The Ugly . . .

Well, here it is. The naked ugly truth. Love is a very selfish enterprise. I am reminded of the episode of "Friends" where Phoebe and Joey were debating the legitimacy of altruistic behavior. Can you truly commit a selfless act? Even in doing for others, we are never completely and totally selfless. Even if all we get out of it is a "good feeling," that renders it self-serving. The episode ensued with Phobe trying to prove Joey wrong in this perspective so much so that she started doing things for people that were not merely self-sacrificial, but actually personally painful to make her argument. Yet, he countered with the point that now that she is consciously making an effort to do a kindness that is detrimental to her so she can not feel selfish,  that is in itself a self-serving act.

So, what does that have to do with anything? Well, it speaks to an epiphany I have had over the last few days. From a very pragmatic, if unromantic, perspective, we have a tendency to be very self-serving. We never want to be dumped, often to such a degree that we race to the end of a relationship just so we can be the one who walks away rather than being the one who gets left. Whether or not we want a lifetime with someone, we are driven by the egotistical need to be the center of someone's universe. We may not want them, may know that this is not the person we are supposed to be with, but that doesn't mean we don't have this unspoken desire for them to drift into eternity longing for us with that unrequited love. Don't pretend you haven't thought it. It might not be the most admirable of feelings, but it is human.

So, seriously, is this wrong? Is this tragically cynical? Is this excessive negativity? No, I really don't think so. I do think it explains why it makes it so very hard to move on at times. It is the irrational reason for clinging to something that wasn't meant to be. It is the unproductive motivation for analyzing and over-analyzing what someone says and does to try and get at what "might have been." We talk a lot about closure and while I hate over-used psycho-therapy speech, I will use this term for what is epidemic. We need to close a book on a relationship -- and I mean WE need to be the one to close that book, to decide when the story ends. If someone takes the book away from us, or if the book stops abruptly, or perhaps pages are missing, it is impossible to let it lie. We will track down another copy, go ask others what you missed, rent the movie just to have CLOSURE.

It is never easy to be rejected. It is even harder to be rejected when you had your foot out the door but the other person beats you to the punch. So, what do we do with that? Well, first we get really honest with ourselves. Whether you are the hanger-on or you are the one racing to the door, it is important to face up to the fact that matters of the heart very rarely get at the heart of the matter. We are so motivated by selfish interests and self-preservation that we are loathe to fully surrender to the potential of a relationship and we avoid seeing them for what they are and calling them what they are when we aren't willing to surrender the hold we have over someone else to move on and let them do the same.

Once we have the ugly truth before us, we can begin to do another little dance to the tune of  the Serenity Prayer and "accept the things you cannot change (about yourself, your partner, or the relationship), have courage to change the things you can (about how you approach relationships), and find the wisdom to know the difference (between love, convenience, and the fear of being alone.)"