cuál es amor: the dysfunctional relationship.Thursday, May 10, 2007
What does love mean?
I recall reading a research carried out by professionals who posed this difficult question to young children who were 6-8 years old. The rationale behind the decision to choose these young kids was because they were pure and innocent, along with their perceptions of love. They didn't go through the ups and downs of love, and thus their perceptions would be less biased or distorted by their own personal experience or exposure. The result was a variety of positive responses that reflected maturity and understanding. In other words, these children were very intelligent on the subject, in the sense that they weren't too perplexed by the complexity of the issue, and yet knowledgeable to grasp the essential concepts.
If you aren't convinced, then you will need to open your eyes widely to read these "touching words from the mouths of babes." Billy, at the age of 4, exclaimed, "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." When 7 year old Noelle was asked the menacing question, he confidently replied, "Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." My own personal (stunning) observation from this research is that not everyone have the same perception of love;and this difference starts from a very young age. At times, these perceptions converge and the end result is an unforgettable experience of happiness and bliss. But, what about the times when these perceptions diverge terribly wide? We could have person A taking the meaning of love as kissing under the beautiful night stars,pouring out all our affection and care and hearing the phrase "I love you" for umpteen times And then person B views love as intimacy that needs no affirmation or (repeated) questioning, and places more faith on subtle actions than the tried-and-tested phrase. The outcome is person A questioning the committment of his counterpart, and person B being frustrated by endless questioning of his faith. Throw in a few thunderstorms and this love ship will sink to the bottom of the ocean (no pun intended.)
Another possibility that causes this dysfunctional relationship is our reference anxiety. There is this persistent strange habit to compare between things and we all hate such comparisons. Most parents love to compare the grades (and intelligence) of their child with other siblings/cousins/child of frens/whatever shit you name it. Most teachers like to compare our miserable results with other brilliant students. Think Kevin. And we all hate this comparison because it devalues the merits of an individual. And yet, people are drawn towards making such comparisons, no matter how they hate being compared. Reference anxiety applies to the realm of relationship as well. People love to compare and don't shy away from stating these comparisons truthfully. "Why can people wait for their love everyday, no matter rain or shine and you can't even spend a day with me? Do you really love me?" In the case of parents comparing grades or managers comparing performance, everyone hates being involved in such comparisons. In short, these comparisons create frictions in social relationships and future hazards whenever a quarrel heats up.
Of course, not all relationships are ultimately dysfunctional. In fact, a relationship is functional for most of the time because at the time that it turns dysfunctional, it will be soon be painfully severed or forgotten (and that doesn't constitute any positive relationship anymore.)
