Reflections inspired by Those Who Love

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. 

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.