going to their small yellow house to
play, but, when I thought of being in love, they never came to mind. They
didn’t have kids, they weren’t demonstrative, and they weren’t “Mr. and
Mrs.”—which, sadly, made them invisible as relationship role models despite the
obvious affection and compatibility between them.
3)
Marriage is for babies.
Or rather, the purpose of marriage was to have them.
Couples without children were “childless,” with an emphasis on their
being “less” normal than those pushing strollers.
4)
A husband and wife should be of the same race, class,
religion, and ethnicity as one another.
The supposed logic behind this was that major differences
could tear a relationship apart. (Oddly,
this was not true of gender differences. See above.) And, of course, you
had to think of your future kids and how hard their lives might be if you made
a “selfish” choice.
I grew up in a pretty homogeneous community of white,
middle-class Catholics, so most of these “unspoken requirements” did not seem
an obstacle to me when I was young. In high school, however, I chafed at
the idea of limiting my choices to Scottish-Irish-Welsh
American guys. There was a tall, blond Polish guy in my school who was smart and hilarious. Another boy with a long
Italian last name had dark curls and big brown eyes. He was super-nice, always
holding the door for teachers and pregnant moms. He also played the guitar. #Swoon-worthy.
I was nineteen when I first got to know an interracial
couple personally. It was the summer after my freshman year in college and we
met in Mexico, where we were all taking the same advanced Spanish class.
Despite their different skin color—Thomas’s skin was like glossy chocolate and
Nancy was as pale as a marshmallow—they looked a lot alike. Nancy had short,
wiry, dark hair that matched her husband’s Afro. They both wore black T-shirts,
faded jeans, heavy matching silver wedding bands engraved with a mix of African
and Celtic designs, and huarache sandals purchased from Juan Carlos, who had a
stall near the school. They were newlyweds and their last name was Smith. I met
them almost fifty years ago, but I remember their name because of how often
Thomas explained that neither of them had changed their names when they
married: “Nancy was a Smith and I was a Smith and together we became the
Smiths. It was meant to be.” His face would light up in a wide smile, he would
put his arm around her, she would lean into him and—sheesh, they were adorable
together.
I remember being so happy for them, but also wondering how
their families had reacted—and how mine would react if the person who made me
happy was someone whose background was markedly different from my own.
5)
There is a Mr. Right.
Once you pick up on the idea that you are eventually
supposed to love and marry someone, you start to wonder who that person will be.
When I was a kid, one secretly thrilling way to find out
was to hold a séance using a Ouija board. I have fond memories of sitting in
semi-darkness with a couple of friends waiting for the “spirits” to reveal our
future partners. We would whisper a question—Who will I marry?—and hold our breath as a small heart-shaped piece
of wood moved under our fingertips to spell out the name of a classmate we
hardly dared to speak to. Afterwards, we would write “our” future names all
over our notebooks in loopy boy-crazy penmanship: “Mrs. Patrick McLennan, Mrs.
Thomas Higgins, Mrs. Peter Tolisano.”
An older girl in my neighborhood—let’s call her
“Alice”—had very definite ideas about how to recognize Mr. Right. She had a
checklist.
ALICE’S
CRITERIA FOR MR. RIGHT
1) He should be at least 3” taller than you.
You DO want to wear high heels and look sexy, don’t you?
2)
He should be 2-3 years older than you.
Older men are WAY more sophisticated and better able to
take care of you. Avoid a guy who’s a whole lot older than you, though—your
kids need an active dad.
3)
He should be smarter than you, especially in math.
Because you don’t want to worry about mortgage rates and
insurance.
4)
He should have a high-paying job.
You might work part-time, but that money will just be for
“extras.”
5)
He shouldn’t smoke or drink too much.
Addictions are very bad. However, drinking wine might be
okay. And champagne, obviously.
6) He
should be romantic—and funny.
He should send you flowers, obviously, or things will
never work out. But I’m talking about special gestures, like leaving a note on
the pillow if he leaves for work before you’re awake. And he should be funny,
in a good way. You want someone who makes you laugh, not someone who will
embarrass you at parties. What? You think a guy is likely to be romantic OR
funny? Oh honey, no. My dad does
this thing that is both. Every time my parents are getting
ready to go out, he asks my mom what color her dress is and he wears a tie to
match. He always jokes with her, saying “I just do it so I can remember which
woman I’m supposed to go home with.” It’s so cute. That’s what you’re looking
for, that mix of funny and romantic.
