A certain friend of mine has been looking for love. He took the most honorable and decent way possible. He ended up with someone with whom, as an external observer, I would describe the situation as being in love.
Not that I understand love myself as much as I perhaps should. But the human needs, cravings, and a desire to find a guaranteed solution to not be lonely in a country like Canada, a country that is not only particularly cold but also one of the loneliest, forces anybody to consider love.
For many, this is what life is all about, finding love. The greatest accomplishment. And the greatest compliment. For others, love is a pitfall where it is hard to not keep falling. Many of my friends, family, and acquaintances, I find that upon reflection, have put a majority of their energies and time into love. The reasoning (and this is only my hypothesis) is that if they have nothing at least they got love.
What is worse, being alive with somebody in love or being rich but lonely, or having neither power, nor love, nor money? Certainly, the last one: having nothing. But if you have at least love, it is perhaps more tolerable to have nothing else.
And thus in this pursuit of love, for that he may not be alone and find someone to share his journey of life, my friend took a path towards love.
An uncanny reflection
One night, he told me he discovered why his relationship didn’t work. And why it will never work. Both sides have found the separation hard to bear and have been finding ways to give themselves another chance.
He then thought about his other relationships to understand why this great-potential relationship between two high-achieving individuals didn’t work despite the goodwill, common desire, and love. He found this powerful insight. He told me this,
Jassim, I find peace in talking to you, my mom, my siblings, and some of my other friends. But I did not find peace with her. I found excitement!
And that is infatuation. When the possibility of another person loving you arrives, that is that this person wants you—you primarily—or you alone, it is the greatest compliment anybody can give to anyone else. And so, with this compliment comes the fullest and the most complete set of tales and poetry in honor of this other person for they have chosen to love you (if not in truth at least in thoughts).
In infatuation then, it is less about the other person and more about you! What you like most about another person is that they like you or at least the possibility of them liking you. When this possibility is broken, that ushers great pain and sometimes hatred, for it means 1. you were wrong-—they were not interested in you, 2. they never loved you the way you expected, and 3. it was tokenism, they never knew what they were doing, it was just an illusion that they themselves fell into and you were double-blinded.
Obviously, it is painful to be wrong. But it is even more painful to be wrong about someone with whom you built expectations and so many dreams. Thus humanity’s never-ending songwriting, lore, and poetry on demystifying love; why it is almost about to happen before it ever happens.
Excitement is good
The truth is perhaps that excitement is good. Excitement indicates that there is sufficient lubrication to the machinery. If a relationship carries no excitement for both parties, it probably is a dying relationship.
The challenge when it comes to finding love is not that it is not exciting. In fact, excitement is a requirement, I would argue, necessary for all relationships. By relationship, I mean all human relationships. What makes my workplace so likable is that I am excited to see my coworkers. (To be more philosophically correct I am not unexcited to see them, or I am not unhappy to see them, not that I am particularly happy or fully excited. This is as far as excitement goes when I see anybody so this is not a snub to my amazing coworkers). What makes friendships possible in some cases and not in other cases, is the presence and lack of excitement on both sides.
The challenge is to find a romantic interest where its greatest virtue is that both sides involved are at peace. This is why the adage find someone with whom you love doing nothing exists.
When we reached this understanding that we should judge our relationships based on the presence of peace and excitement, I and my friend were so proud and excited that we have come to such a lofty understanding. We have finally found a true metric to judge our relationships with other people and a new tool that will perhaps help us alleviate our lackluster love life. My friend and I are intellectually gifted but our smartness ends where love starts. Our intellectualization of the pursuit of love then continues.
He then asks me,
But Jassim, what do you think peace is if peace is what we should be looking out for?
I said,
I hate to do this. But unfortunately, I can only come up with a negative definition. Peace is the lack of friction. By lack of friction I do not mean that differences do not exist between people. Difference will always exist because we are different people. But that these differences have also found their peace.
My friend,
Yes, the differences are set. They have been sorted out and our relationships thrive because of our shared understanding! This shared understanding eventually becomes the foundation on which it stands.
I continue,
Yes, a sign of a good relationship is that differences are so much at ease. Friction is those differences that do not settle. They continue to nag. If both parties do not have the love, nor motivation, nor chemistry to dissipate those differences, then at that point friendship is impossible, love is impossible and even basic acquaintance is nothing but a relationship of friction.
