ASH: ASH #67 - "Monstrous" (Manifest Destiny Part 3)

cabbagewielder at yahoo.com cabbagewielder at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 7 08:20:00 PDT 2006


>I think people *choose* who they fall in love with, just as they
>*choose* who they fall out of love with.

  I'd argue that they don't.  Love just happens and generally it is not
for the best.  People just like to wear rose colored glasses about it
when they're in love.  Case in point...

   You have a man.  He's got these friends.   When he's not at work or
whatever he's hanging out with them.   One of these friends has a
playtonic friend girl.  Girl has issues with people.  A lot of it
stemming from dating two jerks in a row which left her a little afraid
of loving anybody.   Man starts talking to girl and became just as
close to her as he is to his other friends.  In fact, in a lot of ways,
she understands him better than the others do.   Instead of joking
around to hide his emotional insecurities and pain, he jokes around
because he is actually genuinely happy for the first time that he can
actually remember.    He realizes "Holy Crap!  I'm in love."

   Now, they give it a try and it doesn't work.   They move on.  Or
think they do.  A few months later she's in a situation where she
really needs help.  Man knows he is probably the only one she'd
actually listen to.  Man is seeing someone else.   Man wants to help
girl but can't because 'the girlfriend won't let him'.    On the one
hand his heart tells him to be loyal to the girlfriend.   That's love.
  On the other hand his heart is telling him that helping his friend is
morally the right thing to do.   So what does he do?  He breaks up with
his girlfriend because she doesn't want him helping his friend.  If it
had been any other friend (Joe, or Bob, etc.) she wouldn't have a
problem with it.   Doing the right thing-- for someone else-- when you
have everything to loose and nothing much to gain, that's love too.
Probably deeper than anything the man has ever felt.  And maybe ever
will.  Even after the whole thing falls apart again, The man still
cares about her.   She's moved on.   In her own words, he is: 'The most
caring, loving and good person she's ever met but that's not what I
want.'   She wants the jerks.  But there isn't much he can do.  So he
leaves.    But he still loves her.

   And *when* she gets hurt again maybe he'll come back.  Maybe.


    Love is a toxin.   It really is.   Sometimes, as with the man and
the girlfried, it is a toxin on moral decision making.  Other times it
assaults our logic and sanity make us a bit delusional.  Worse yet,
like heroin or LSD it is one so insidious that after awhile the body
actually expects it to be there.   When it's not people have some nasty
withdrawl symptoms.    Depression.   Lack of appetite.   You begin to
demonize the person you once loved.   Or you begin to despise people
who are happier than you are.  Which, face it, if you have the other
symptoms is almost everybody.

    Because of the nature of love, once it is completely gone, people
inevitably try to get their next fix.  The person they choose is either
so similar to the last person  or that person's total opposite.  Either
way the cycle is doomed to repeat.  If they're too similar the
interaction between them will (more than likely) take the same sort of
path.  If they're too different what made the last relathinship work at
all won't be there.

    Once in a blue moon-- for some people-- for whatever reason, it
works.      

     And nothing personal, but I hate those bastards.




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