Even more mysterious than who we might love and marry was how
to get someone to like us in the first place. According to magazine ads, we
were supposed to use sandwiches as bait:
Deviled ham seemed an odd prerequisite to romance, so I
was more inclined to trust “Alice” when she claimed to understand how to
navigate the Wonderland of Love.
“At middle school dances,” she urged, “don’t stand with
all your friends. Guys will be afraid to come over. Stand by yourself. Even
better, stand next to an ugly girl. You’ll look prettier by comparison, so all
the guys will ask you to dance. I do it all the time. Eventually, you’ll meet
The Right One.”
She tipped her head forward and then back, raking
perfectly manicured nails through her long, sleek, perfectly straight blonde
hair. I tried that move in the mirror later, only to knock my glasses off my
face and tangle my curls in troublesome knots. Nevertheless, I decided to try
her advice on how to attract “The One.”
At the next dance, I separated myself from the gaggle of
girls I usually hung out with and leaned casually—and, I imagined,
provocatively—
against the wall on the other side of the gym. I
rearranged myself several times, attempting to execute a seductive hair flip
with movie star nonchalance, before I noticed that I was no longer the only
girl on that side of the room.
The albino girl from my math class was standing six feet
away, arms crossed, head down. She was eerily pale, with wispy translucent
hair, and red-rimmed eyes under thick glasses with pink frames. Even with
corrective lenses, her vision was so poor that she leaned forward and squinted
a lot. She had pendulous, obvious boobs, which I did not, but I was nonetheless
reasonably sure the guys in my grade did not consider her attractive.
The moment of decision still burns in my memory:
thankfully, I was not cruel enough to use her as a foil in the way I had been
coached. On the other hand, I didn’t go over to her so she’d feel less lonely.
I gave her a
quick smile of acknowledgement and just continued standing
there, ill at ease, occasionally testing the magic trick of lifting my chin and
tossing my hair over my shoulder. When a
gawky guy named Kevin worked up the nerve to come over and ask me to dance, I
froze. After a long pause, I mumbled, “I feel sick” and raced to the girls’
bathroom. I hid in a stall until I
heard the sad strains of “The House of the Rising Sun”—the “slow dance song”
that always signaled the end of school dances. The next day, “Alice” teased me
about “going missing” all night, suggesting that I had gone off to kiss a boy.
I gave her an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. Being a Liar seemed like a better
option than being a Loser at Love.
By junior year I had figured a few things out and I had a
steady boyfriend. (There are scary prom pictures of me in a baby blue
dotted-swiss dress with puff sleeves to prove it.) However, by the time I
graduated and was heading off to college, I was eager to be myself rather than
part of a couple.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE?
I went to college in the early 70’s, so I had no choice
but to wear bell bottoms, protest the war in Vietnam, listen to Joni Mitchell,
and go bra-less to the health food store. It was a time when everyone was
talking about love being less of an individual matter and more of a force for
societal change. The slogan “Make Love Not War” was everywhere—and many of us
were glad to do our civic duty between the sheets.
It sounds decadent but it was, in fact, a time of
innocence. It was still an option to believe in romantic love. Alice Cooper,
the “Godfather of Shock Rock,” had started doing his bizarre, macabre stage
shows with fake blood and snakes, but Karen Carpenter was still on the charts
singing “White lace and promises, A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.” I knew
guys—guys!—who, albeit in dark coffeehouses, non-ironically sang along to
Roberta Flack’s “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face,” Stevie Wonder’s “You Are
the Sunshine of My Life,” and the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There.” Love—tender,
happy, and unconditional—seemed both possible and a necessary antidote to life
in Nixon’s America.
For me, though, it was a time when my closest bonds were
with women. There were always guys hanging around, but they were in my
periphery vision. Temporary distractions, at most. I was too busy learning and
exploring. I spent most of my time with smart, passionate, talented, and feisty
women—some gay, some not—who nurtured my strength to be the woman I hoped to
be. Love became about so much more than familial ties or romance. It became
larger, communal, full of possibilities, and it included everyone in my path.
Me
in the early 70s (back row, middle) with college pals.
A desire for romantic love was still there, though, as I
discovered when I took a history class from an older Hungarian man whom I
greatly admired. He was always impeccably dressed and very formal in his
demeanor. As a journalist in Germany, he had interviewed both Einstein and
Hitler. Rumor was that he had fled before being arrested for publishing facts
about the Nazis, been tried in absentia,
and sentenced to death by hanging. He could never go back to his home and
family. This was a modest, unassuming guy. If you passed him on the street, you
would not have realized that under that dark overcoat was a man with a
prodigious intellect and king-like courage who had played a role in European
history.
One morning, after a late night at the theatre in NYC, I
slept in and ended up arriving at his class about ten minutes after he had
started his lecture. It was a small class of fewer than twenty students, so it
was impossible to sneak in. The professor stopped his lecture. I was expecting
a reprimand. Instead, he turned to me, took my hand, and led me to a seat as
gallantly and seriously as if I were a princess he was escorting to a state
dinner. I crumpled into the seat, red-faced. He returned to the podium,
shuffled papers to find his place in his notes, looked up and said in a somber
tone: “Tardiness is not generally acceptable in this class.” Then he smiled at
me and said, “However, when lateness comes in the form of loveliness, one makes
allowances.” No one dared to snicker.
I have no idea what he lectured on that day. I was in a
daze. It was like I was in an old movie and he was Gary Cooper, except older,
with an Eastern European accent. I wasn’t in love with him, but I was smitten
with his Old World charm. I wanted to meet a guy who would treat me with a
similar gracious ease and make me feel special. Really special.
I wanted to believe that, when I least expected it, I
would discover some Prince Charming had fallen for me. I would have no use for
Alice’s selection criteria because, well, Love at First Sight was the surest
way to Happily Ever After. My head knew that was stupid, but internalized
scripts are tough to rewrite. Then . . . along came Helen.
THE
BRUDNER RULE
Dr. Helen Brudner, a formidable woman who is now Professor
Emerita of History and Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University,
would probably be surprised that I remember her largely because of an off-hand
comment she made to me.
She took me aside one day after class and smacked me
upside the head to shake all Cinderella fantasies away. I can’t pretend to
recall her exact words, but the message I took away was along these lines:
You
are doing good work. But you can do better. Why are you holding yourself back?
So guys will like you? I hope not. Don’t you see? Being in the Honors Program isn’t
enough. You’re going to have to push yourself hard to do the best you can do
because no one else will. Most professors are male and they will let you slide
because you’re young and pretty. They won’t take you seriously, so you have to
be determined to be seen as more than cute. Show me what you can do.
I was ready to hear that. Grateful, even, for permission
to achieve.
I was less ready to hear this part of the message:
When
it comes to a relationship, don’t choose a guy who is equal to you. Society
stakes the odds in men’s favor.
For
you to have equal power and status in a relationship, the guy has to have some
societal disadvantage, some characteristic that places him on a playing field
below other men, which where you—as a woman—already are. Choose a man with a
handicap as compared to the average middle class white male you think of as
your peer—maybe a working class guy or an immigrant with a strong accent That
way, you can have a relationship of equals.
This was such an unromantic view. Adding up advantages and
disadvantages to a potential love match seemed to me to echo the outdated
calculus that had governed marital arrangements back when politics, land, and
money trumped emotional attachments. In other words, back in the days of Francesca, Guinevere, Deirdre, Iseult,
and Héloise. Had nothing changed? Why were there so many rules
about relationships?!
Looking back on the dictates I received about love growing
up, I am reminded of another poem, one by Pablo Neruda called “Poor Fellows.”
It begins:
What it takes on this planet,
to make love to each other in peace.
Everyone pries under your sheets,
everyone interferes with your loving.
to make love to each other in peace.
Everyone pries under your sheets,
everyone interferes with your loving.
Everyone interferes with your loving.
Everyone has an opinion on who should and should not love whom.
For
centuries, society has constructed walls to confine human emotion within
certain boundaries. Romantic love is an invisible force, yet it has the power to
blast through those barricades.
It’s no wonder adults as well as kids find it mysterious.
